Austin EcoJustice Project – General Meeting and Workshop

As part of a grassroots community outreach effort, we’re working to identify the crossover between local issues and concerns about our environment & climate change, affordability & gentrification, healthcare, poverty, and access to quality jobs & education.

We want to see you and your friends at our first general meeting on Saturday December 1st. Your experience and input in local activism would greatly assist us in our work to strengthen the ties between community activists around the city and the neighborhood residents, businesses, and community organizations most affected by the aforementioned issues.

Meeting Information
The Austin Eco Justice Project – First General Meeting
Saturday December 1st – 5pm to 7pm
Orun Center for Cultural Arts
1720 E 12th Street, Austin, Tx, 78702
Snacks & brief presentations followed by group discussion

Reimagine. Restore. Reclaim.

Mission Statement
Through community organizing, policy advocacy, and skill share, the Austin Eco Justice Project aims to work with Austinites to collaboratively protect and preserve our environment, strengthen our communities, and simultaneously establish pathways out of poverty by empowering low-income families, workers, communities of color, and their allies to secure a larger share of the quality of life, economic, and social benefits presented by new investments in our local economy.

Problem
Austin is barrelling down a path of economic injustice and eco apartheid. Decades of neglect, social, environmental, economic and racial justice combined with poorly-leveraged public investments have led to inequality, gentrification, poverty, poor access to quality work and education, and have created an unnecessary dependence on polluting fossil fuels. Our communities fail to benefit from investments aimed at growing the local economy. We suffer from high rent, high levels of ozone pollution, we’re unemployed or forced to work multiple poverty-wage jobs, and too many of us lack access to the same quality education that is offered to Austin’s more affluent population.

Solution
We believe the strongest neighborhoods are the ones with the best schools, cleanest environment, and the most opportunities for youth and working people. While several policy frameworks and opportunities to strengthen our communities exist, we believe change cannot be won without first developing a set of concrete demands through the direct input from, collaboration with, and grassroots mobilization of our brothers and sisters living in our struggling neighborhoods. For example: Instead of basing economic policies on low bids, lowest cost and sheer numbers of jobs created, we believe new public investments in economic development should be leveraged to maximize the benefits to existing Austin communities by preserving our precious air and water resources, ensuring a living wage, access to jobs training, affordable healthcare and benefits, and affordable rent determined by cost of living (when applicable).