On Wednesday, April 19, 2023, Fordham University convened community stakeholders, climate and environmental activists, university students, and faculty for a half-day Summit during Earth Week to discuss the collective power of communities in mobilizing toward just climate action. The Summit also featured an Action Fair in which community organizations shared their climate and environmental solution-building with audience members and supported tangible next steps for collaboration and action. 

Welcoming remarks were delivered by Fr. John Cecero, Vice President of Mission Integration and Ministry, Fordham University; Julie Gafney, Ph.D., Assistant Vice President for Strategic Mission Initiatives, Fordham University; Nilka Martel, Founder, Loving the Bronx; and Jessenia Aponte, Bronx Borough Commissioner, New York City Parks Department.

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 Gafney. “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. 

“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.”

“This is what community power looks like.  As we gather here this afternoon to hear from amazing speakers and panelists, doing environmental work and climate work throughout New York City,  I want you to keep in mind that these projects and initiatives are often led by everyday people who are sick and tired of being sick and tired and their input is critical for these projects,”   said Martell.  “In order to achieve these just actions….The decisions that are made must be collectively made to uplift the existing communities.”

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, Ph.D., 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 internationally acclaimed environmental and climate justice leader Elizabeth Yeampierre, Esq., 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 and this event was her first Fordham speaking engagement.

Her passionate and personal address centered 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. She dedicated her remarks to her mother, who she credits for fueling her journey to the University, which she said “made it possible to develop the skills and voice” she has today.

“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.”

The action fair 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. The event announces and celebrates Fordham’s launch this semester of a council of university stakeholders engaged in sustainability issues and a sustainability action plan.