Support the next generation of environmental leaders in the South Bronx.
As Nos Quedamos (NQ) approaches its 30th anniversary (June 2023), not only is the organization reaching a milestone in terms of its three decades legacy of community-led service and innovation, but we are also looking at how we will keep our work and mission relevant and how future generations will carry the torch for the next 30 years in the South Bronx through mentoring, grooming, and positioning the region’s youth into cohorts that become tomorrow’s environmental advocates and Nos Quedamos’ leadership. TODAY.
During the last 5 years, Nos Quedamos has actively worked at developing and implementing action plans that pay homage to the core principals that formed the organization such as housing and community development. We have also kept a vigilant eye on forward-thinking succession planning that has included the development of Nos Quedamos’ Environmental Justice Youth Team peer program—the future of environmental advocacy in the South Bronx—which is regrettably come to be known as “asthma alley” due to the disproportional pollution inequity in the region.
Environmental Justice Youth Team Leaders (NQ Mentored)
In the last two years, Nos Quedamos has trained youth to become environmental leaders by expanding their knowledge and hands-on fieldwork in the Environmental Justice space. 15 youth have participated in two separate cohorts of the Environmental Justice Youth Team. These dynamic youth leaders have been instrumental at successfully coordinating the activation of a community rooftop garden at El Jardin de Selene (Nos Quedamos’ LEED-Silver rated mixed-use, mixed-income building). The youth team members have led a series of gardening practicums and art workshops using garden-specific elements (soil, seeds, rocks, found wood, fertilizer, etc.), and also introduced the benefits of meditative healing exercises via exposure and contact to nature for the building’s multi-generational and multi-ethnic residents.
Following Nos Quedamos’ community-led practice, the cohort has created a community vision board for the 9th floor rooftop garden that tenants can openly read and expand with their own personalized feedback, as well as become active stewards of maintaining the rooftop garden through scheduled cleanup and planting dates.
Youth cohorts have also acted as ambassadors of the community on environmental issues and have been invited to either participate on
and/or moderate topic-specific panels: youth leader Imani Cenac (now part of NQ’s staff in the capacity of Resiliency Organizer)
moderated a panel discussion entitled “Youth Voice, Youth Leadership, and The Future” during the annual member convening of the Partnership for Resilient Communities in New Orleans in April 2022. More recently, Carmen Vázquez (NQ’s Community Organizer and youth cohort supervisor) spoke during the 2022 Urban Future Summit on the “Community Collaboration in Climate Justice“ panel alongside Daphne Lundi (Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice) and Jeannette Williams (Urban Future Lab).
The current youth team cohort is leading expanded educational discussions on how to tend to the building’s 9th-floor rooftop, with visioning input from the tenants as a means of demonstrating the possibilities of what can be accomplished using their micro-garden model as an example of the larger green echo systems in the community like community garden and parks. To date, the cohort has develop a consistent presence in the space and gained a strong connection with residents, inspiring them to be a part of the larger movement for environmental justice in the their community!
In addition, the cohort is currently having discussions around the importance of Environmental Justice in communities like the Melrose section of the South Bronx (NQ’s main catchment area) and other communities of color across the country, and planning educational outreach sessions centered on topics such as reducing the cost of energy by utilizing green spaces as “resiliency hubs” to harvest solar power; improving overall mental health through time spent in green spaces like community gardens and parks, as well as expanding access to healthy and nutritious “fresh farmed” food (parts of the South Bronx have been qualified as “food deserts”), and how these people-led changes can mitigate health conditions that currently affect the community like asthma, diabetes, and mental health (among others).
Download the youth team’s brochure (PDF).
Since the start of the process, youth cohort member Imani Cenac has migrated from participating as an assistant youth leader to a
full-time staff position at Nos Quedamos in the capacity of Resiliency Organizer. Read a profile piece on Imani published by the Institute for Sustainable Communities.
“My experience from the urban future lab summit was shocking, not shocked in a bad way but just shocking because I didn’t expect that many people to be so deeply involved in wanting to make a difference in the way we live and do things. This was a learning experience altogether because there are many ways you can impact the world we live in and change how we live on it. Environmental justice is something that doesn’t really get that much spotlight, people often brush it off or hear it and disregard it, but at the summit I learned that if you pitch a well done presentation and explain a way to expand on environmental justice, people will support what you have going on…so I want to incorporate what I learned from the urban future lab summit into my work as a youth leader/organizer: better presentation and communication skills, and all-in-all the skill to grab everyone’s attention and persuade them into NQ’s movement.” — Daivy González
“Somethings I will take from this training is networking and learning about environmental justice and the importance of climate change are how we as a community can fight for a better world that’s more economical to live in. Now that I am a part of NQ’s team I know how it’s a long-term goal to help fight against climate change in any way we can and I am here to support that cause!” — John Sánchez
Your donation will help foster tomorrow's environmental leaders TODAY!
Journey Journals (Cohort One): Listen to our first-hand account stories...
