Featured Speakers for San Francisco Spring 2010


Alice Walker	Paul Stamets	Gunter Pauli	Amy Goodman	John Perkins

Speaker Archive

Marisol Becerra

In 2003, Marisol volunteered with Little Village
Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) to map and inventory the toxins found
within 150 blocks of her predominantly Mexican-American community, Little
Village in Chicago. Marisol was enraged to discover that in Little Village more
than 60,000 youth in a two-mile radius of the Fisk and Crawford Coal Power
Plants are forced to breathe air that violates EPA standards. She was inspired
to act, she said, "in order to shut down these coal power plants, build more
parks, and clean up the toxics. We must organize more people to stand up and
fight." Her first step was launching the youth branch of LVEJO — Youth Activists
Organizing as Today's Leaders, YAOTL. Based on the data Marisol collected, YAOTL
collaborated with Chicago-based Open Youth Networks to devise OurMap of
Environmental Justice, an interactive online map that includes 12 youth-created
videos, descriptions of toxic sites, and gang territory delineations. With this
map, Marisol educated her community about local environmental injustice and
motivated them to become involved in campaigns. The map uses poignant facts and
videos to educate about the different pollutants and contaminants in Little
Village that cause 41 premature deaths and 550 emergency room visits annually.

photo credit: Photographer Ralf-Finn Hestof - Sierra Club magazine

Website: http://www.elcilantro.org/?page_id=6
Presentation Title: Environmental Justice

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