Fordham also launched its Laudato Si Action Plan at the event.
"We are launching our 'Laudato Si' Action Plan today in a summit on community power because there is no environmental justice or climate justice without social justice. We cannot talk about migration and displacement without talking about climate change. We cannot talk about food insecurity without looking at urban agriculture and just foodways,” said Julie Gafney, assistant vice president for strategic mission initiatives at Fordham.“We cannot talk about education if we are not educating the next generation about the green jobs they will want, the sustainability measures they will practice, and the justice initiatives they will grow. The work of climate justice is community work," she added.
Welcoming remarks were delivered by John Cecero, S.J., vice president of mission integration and ministry; Gafney; Nilka Martel, founder of Loving the Bronx; and Jessenia Aponte, Bronx Borough commissioner, New York City Parks Department.
“We have come to realize the environment affects us all, no matter what neighborhood, what city, what country,” said Aponte. “We all share the same air and share the same planet. Every one of us has a role to play in understanding, shaping, and stewarding our lived environment.”
The first panel discussion centered on the relationship between climate displacement and racial justice. Annetta Seecharran, executive director of Chhaya Community Development Corporation, engaged with Fordham Professor Andrew Rasmussen, a member of the Psychology Department, where he heads the Culture, Migration, and Community Research Group before each answered questions from the audience. The conversation focused on climate-driven displacement, and climate impact on marginalized and migrant populations in New York, among engaging historically under-resourced communities around health disparities.“We don’t know when the next Ida’s going to happen, it could happen next month,” said Seecharam. “What we know is many of the folks who were displaced by Ida are still unhoused…Many are still living with friends and relatives. This is just a stark reminder of the urgency of housing and the affordability of housing, and the climate crisis.”
The keynote address entitled "Community Power: Environmental and Climate Justice" was delivered by Yeampierre, a co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance and executive director of UPROSE, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of sustainability and resiliency through community organizing, education, leadership development, and artistic expression in Brooklyn. Yeampierre is an alumna of Fordham College Rose Hill.
Her passionate and personal address centered on her journey as an activist and practitioner, from her days in the Bronx to her current work in Brooklyn and around the world fighting for intergenerational frontline leadership in community building, community-based planning, research, and science, and the equitable distribution of resources. She challenged “extractive” institutions and organizations over transactional community relations in BIPOC communities, and compelled all leaders to listen to the voices of grassroots leaders with lived experience fighting for change. “We’re doing the work. Those of us coming from struggle, we’re doing the work. We have creativity and we are working so hard in the midst of having to personally hold all the things that come from being black, indigenous, and people of color,” said Yeampierre. “In the middle of all that, we also have to take care of this existential threat that’s being hoisted upon us.”
An action fair accompanied the discussions and featured organizations and agencies engaged in climate and environmental justice work, including the Association for Energy Affordability, the Academy of Medical and Public Health Services, the Harlem River Working Group, 511NY Rideshare, The Bronx is Reading, New York Public Interest Research Group, FERN Impact Partners, Trees New York, the New York City Parks Department, Bronx River Alliance, and Friends of Pelham Bay Park, as well a Fordham undergraduate club, Students for Environmental Action and Justice.
The summit was organized by Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning, which builds bridges between the University’s Bronx and Manhattan campuses and neighboring communities to create collaborative programming and educational opportunities.