U.S. Africa Network - Environmental Justice Tour

Hi Everyone, Liane here.

In our Core Course, we just kicked off a unit on Sustainability. I had the opportunity to attend outside of class which fit perfectly with this unit. Last night I attended a panel discussion about Environmental Justice and Climate Change at the First Church of the Brethren, which used to house the office of Dr. Martin Luther King! The event was sponsored by the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, South Side NAACP, and the  US Africa Network. It brought environmental activists from both Africa and Illinois together for a powerful discussion about the many fronts of the same struggle against climate change.

The brochure from the panel discussion.

 

The discussion was moderated by Kim Wasserman, the organizing and strategy director at LVEJO (Little Village Environmental Justice Organization). She is an expert in community organizing and is very aware about what it takes to fight the largest offenders of the environment. In 2013, she was the recipient of the Goldman Environmental Award for her work.

Kim Wasserman of LVEJO.

There were two panelists from Africa, who were touring different cities in America on their Environmental Justice Tour. The first African panelist was a woman from Nigeria named Emem J. Okon. She is a community organizer and women's rights advocate who founded the Kebetkache Woman Development and Resource Centre. One of her primary focuses is to organize women to resist oil drilling by Shell, Chevron, and ExxonMobile in the the Niger Delta.

Emem J. Okon a Nigerian community organizer and women's rights advocate.

To set the stage for the issues that she would be discussing about what the oil industry is doing to the environment and community in the Niger Delta, Emem shared a clip from the film Poison Fire.

The second panelist from Africa was a man named Mithika Mwena. He is the Secretary General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, which he co-founded in 2008. The organization works with 300 other member organizations in 45 countries working to address issues of climate change. His primary mission is to raise awareness and bring poor people's voices to the table when decisions on how to address climate change are being made.

Mithika Mwenda, co-founder of the PACJA.

The slogan for the U.S. Africa Network's Environmental Justice Tour is "One struggle, many fronts." Every panelist stressed that issues of Environmental Justice and Climate Change are global, and that they take on various forms in different parts of the world. It will take solidarity between communities on a local, national, and global scale in order to successfully demand governments take necessary actions in addressing the needs of the people rather than the needs of corporations in the struggle against climate change.