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This Changes Everything!

May 28, 2016

EMEAC is working with a dynamic team of environmental and climate justice activists to bring this thought-provoking global event home to Detroit!

Bringing Climate Justice Home to Detroit presents
A Free Showing of the Naomi Klein Film





This Changes Everything
Detroit Film Theatre at the DIA
5200 Woodward Ave, Detroit 48202
    
Thursday May 26, 2016
      Doors open/networking at 6pm
      Film at 7pm



Sponsored by:
Detroit Film Theatre
Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice
East Michigan Environmental Action Council
Ecology Center
Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit
IHM Peace, Justice & Sustainability Office
Michigan Coalition for Human Rights
Michigan United
People’s Water Board
Sierra Club
Solidarity
Soulardarity
Voices for Earth Justice
Zero Waste Detroit


Filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years, This Changes Everything is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change.
Directed by Avi Lewis, and inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller This Changes Everything, the film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana’s Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond.

Interwoven with these stories of struggle is Klein’s narration, connecting the carbon in the air with the economic system that put it there. Throughout the film, Klein builds to her most controversial and exciting idea: that we can seize the existential crisis of climate change to transform our failed economic system into something radically better. Join us on May 26 to watch the film as a community and then join us in ongoing actions to make #JustTransition here at home!

 

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Hip Hop 4 Flint - Detroit Livestream

March 19, 2016


 

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Women Gender and Climate

October 21, 2015


By Marnese Jackson-Wilford

Wednesday, September 23, 2015:  Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and Climate Justice Alliance sponsored a call forced on Women, Gender, and Climate. East Michigan Environmental Action Council is a part of both coalitions. The exciting line-up of speakers was Colette Pichon-Battle from the Gulf Coast Center for law and Policy, Kandi Mossett from the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and Sara Mersha from Grassroots International. The goals of the call were for all the organizations to come together to the fight for climate change and to empower women to fight. “No Climate Justice without Women Justice” was the overarching theme of the phone call. This call was exciting because it is the campaign to the Paris and beyond for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC COP21. This call was key in fighting for Climate Justice and Gender Justice and reclaiming the role of women in the climate justice movement.  
The purpose of the phone call was to build around what women do in organizing for climate justice. Another goal is to get members connected to the road to Paris and beyond and to commit to a national day of action on October 14, 2015. 
Kandi presented a treaty that they will present at the Rights of Nation Tribunal happening December 4 and 5 in Paris, France. This Tribunal is a unique, citizen-created initiative.  It gives people from all around the world the opportunity to testify publicly as to the destruction of the Earth — destruction that governments and corporations not only allow, but in some cases, encourage.
        I reflected on the phone call and how the injustices of the world are interconnected. A powerful moment was when Kandi Moffett expressed emotionally about how they are fighting against the fracking bomb in the North Dakota, Montana and Canada. She explained that women are under attack from the men who are brought into the communities to work in the fracking camps. There are young teenagers who are transported in vans to these male-dominated work camps to prostitute themselves.  Many end up being raped and not even paid for their sexual services. Some girls do not have a choice, in the case of a four year old little girl who was found on her way back from the one of the man camps and was reported sexually assaulted. This symbolizes how mother earth is being raped, and it is directly reflective upon the women and children who have to deal with the consequences of fracking and other injustices against women. The sad part that this is allowed in the U.S. because we are infatuated with greed, lust and control and women, specifically, are at the brunt of these injustices. I really valued this part of the call because I am an advocate for women rights. I learned the connections between environmental justices involves women's economic justice and the abuse against women and females. 

        I valued the fact the call enlightened me about what women are doing on the grassroots level and that there are women who are building coalitions around climate justice nationally and internationally. Women and youth are at the forefront of these struggles around our natural resources, including climate justice. I do not think society as whole sees the impact of the struggles women and how gender injustice, racial injustice and economic injustice are all intertwined within climate injustice and environmental injustices.

 

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EMEAC ANNUAL LETTER - Its been a busy year!

December 10, 2014

Our Power Detroit at First Water Station
Together we are making a difference!
Dear Friend:

As 2014 comes to a close, we send you well wishes for the new year and invite you to DONATE NOW with a tax deductible gift.

We have been busy this year, thanks to your support!

EMEAC covered new and bold ground in environmental and climate justice work in 2014. For example, our Young Educators Alliance (YEA) hosted our very first Our Power Detroit (click to watch video) and brought over 150 young leaders from around the nation to participate in and lead conversations at the Our Power Campus at the Cass Corridor Commons (June 27-29th). The weekend was full of workshops, discussions, activities and conversation. Saturday Night saw a concert headlined by YEA.  The Water Is Life Community Action was a demonstration on Our Power in effect.  We worked with the People's Water Board, We The People of Detroit, Detroit 2014: Building a National Network and other local change agents to help bring the city's first Relief Station to life.
Charity Hicks Presente!

 
This action was inspired and spirited by Charity Hicks, EMEAC's Policy Director, who transitioned after the gathering on July 8th, 2014. May her spirit live on through OUR POWER.

EMEAC and DBCFSN team up for healthy kids challenge
EMEAC and DBCFSN team up for healthy kids
 Members, friends and supporters have helped EMEAC create engaging and interactive learning experiences with children and families to deepen relationships with nature and to learn about healthy lifestyles -- characteristics we consider important in creating an environmentally just world.

Over the summer EMEAC hosted three Fellows from the University of Michigan: Dominique Mathews, Brittany Anstead and Todd Ziegler who helped to move our climate justice work forward specifically in evaluations, social media and youth workshop development.

EMEAC staff also continued to work collaboratively with other local,
EMEAC's Rackham Fellow Brittany Anstead
EMEAC's Rackham Arts of Citizenship Fellow
Brittany Anstead
state and national allies to bring about greater awareness of issues facing communities impacted by environmental injustices.  As a steering committee member of the Climate Justice Alliance, EMEAC has worked with many grassroots groups around the country to move toward what we call a Just Transition from heavy reliance on polluting fossil fuels to greater use of more sustainable, renewable forms of energy, while consuming less.  You will be able to read more about our great work in our 2014 Annual Report, which will be sent out the end of January. 




sunflower-sm2.jpg 

In 2015 we will continue to foster collaborations among environmental and justice groups in an effort to create and support green and just solutions to race, poverty and environmental concerns in southeast Michigan.  With your donation of $35, $50, $75 or more we will be able to build space for Detroit and grassroots leaders nationwide to model share, to expand digital justice capacity and cultivate the next generation of earth's caretakers.  We hope that you will help us make all of our programs possible with your gift.  Please click here to donate online or send your contribution to EMEAC 4605 Cass Ave Detroit, MI 48201.

On behalf of the EMEAC staff and Board of Directors we wish you a peaceful holiday season and a Happy New Year.

 

UNIVERSIDAD SIN FRONTERAS DETROIT!

November 8, 2014

EMEAC’s Contribution to Universidad Sin Fronteras:

A Brief History of Universidad Sin Fronteras Detroit Campus
DATE
COURSE WORK
2008-2010
US Social Forum organizing process
Spring 2010
Initial #UpSouth/DownSouth delegation to Detroit for USSF work project
Summer 2010
USSF Detroit: 20,000 national and international activists
Spring 2011
Young Educators Alliance (YEA) founded
Spring 2011
Detroit Peoples Movement Assembly (PMA) against RightSizing process
2011
Cass Corridor Commons created as EMEAC takes ownership of UU church building
2011
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church welcomes grassroots groups to Commons model
Summer 2011 EMEAC/YEA
#UpSouthDownSouth delegation to Project South for Youth/ Education Justice PMA
Summer 2012 EMEAC/ YEA
#UpSouthDownSouth to Jackson, MS for South x Southwest strategy session
Winter 2013
YEA organizes Feed 1 Teach 1 on Gentrification in Detroit
LIBERATION Spring 2013
UNSIF-Detroit organizes “Gentrification is Today’s Colonization” with EMEAC/YEA
EMANCIPATION Autumn 2014
UNSIF-Detroit organizes “Decolonize SW Detroit” with Raiz Up Collective & St. Peters
Spring 2014
#UpSouthDownSouth delegation to Jackson Rising
·  Embodying local leadership of activists in 20s-30s,
·  Cultural organizers taking greater leadership in local and national scenes
LIBERATION Spring 2014
UNSIF-Detroit hosts Nelson & Joyce Johnson at St. Peters
·      Welcomes Charity Hicks home from jail
·      #WageLove is first announced


FREEDOM Summer 2014
UNSIF-Detroit facilitates community workshops
·      Decolonizing Detroit at Our Power Gathering
·      Our Culture, Our Water at African World Festival with Peoples Water Board
·      Intergenerational Activism and Water at The Healing North End Arts Festival
Summer 2014
#UpSouthDownSouth delegation to Southern Movement Assembly 4
EMANCIPATION Autumn
2014 UNSIF-Detroit organizes “Peoples Power & the Power of Big Money” with EMEAC & St. Peters

Adjunct Faculty exchange and model sharing between Cochibamba and Detroit Water Warriors
  
Clearly there are multiple issues we are grappling with in Detroit.  And at EMEAC we’ve had our hands in many as we continue work to empower the Detroit community to value the air, land and water ecology. Our food system is directly nested in our environmental/ecological systems & worldwide energy footprint and in the JUST TRANSITION campaign we are calling for a transition from our extreme energy economy to a JUSTICE centered, localized, resilient economy. Policy has a significant role to play in this shift towards resilience and must be leveraged to build transformative solutions, alongside grassroots organizing.

In Detroit, we are grappling with multiple issues simultaneously (e.g., incinerator, highway expansion, trolley, increased pollution, water shutoffs, limited access to healthy foods, etc.), all of which are rooted in a socioeconomic, political system that perpetuates and benefits from race, class, and gender inequalities and oppressions.  We are building with others locally and regionally to oppose this system, while generating solutions that involve creating local living economies that foster community resilience.  

The main strategy that we will employed to build community resilience is through political education tactics using the Universidad Sin Fronteras platform.

As part of her orientation to youth leadership work, Youth Coordinator Siwatu Salama-Ra asks,

“How can I translate what we are discussing here [at EMEAC] to the folks back in the neighborhood?”  


Universidad Sin Fronteras (University without Borders) and the Cass Corridor Commons University:  The Commons University (CCCU) is a collaborative between community, partners, Wayne State, University of Michigan and MSU comprised of community-based learning enriched course work that encouraging students to apply the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom to the pressing issues that affect our local communities. Working with faculty members and community leaders, students develop research projects, collect and analyze data, and share their results and conclusions, not just with their professors, but also with organizations and agencies that can make use of the information. Students can do such community-based work both in courses and, in a more in-depth manner, as part of junior or senior independent work.  The courses below and many others have a community-based component and/or offer an opportunity to do a community-based work project in partnership with local organizations.  CCCU course work will focus on food justice.
The opportunity for building this as a political education tool is in building EMEAC base and working towards one of our E4H goals of increasing membership in numbers and quality of experience.

In order to provide political and popular education and skills development training, Southwest Workers Union established an in-house organizing leadership justice institute early in 2003.  This educational work and leadership development has evolved and grown into the University Sin Fronteras founded in 2010.  EMEAC is the Detroit site and anchor for UNSIF.  UNSIF course will include food justice, discussion and round tables educating community members and University students on food related policy and practices.

Universidad certification, credits, accreditation and fee schedule:  Given the dire economic and educational situation in Detroit we feel strongly compelled to make UNSIF relevant