Yvette Walker
With 91.9 KVCR News, I'm Yvette Walker. This is IE Latino Voices, where we invite representatives from Latino led and Latino serving organizations to share their stories and their impact in our region. Today, we've invited Ana Gonzalez, Executive Director and Liz Sena, Operations Manager at Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice. Thank you both for being here today.
Ana Gonzalez and Liz Sena
Thank you for having us.
Yvette
Let's start with you, Ana. Please share the Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice’s mission and values.
Ana Gonzalez
So, at the Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice, our vision is to inspire social change by dismantling the root causes of environmental injustice. And we do this by base building and leadership development in our community. So leaders in the community can advocate for themselves and know their rights and how to defend their communities and work for a better life.
Yvette
Please share recent projects spearheaded by the CCAEJ.
Ana
Yes, so most recently, we've had our Ambassador Program, which is a program that we've developed with a curriculum of six classes. Community members can come and learn about environmental justice issues about electrification, transportation, and just to talk about things that worry them in their everyday lives, and how they can advocate for themselves, and how everything is interconnected with environmental justice. Because we are communities of color and majority Latino communities in the Inland Empire.
Yvette
Liz, please talk about the community's response to your efforts at CCAEJ.
Liz Sena
Yeah, so the community really enjoys the ambassador programs. They feel welcome and they feel safe sharing their stories on how they're impacted in their communities. They feel engaged, they're learning every class, and more importantly they feel empowered at the end of the program. They feel empowered to be able to participate in the civic process, which a lot of times it's very intimidating, going
to city council meetings and providing a public comment. And I think that with this program, it helps them not only gain insight, but then be able to make an impact for the benefit of their community.
Yvette
Ana, please share the best way to connect with CCAEJ.
Ana
Yes, so folks can reach out to us through our website at www.ccaej.org. Or you can visit our social media platforms @CCAEJ, or you can reach out to our phone number which is (951) 543-1739 or email is admin@ccaej.org.
Yvette
So Liz, please share upcoming goals and efforts to be led by you and Ana at CCAEJ.
Liz
So, with our Ambassador Program, we started off with Level 1. And we quickly found out that a Level 2 and even Level 3 is going to be needed to continue the expansion and the learning to build the community bases. And so that's one of the projects coming up is the Level 2 and Level 3 courses that people, once they've taken the Level 1, can sign up for and take. And we also have our first Region In Crisis Report that has come out. It's an 80 page document that has come out with significant amount of data and information talking about the impacts that our region, so all of San Bernardino County and Riverside County, has been impacted with the air pollution and air quality issues the influx of warehouses. And so our next project, for next year, is going to be a Region In Crisis 2.0 with even more studies and more information about what's happening in in our area.
Yvette
Ana, please share what you're most excited about as you look into the future with CCAEJ.
Ana
We're mostly excited about this movement, this sleeping giant that has just awakened in our community because now everybody's aware that warehouses are not good for us. And the government should not invest in one industry, we should have diverse options of industries and opportunities for jobs. And so we are excited for our Rising Voices Conference at Cal State San Bernardino in April, which is going to highlight a lot of our community efforts and will bring a lot of other partners and organizations together to also share their resources with the community. And like Liz said, we're excited about the Ambassador Program and just this growth of people that are getting involved in the environmental justice movement.
Yvette
Thank you so much for being with us here today, Anna and Liz.
Ana Gonzalez and Liz Sena
Thank you.
Yvette Walker
Join us again next week for IE Latino Voices. You can find this story and others on our website at kvcrnews.org/ielatinovoices. IE Latino Voices is produced by KVCR Public Media and is funded by generous support from the CIELO Fund at IECF, uplifting and investing in the IE’s Latino community. For KVCR News, I'm Yvette Walker.
