Youth Perspectives on Environmental and Climate Justice

On May 10, 2023, Y-WE Grow participants were featured in the Washington State Department of Health’s Environmental Justice Speaker Series. Andrea Martinez, Fatima Camara, Jaydalen Blossom, and Emma Coopersmith share their important perspectives on environmental and climate justice, moderated by Y-WE’s Environmental Justice Programs Manager, Neli Jasuja. Learn more about the pressures young people are facing, the things they’ve learned in their time at Marra Farm, and what you can do to support this work.

Transcript:

Leah:
Okay, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our environmental justice speaker series. I am really thrilled today to be able to introduce our speakers from Young Women Empowered’s Y-WE Grow program. And before we get started, we’ll introduce ourselves a little bit and open and then leave it to our speakers to take it from there. Next slide, please.

As a reminder, today, we are offering interpretation in both Spanish and American Sign Language. To access the Spanish language channels, you can click the globe on the bottom of your screen and you should be able to access interpretation there. Next slide please. I’ll introduce myself very quickly, and then hand it over to my co-facilitator. But my name is Leah Wood. I am an equity and environmental justice consultant at the Washington State Department of Health. And I use she her pronouns. And I’m helping plan this alongside my my co conspirator here today. Let them introduce themselves.

Candice:
Good day, friends and family. I am Candice Wilson from Lummi Nation. I am the tribal policy director for the Department of Health. I am so happy and glad to be here today. And look forward to today’s presentation.

Leah:
Awesome, thank you. 

Candice:
So, before we begin, I like to open in a good way and recommend opening in a good way to help set the tone in the context of the good work ahead of us. In honor, in recognition of the upcoming Mother’s Day, I felt it was important to find a quote from a strong, powerful indigenous woman who is a fighter, an advocate, a warrior for environmental health and wellness, for the earth and for ourselves. So Winona LaDuke she started her activism at a very young age. And she asked why. Why is it so difficult to ask the question of why we need clean water. But here’s her quote I chose for today. “Power is not brute force and money. Power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul. It is what your ancestors, your own people gave you power is in the earth. It is in your relationship to the earth.” Winona LaDuke. Thank you all. Once again, so excited to have you here. I will only be here at the beginning. I have to slip out for another meeting. And thank you for our presenters or panelist and looking forward to listening in on the discussion and today’s presentation. Thank you, Leah.

Leah:
Thanks so much, Candice. So before we jump into our speakers, I just want to go over a little bit about this speaker series. So this is the fourth of six sessions in our speaker series. And really the intention of the series was to come together and to invite the people who are closest to the work of environmental justice to discuss their perspectives, their vision, and then to highlight the brilliance of communities around our state. Next slide please. We have two more sessions coming up after this one. The titles have changed a little bit between this week and our previous weeks. I’m really looking forward to our next one which will feature NiRae Petty, Faduma Fido, Rowena Pineda and Charmi Ajmera, talking about kind of environmental justice and co-governance and having a conversation as agency staff and community members about what this looks like. Our last session will be on the role of community based participatory research in achieving environmental justice and reducing environmental health disparities, featuring Dr. Anjum Hajat from the University of Washington, and then partners from the Duwamish River Community Coalition. I know that on Zoom, for some reason, it has added a few extra dates to the Zoom invite. We will be ending on May 24. I apologize for any confusion with that. And so without further ado, I’m really excited to be able to introduce our next panel, and it’ll take me a minute to get everybody spotlighted. But we have some of the youth and staff from Young Women Empowered’s Y-WE Grow program and I’m going to actually just hand it over to you all to introduce yourself because I think you can do a better job than I can. But before we move on, I just want to say thank you for joining us so we’re really excited to have you here. Neli, it’s all you.

Neli:
Wonderful thank you. My name is Neli and I use she and they pronouns and I am Y-WE’s Environmental Justice Programs Manager. I am honored to help moderate this panel with some of our youth participants and interns, Andrea, Fatima, Jalen and Emma. Before we dive into our introductions, I would love to just share a little bit about Y-WE and our Grow program. So Y-WE stands for Young Women Empowered and our mission is to cultivate the power of diverse young women and gender expansive youth to be creative leaders and changemakers in their communities. Our farming and food justice program, Y-WE Grow, based at Marra farm offers youth gardening education, paid internships, as well as tools and resources to grow food. And we have just started our fifth season farming at Marra farm this year. Our goals in the program are one to create space for young people to access joy, healing, health and embodiment in reciprocal relationship with our environment. We recognize centering BIPOC, queer, trans and other marginalized youth that many of us are part of diaspora and experience trauma and separation at the sight of the land, whether that’s personally or ancestrally. So the value of our programs is really to create a safer space for our community to reclaim and remember our relationship with nature. Next, our goal is to develop skills, we call them skills for interdependence, so that we can take care of each other recognizing dominant systems in the US, including our food systems were not, you know, designed and made to serve us. So some of the skills that we develop are gardening, woodworking, plant medicine, ecosystem restoration, and more. Next, our goal is to learn about and participate in environmental and food justice movements past and present. And we’re especially focused on South Park where Marra farm is as well as just South King County. And that comes from a baseline recognition that there is context and history to all land that we are living, playing growing food on, and also recognizing that it’s absolutely fundamental to honor the original stewards of the land. So we’re grateful to the Duwamish and Coast Salish people. And we also want to recognize that, you know, it’s not new for us to be involved in environmental justice. That’s actually the absolute core of who we are and our ancestors doing this work. And then lastly, our goal is to love on community in solidarity. And we do that through sharing all the food that we grow. At Marra farm with the Y-WE community and South Park communities. We also share gardening resources and we really appreciate showing up for other leaders in this space and kind of supporting their projects. So we’ll dive more into understanding the program and hearing from our panelists. I would love to pass it to them to introduce themselves if y’all can share your names, pronouns, and how old you are. And we’ll start off with what’s one of your favorite things about being at Marra farm in the growing season. So I’ll start with Fatima, and then you can pass it.

Fatima:
Hello, my name is Fatima. I go by she/they pronouns. I’m 18 years old, and I go to Shorecrest High School. And one of my favorite things about Marra or the growing season is just the knowledge that we share within each other, like reflecting on how we connect with nature and how nature nourishes us. And just planting especially under the three sisters with the beans, and the corn and the peas. I really enjoy doing that with my mentors and my friends there and more and I really enjoy reflecting on how the earth nourishes us. Thank you. I’ll pass it on to Emma.

Emma:
I’m Emma, I use she/her pronouns. I’m also 18. And my favorite thing about the growing season at Marra Farms is the way nature and the farm talks back to us. I love hearing the bird sounds, being with the chickens interacting with the worms. It’s such a great opportunity to reflect on our connection with nature and on personal growth, community growth, and I will pass it to Jaydalen.

Jaydalen:
Hi everyone. I’m Jaydalen, 19 years old. My favorite thing about Marra Farm during the growing season is just how calm and peaceful I feel. I’ve been going to Marra Farm for a while now, about three years. And every time I go, I just, I know that I’ll be in a very safe space. And I always feel grounded when I’m there. And I learn a lot through my peers and I learn a lot about myself by being in the space.

Neli:
Andrea do you wanna go next?

Andrea:
Yeah, I’ll just pick it up from there. My name is Andrea. Or you can call me Andy, she/her pronouns. I’m 19. And I actually live across the street from the Marra Farm plot that Y-WE has, which kind of leads into my favorite thing about being there during the growing season is the aspect of community being there with Y-WE feels like a very safe space. It feels comfortable. And I love the aspect of sharing things. I feel like being at Marra I experienced abundance for the first time just watching everything grow and all the colors and the wildlife and everything. So being able to earn wisdom from others and share our abundance with the community was a really beautiful thing for me. So yeah.

Neli:
Thanks, everybody. I can share briefly y’all really covered all the juicy things for sure. I really appreciate being at Marra farm in an intergenerational community. Y’all have so much wisdom and also presence and enthusiasm about being in relationship with each other in the land that it helps kind of ground me and make sure that I’m kind of prioritizing those values as well. And I think I’m in my flow state when I’m out there with you all. So yeah, just a lot of love for you and gratitude that you are willing to join us for this panel today. So we’re gonna do more conversation style, so y’all don’t feel the need to like pass it to each other. Just feel free to kind of jump in. But I’ll start us off with the prompt of: What has been one of your biggest learnings from your time in the Y-WE Grow program?

Fatima:
I’ll start. I think one of my biggest learning or takeaways from the Y-WE Grow program is just acknowledging how environmental justice is vital, especially with the youth. Having mentors like Neli and Tayah, who cannot be here today, to empower youth and teach us how important this is. Especially in being at Marra Farm, and knowing that we’re helping the community there in South Park, a very Native community and people of color and knowing how environmental justice impacts those communities, the marginalized communities and just in general, how environmental justice, just the inequities within the system, how those affect minority groups. And how us being at Marra Farm and the youth empowerment that is there, how we can resist that. We can change that narrative by empowering youth to speak on that. That growth, that work, the learnings and all the teachings that we have from Marra Farm teaches us to see the systemic inequities, but fighting that and resisting that mindset. So I think that’s one of my greatest learnings for Marra Farm.

Emma:
I think one of my greatest learnings is that this work is so tangible, because I feel like a lot of the times we get caught up in greater, like high level or in the weeds policy discussions, and we forget that this work is literally about feeding ourselves and one another, it’s about the poisoned soil. It’s about caring for the land and one another in this time of climate crisis. And I feel like so much of that is lost in other environmental and climate spaces. And Marra is just a beautiful place filled with joy, and where we’re able to hold, like, what’s been done to the land and to people and the environmental racism. So I think those were my biggest takeaways.

Andrea:
Just kind of building on that, I think a huge takeaway for me was kind of being hit with the reality of the overall design of how farms like Marra, or other BIPOC farms that we’ve visited, throughout internships and otherwise, are placed in specific areas on purpose. Our plot is very, it’s like a dip, and so all of that pollution goes just straight into the dirt. And it collects actually on our plot, because we’re basically in the center of all those little p-patches and everything. And just kind of learning about all of that kind of processing the grief of being placed intentionally, in a food desert at South Park, or visiting other BIPOC farms and seeing this beautiful plot of land that they have, and it being completely overshadowed by some major construction for like gigantic apartment buildings, towers, otherwise, and all that dust all those particles, all that pollution, just kind of contaminating what people’s livelihoods are, and what our wellness is. Processing that pain of our priorities as human beings and like sustaining ourselves not being on top and everything else kind of coming second and all that intentionally. But through processing that grief in nature, also kind of realizing that we have a place in nature and we’re allowed to feel that grief and we’re allowed to be outside and garden and take that back as kind of a way of processing for us and not something that has to be painful or that we are forced to do.

Jaydalen:
I echo what everyone said. I think for me, it’s just learning how important it is to find that connection outside and feeling grounded and feeling safe in the outdoor space. I feel our generation is sometimes very disconnected from the land, mainly because of society and what our generation is doing. But I think it’s starting to shift and change into our generation just being able to connect with the land and be happy and learning to give back to ourselves and the community.

Neli:
Thanks, everybody. We can keep building on that question. But the next kind of piece I want to dive into is: What have you seen as the role of community in this work, doing farming and food justice and environmental justice more broadly?

Emma:
Community is what we’re fighting for. We’re fighting to preserve our communities. So it’s not separate. And I think a lot of times, especially in policy spaces, or spaces, that are predominantly white folks, like it’s lost that community is exactly why we’re in this fight, why we spend so much of our time talking about environmental justice. Being in this with the Y-WE Grow community, for me, makes this work sustainable. Because if I’m just sitting on my laptop all day, sending emails, it doesn’t feel that connection is not there. And I feel so lucky to get to be in this work with all of you. Because not only am I reminded who and what I’m fighting for, but I’m also reminded in our everyday interactions with each other that this is possible – we are each other’s hope. And we hold for each other the big scary feelings. So, community makes this fight doable for the long haul because the climate crisis isn’t going away. And environmental racism is so, so huge. It’s not like it’s one and done. So yeah, thank you Y-WE Grow.

Fatima:
Yes, that is so true. Because this is not individual work. I feel like we get lost into this idea or mindset that by you know, by sitting on our computer or laptops and like sending emails, and that is so important. Yes. But having this community makes it a collective work, and makes it easier on ourselves to, yes, grieve with each other because this work is hard. Yeah. And also brings in the joy and the passion for this work. And that’s what I feel when I’m working with my peers and my mentors about this work because it is a collective work and community is definitely needed and vital and important for change. And I’m truly, I’m so grateful to have a community that I share my passions for environmental justice and everything that comes with that.

Andrea:
Yeah, I completely agree with everything that has been said already. I did want to kind of take a step back, just partially to acknowledge that sometimes community feels like such a natural thing, like yeah, I live in a neighborhood and sure it’s a community but for me, community was something that I had never really experienced until fully joining Y-WE Grow and making those connections with community. And it was it was very eye opening to connect with community in terms of environmental justice and you know the food injustices and racism and everything in the system because when you learn about that initially, it feels very isolating especially as a young person, it feels like the responsibility of the environment, you are kind of placed in a “you are our future. You need to fix this. This is now your problem because it is your future environment and everything that you’re gonna have to deal with in your time on this earth.” So kind of joining in community and realizing there are people in the community doing things there are these programs, there are plots of land, you know, there are projects to restore things in nature in our local communities. And that connection is so important initially. That connection in the first place is what makes everything possible because otherwise it feels incredibly isolating, and just not doable. And like Emma had said, the tangible work of being at Y-WE, of watching things grow, being able to share that physically with the community is beautiful. And just really what it’s all about, I guess.

Jaydalen:
Thank you for touching on that, Andy. I think for me, one thing that the Co-Executive Director of Y-WE shared at our gala is “if you want to go fast, you go alone, but if you want to go far you go together.” So I think that’s like, how important community is, is just in any aspect of your life, I think if you want to go far, like it’s good to do that interpersonal work, it’s good to fight for what you want. But when you do it together, out of love and out of joy, then I think great change can happen. Without going too hard on one end, going too hard on the other, but just finding that sweet balance of how you can do it together, find your why and just continue doing whatever it is.

Fatima:
I also just wanted to add that also, the community holds us accountable to the work that we’re doing. And because we need that sometimes that we stray away from what Jaydalen said, why we’re doing this work. And I think that community kind of brings us back to our end goal and holds ourselves accountable, to be doing the right things and to remind ourselves of why we do this work. And because we are passionate and we love this work. That’s why community is so important.

Neli:
I didn’t think I was gonna start tearing up this early in the session. Really appreciate y’all sharing. So my next question, and we can keep, like I said, weaving back into what we’ve touched on. But I’d love to hear: What some of your highlights have been, through your participation in the program as an intern. Feel free to share stories. 

Andrea:
I think something that really stuck with me was actually the work we did with City Fruit. And all the learning actually how much was even on the Marra Farm plot, because I was so used to just entering from the one side and seeing the big plum tree, I had no idea that we had cherry trees on the other side, and there were hazelnuts falling. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, we can make so many things.” Like, I had no idea how much we really had. And it is very daunting to have fruit trees or trees that bear any sort of thing we can eat because taking care of it is like noticing diseases or noticing parts that might be taking more energy out of the tree to grow that aren’t really worth it. Like knowing how to prune a tree. Having the tools to like actually reach up in the tree and harvest fruit from it and not just let it all go to waste. I think that was knowledge that was just so like, it really awoke something in me because I was like, Oh my gosh, this is just here. Like I was just I’ve never acknowledged this tree like that before and like seeing a new found beauty and having a new gratitude for the trees and how long they’ve been around, and seeing how tall these trees are. I don’t know, it was a very beautiful moment, I think because I was like “oh my gosh, look, more abundance.” It was very, very nice. And then kind of tying that in with, at the end of the day making applesauce from apples that we grabbed from the apple trees was such a full circle moment for me because I went to culinary school. So for me that was very like, “oh my gosh, this is literally in our backyard and they’ve taught us how to harvest it and now they’ve taught us how to use it” and I think it’s just such a beautiful thing that they do and I’m very grateful for them sharing their knowledge and wisdom with us that day.

Fatima:
Andy I want to echo what you said [about] City Fruit — they were just amazing. I have never seen a hazelnut tree before until I joined Y-WE and I was so baffled. This might sound so silly, but I was like, “whoa, we actually make Nutella out of that.” And I was just so excited. And yeah, we actually had to take the plum out of the trees, and then making jam was one of my favorite parts of the whole day. Just like all the laughter that we have at Marra Farm just warms my heart. And one of my favorite things was the young ambassadors from Brazil that came to the farm, and just hearing them be so passionate about what they do, and seeing young people from a different country, different continent, come to us and share their experiences was just amazing to me. [And it just] reminds me of why I’m in this work, why I have a club at school. It just warms my heart to see that young people are being supported, and being empowered to just speak their voice, make their voices heard with this work. And I was just so proud. And yeah, just all the laughter at the farm just makes me smile every single day. And I could not trade it for the world. 

Emma:
Oh my goodness, I have so many highlights. Everyone knows I love the chickens. And I really love the full circle moments of getting to feed them the kale we’ve grown. And also one of the big learnings I’ve taken away is the difference between the native blackberries and the invasive blackberries. And I think that knowledge of what has been done to the land and the connection with colonization. But also like, I had never learned that there were differences between the types of blackberries and like the softness of the native blackberry and the beauty of it. So I’m just really, really in love with the native blackberry plants now. And have a whole new appreciation for that. And I also really loved when we cooked. At Y-WE one day that was incredible to be able to nourish ourselves with the food we’d grown, and to just have so much gratitude for the land. And all it does for us after going through so much. And that model of resilience gives me like, I look up to the land in that way that after everything, still it’s here feeding us so generously. So those are some highlights. I have a lot more.

Jaydalen:
I think some of my highlights are just how I think I found my why in life, that why, like what I want to do, why am I existing, what I’m here to do on this earth. Like, we all have a why. And I think I found it by being a part of Marra Farm and the gracious opportunity to join the team this Spring and just seeing all the abundance through this work of working with the land. It’s so beautiful. I feel like gratitude is my attitude. I keep feeling that. That’s my whole feeling for this year is just feeling immense gratitude for this space at Marra Farm and the people that are involved in it. I also echo all my peers and just what they’ve shared, all the memories. I think, yeah, just creating moments of joy and positive impacts with the land is like a great highlight for me. And like finding my why is one of them.

Andrea:
Really quickly, I just wanted to go back to me, I guess because what Jaydalen said really resonated with me. I think I joined Grow at a time where as I had just mentioned, I was doing culinary school and I was feeling a lot of burnout because through my school and through the school system that I did culinary school at, it was very difficult to feel ethical in participating in it because there’s so much food waste in culinary school and even in just the, you know, straight into the workforce, there’s all this food waste, it’s very hard to find people with sustainable practices in the culinary industry. And so it was very conflicting for me because my professors would be telling me one thing and being like, oh, throwing this away is fine, or that’s not usable, or that’s not whatever. And then being taught this new [mindset of] that is usable, everything is usable, you can do all these things with everything, and be sustainable, give it back to the earth, or, you know, feed the chickens with it, literally. There’s so much to do with all of this food, like nothing is really food waste, you can repurpose all of it. So, that kind of reignited something for me in culinary. And so learning about the native plants and the native foods that we grow here and just learning about seed keeping and actually seeing when we would let a plant go to seed, like watching it replant itself in the same spot is amazing. I had never witnessed that before. So that was really, that was really cool to experience. And I just think that making the connection with the land that brings us the food that we eat really reignited the passion for me in terms of culinary arts and kind of reaching for that sustainability. That cultural connection with food is just…I feel now that I am stewarding a new thing with food for others and being able to share all the knowledge about where the food comes from and how to sustainably prepare it and eat it and then what to do with the rest of it. It’s just very full circle for me. It’s all about finding a purpose like Jaydalen said.

Neli:
Oh my gosh. Now I’m really smiling. Okay, my next question is: knowing we’re on here with the King County Department of Health, I’m curious what y’all would love to share with folks working in the county and the state in the city? What would you like them to know about this intergenerational intersectional, climate movement, food justice movement work that y’all are doing, knowing that a lot of them are doing the work within these systems? And how can they be allies to us?

Andrea:
I don’t mean to take it back, take the mic back so quickly. But I, what really stuck with me and what I really want to talk about today is the soil testing work we did with Dr. Malone. It was like, just amazing. I think Neli could probably do a better job describing that, but I think learning about organic compost and regular compost and learning about the contaminants that are in the soil, and in compost. Through just so many, there’s so many different factors. And it really stressed me out when we did the soil testing actually, because I cannot believe that is in our soil, but also learning what we can do about it, like the things we can and can’t plant in contaminated soil. And also feeling very frustrated that that is not knowledge that is shared with us when the land is shared with us. It’s just like, here’s this plot of land, which is amazing, but also I feel like it shouldn’t fall to us to test the soil and find out what the contaminants are. That should be knowledge that is given to us with the land because the major contaminants are not the community’s fault. In Marra Farm it is [from] Boeing, all the planes that are passing – so many planes pass just daily and all of the runoff from the freeway, there’s motor oil, there’s heavy metals, it’s just something that shouldn’t be hidden. I know also not just in terms of soil, but also in terms of the water. The water was not drinkable on the plot for Marra and Neli and Tayah mentioning that they didn’t even know that for a while, and that they were just drinking it and they didn’t know and somebody came by and was like, “you should not be drinking that water.” And just things that should be told to us like, why is that not a priority to test that? Why aren’t the funds there for that testing to happen? Why does it have to fall to us and into like, we have to do it out of pocket, or we have to find a way to, you know, find these things out for ourselves and that our health is not put first in these situations.

Emma:
Yeah, just adding on to what Andy said so beautifully. First of all, thank you, Andy, I don’t think I could have put it any better. That there is so much work that is falling to us, as community members and as youth to take care of. And it’s a lot to hold. And it’s a lot, especially on top of school. Like, it’s hard to do my homework and try to take care of my community and hold the climate crisis, and the knowledge of what has been done to the land that I love, so so very dearly. It’s scary. I guess what I’d ask from the state is for more. I know that you all are doing your best and a lot just does not line up with the timeline that science demands of us. We are already feeling this so acutely in our communities. And the heatwave that is expected this weekend. We know that people have died in our city and in our state, from the heat waves in the last few years. And so we’re talking about literal life and death situations. And as an outsider, I don’t see the state acting like we’re talking about a climate emergency, or like we’re talking about something that affects already marginalized people disproportionately. So I would really love the state to prioritize climate justice work. And this is such a beautiful start, like asking us what we need here is so incredible. So I think just more of this more of this, and then follow up. Yeah, thank you. 

Fatima:
Oh, Emma, oh, my gosh, you said all the things, and Andy. I wrote some things down in my notes. What you said was just that more and more transparency from the state, more education. This is serious. And it’s so vital to us. Like you said, Emma, we are youths, we are still going to school. Sometimes it feels like this environmental crisis is on us. And yes, I am so happy, I’m so passionate to be doing this work. But I wish that my school or just all the institutions that have this power to educate us, would support us more and just be there for us. Holding these corporations accountable for their actions, more transparency, knowing that this environmental racism exists and that there are inequities within the system. And it’s not up to these communities to fight your guys’s battle, to fight this battle on our own. We need support and it’s not the community’s fault. And it’s super, super, super important for people to get transparency, for people to have resources in order to fight this battle, because it takes everybody. It takes all the institutions, everybody that has the power to make something happen to support and help and like Emma said, this is an amazing start to asking us what we need and our voices be heard. But we need more, more support and more education, more transparency, more more. We are just — it’s a lot on the youth and it is we just we just need more, more support.

Andrea:
Yeah, really quick. I just wanted to, I guess, bounce off of what everyone has been saying about this. I just think that it is so important to ask for more, because a lot of the time, youth and women, people of color, everybody is afraid to ask for more. Because we just feel so scared to lose what we have already, in asking for more. And it’s important to emphasize needing more and wanting more and needing urgency from programs like this. I also want to acknowledge that this is amazing work, panels like this are fantastic. I personally, through Y-WE have done a lot talking with officials, state or otherwise, for things that are environmentally related. But it’s a little, there’s a disconnect for me, when I have so many conversations with all these different officials and the projects have deadlines that are five, seven years in the future. And I don’t feel the sense of urgency, like when they reach out to us, it’s like “we need this, this is dangerous to our health, this is not good for our communities, we need the change to happen as soon as possible.” And at a certain point, having to explain it again and again and again, gets a little exhausting, because we’re not seeing any change. Just having to continually, almost beg for any sense of change. We want to see that urgency, we want to feel like we’re united with the higher ups, the officials in our timelines, that our timelines match up. How we see something as urgent and very important and serious, and then having there not be a discrepancy between the finishing point of a project or a change happening versus what we need in that moment.

Emma:
I’ll also add one more thing, which is that we know part of the way we got our plot at Marra Farm is through the soda tax, which is a tax that disproportionately burdens low income communities and communities of color. And it is so hard for me to hold that this tax is rooted in anti-fatness, it’s rooted in racism, it’s rooted in classism, which are all things that are so opposed with environmental justice, and food justice, but we also get this incredible, incredible space. And we, of course, plan to do with what we can to take care of our community. And like my wish, is that the money from that plot was coming from like, taxing corporations, not from taxing communities. And that’s a big hope. And it’s real, and that would be in line with environmental justice.

Jaydalen:
I’m kind of floored with what everyone has said, because it all resonates. I think just continuing to involve communities, just like emphasizing that community aspect again, because we’re in it together. So funding things, programs, organizations that are like Y-WE Grow, finding ways where we can create programs that involve youth to educate us and learn more about this and like really bridge that aspect between like, the hierarchy and that gatekeeping. I want to help – where some of us have experienced not knowing this connection and getting into this at this age or now starting to learn it, but I want to bridge that so that more young people can learn about it or just anyone, making that more accessible. And just community engagement, open communication like having more panels like this and having more opportunities to talk to officials. Yeah, I think more communication or involvement with our communities are very important.

Neli:
Thank you all so much. So much here, so grateful for you all speaking your truth. I think something I want to add on, and why hearing you all speak is so meaningful to me is, as one of the stewards with our amazing Tayah Carlisle who’s active in the chat, thank you Tayah. Us as adults doing this work with young people, first off, I didn’t even personally understand the impact of pollution, like y’all are talking about in our soil in our air in our waterways. And it’s through this work that I’ve been able to understand that better for myself. Through our partnership with Dr. Malone at UW Bothell, through our partnership with King County Wastewater Treatment Division, I’ve learned so much. And I recognize most people do not know this at all. So there’s a burden, I think, of understanding this information. There’s like a privilege and a gratitude I have for learning and understanding this. But there’s also that burden that I think our panelists have also spoken to. And I think, again, as an adult working with young people, I have to ask myself, these questions of like, Is this too much? It’s almost too much for me to hold. I have sat on the phone, crying with Dr. Malone about the impact of pollution on the earth and the earth that we are in participation with. So me hearing y’all speak, I’m like, wow, that really shows that we can’t gatekeep this information. And we also can’t have this kind of ageist sense of [controlling] who gets to understand and learn this information as well. Because, you know, we have to reveal it to heal it, you know. I think what Andy was saying, we get to ask for more. When I’m in conversations, like y’all are saying, we are in conversations with city government corporations, people say, “Oh, well, we just live in a polluted world.” And I’m like, why are we accepting that? At the farm, what we’ve done, Andy’s referred to how we’ve done micro remediation, phyto remediation projects on our plot, young people have built raised beds by hand, you know, some of them for the first time using power tools. We had to purchase certified organic soil to fill those beds. We’ve been doing worm composting that helps process some of these pollutants out of the compost. And yet all of that work, if the inputs are still coming in, what’s the point? I really, really want to ask and demand that we address the inputs, address active pollution, address historical pollution, because we already see in South Park, they have the highest rates of asthma in young people of any neighborhood in the city. There is a direct correlation to our health. And it’s the tough work of holding corporations, the sources of pollutants accountable. So I just want to echo what y’all are saying. And thank you for receiving this information in the ways that you all do and staying true to yourselves and the grief that you’re mentioning, and also the anger that comes up and the demands for accountability, because those are all natural reactions that I think sometimes adults harden over, kind of like a disassociation. So I think it’s so important that y’all are speaking your truth. So thank you.

Andrea:
I wanted to give a quick word of appreciation, because personally, like throughout my, I guess, young life experience, it has been a struggle to be taken seriously. And so to have the opportunity to be on a panel like this and feel heard is really amazing and like unheard of, or unseen for me. Because, you know, a lot of the time it’s like “you’re young, what do you know?” And it’s like — a lot, because I have to, because it’s been put on to me. So being able to share my feelings and what I’ve learned and, you know, plans for the future goals for the future is amazing. It’s a great opportunity. Thank you so much.

Neli:
Thank you all. Leah, is it about time for us to direct our questions to the audience? 

Leah:
Yes, I think it is, we’ve got a couple of questions in the Q&A, as well as just a lot of love happening in the chat. Really appreciate you all for being here today. Before we jump into some of these questions, I just want to just kind of share some appreciation for the words that you shared. I think there’s a lot to be learned from the ways in which you’ve centered love, joy, community, and frankly, magic, it sounds like too, in facing these really real challenges of environmental racism and climate injustice. And I wanted to share something that we talked about Neli, when we were first meeting about this panel and thinking about what it could look like. And part of the reason why I invited you all to come here, which is that Y-WE Grow is a program that exists within a just future. So in this ideal future that we’re all working towards, we’re all striving towards where environmental justice is achieved, Y-WE Grow would still be a part of that. And I’m just really grateful for you all for sharing that. And I definitely wrote down the phrase, “find our why”, I think that’s lovely. And then lastly, I want to reiterate that you shared some very tangible steps that we as the agency staff can take to support your work, to kind of get ourselves out of the way of this work as well. And to really kind of honor and validate what you shared around how we can, how we can address these issues with urgency, and also with transparency and accountability and partnership. So thank you all for that. So here I want to invite folks in the audience to put your questions in the q&a and the chat. And we’ll answer them in the order that we receive them. I know that Emma you typed a response to Soncha’s first question, but I want to give folks a chance to add on to that as well. So I’m still going to ask it. And then if you wanted to read your response or expand upon it, it’s all you. So the question is, “I love this community youth program. I often talk about having to seek out culturally relevant education and anti racism teachings that we do not receive at white supremacist K-12 education. Has this program provided learning and or belonging that was not provided at school that you wish had been?” And so maybe I’ll pass it to you Emma to answer first and then we can have other folks jump in from there.

Emma:
Yeah, sure, I can answer first. Yes, there is so much learning that does not happen at school. And I feel a lot of angst over the fact that the world is burning, people are already feeling the effects of the climate crisis disproportionately impacting marginalized people. And we’re in class learning things that don’t feel applicable. That feels like, I’m like, “y’all 2030 what are we doing? Like, how are we taking care of our community?” And they’re like, “essay due on Friday, let’s go.” And I feel so often isolated in this feeling at my school of like, I don’t know that I can write this essay when I feel the weight of the world. And when I am so sad and so scared and so angry at what’s happening to the people and places I love. And I’m angry at the way history is whitewashed, all the things we’re not learning, the fake history we are learning. And stepping on to the Marra Farm plot and learning, like the actual history of our city, and learning about the Duwamish River. Being with the river, being with the soil, being with the people who have taken care of the river and the soil. And that, to me, is history class. But it’s also so much more than that. It’s like fighting for our future, being with each other. And it’s like these people on this panel like, these are my family. These are the people who take care of me and I know I take care of them. This, to me, is where I belong. And I also feel like they’ve all given me the ability to take this back to my school community and bring it to a place where maybe people aren’t already on the same page. So you all give me the strength to do this in harder settings too.

Andrea:
I resonated with that a lot, Emma, because that feeling of the weight of the world on top of you, and that huge responsibility and the kind of just blasé nature of teachers or even employers. I learned about Monsanto in a movie in class one day, and I was just going through, like, every stage of grief, and everyone else was like, “ah, I hate that I have to write a paper on this.” And I was like, “are you not listening? Do you see the impact of this? Do you see the effect of this? Do you see what has been taken away from us? What is not clicking for you?” Why am I literally grieving in the middle of this class, and everyone else is just so able to continue with their work and just act like nothing [happened]? That was a turning point for me, just the knowledge that we don’t have or that we’re not given, or that is even hidden from us. For me learning what was in season and what wasn’t at a certain part of the year. And kind of, you know, it is, when you think about it, it’s like, oh, yeah, not everything is in season all the time. But we’ve kind of made it, through capitalism, we’ve kind of made it so that everything is available all of the time. I didn’t even know what was in season, and what was local. And acknowledging the carbon emissions of having to bring something from across, you know, across the country, across the globe, for us to just be able to eat it. And just realizing all of these things that are not taught to us, and it’s just very disheartening, I think, when you learn all these things, and you learn what’s been taken away from you, in terms of seeds, seed keeping, and kind of grieving that. But the curriculum kind of being like, “well, it is what it is, what are you going to do about it? Monsanto is a huge corporation, you can’t do anything about it, nobody can do anything about it.” And it’s just like, well, we have to do something about it. Because it can’t, it can’t keep going. It’s not healthy for us. This is detrimental. This is exploitation at an insane level of just power and overall domination of our food, our nutrition and it feels very non combatable when you see it as like an individual against this giant, you know, opposition but through Y-WE Grow I do feel through connecting with everybody I feel like oh, it is a lot of us. It’s not just me, you know, there are more people like us, there are people doing things, we’re all trying. And that’s really important for me to remember. Because it’s not something that I was not given — hope — through school, I was not given knowledge, I was not given community, I was not given anything.

Fatima:
I’ll share just a little bit. I think you guys said everything that was on my mind. I’m just nodding because everything that you said was so true. I know Emma, we talked about this about history classes, sent some texts before about just how I think history teaches us just to teach, not to make us learn and actually do the work to understand that these are real issues. And it is urgent for students to be able to like, acknowledge what is going on, but also take action. But I get so frustrated. I get super super frustrated that I am just being bombarded by information on and on and on. But like what are we doing? What are you guys as teachers, as educators, doing to help us fight these battles and I get so frustrated and I don’t even know, but I think with Y-WE I found people that are so passionate about doing this work, but also humanize this work. You know, it’s not only about destruction but yes, we’re literally facing a crisis right now with climate change. But we find people that can take our grief and like we can grieve together as a collective and just know that even these small steps that we’re taking, like planting food and then sharing to the community, we are actively resisting capitalism and the system. And that’s the thing that keeps me going as a student and as a person that is willing to fight for this and art school, I get none of that.

Jaydalen:
I think for me, I actually, I’ve been in Y-WE for a very long time [since] middle school, when I was 13 and now I’m 18. So Y-WE has been my school or like, my form of education because I’m homeschooled. I do a form of homeschooling that’s called unschooling, so it’s kind of out there. If you want to do more research, you can look that up. But it’s really cool. And I think from what I learned, just being in Y-WE and just on the life path that I’m on, I think the importance of mindfulness in any aspect in all aspects of life. Like I hear, and I and I see the emotions, and I feel it myself what people are going through when talking about, when speaking about these topics. Because it’s heavy, it holds a lot, because the land holds a lot and we hold a lot through just living in this society. You know, I think we live in a sick society and how can we thrive off a society that has so much trauma in it? And so I think just sometimes it can be overwhelming. A lot of us talked about being overwhelmed in school, how can we, how can we be in a space that does not, does not feel us? It’s not reciprocal, does not give back to us. And I think finding and creating communities, it starts with being accountable with yourself. Sometimes when I think things are overwhelming, outside of me, the world opinions of other people’s expectations, I think the great thing to instill is mindfulness within yourself. That can go so far in anything. And once you like, find who you are, that strong sense of self, all aspects of everything I feel like in life. It just improves, it starts to feel better, because you start to feel strong. And you’re why, again, coming back to the why just like information, like Andy shared with the experience about being in school and like hearing those things, like a lot of the time society only shows us what they want us to see not what’s important. So I think finding the things that are important. And just, yeah, disconnecting. I think the real thing is disconnecting, disconnecting from the world and connecting to the earth to really be grounded. And finding our connection to it is what I’ve learned from being in Y-WE in general and just in Y-WE Grow.

Andrea:
I have something to add really quickly. I think what Jaydalen mentioned about disconnecting on just a different level, I think being a young person growing up in the age of like the development of tech and the development of the internet, the development of all of this, just constant information superhighway, right? And just kind of even browsers, like web browsers, I think Bing still does this where it’s just a full screen of news. And you know, a lot of the time it’s bad news, and you just, you know, you wake up and a lot of our first instinct is oh, let’s check our phones, and the news app will be  terrible news. Or, you know, more oil drilling is happening, more school shootings are happening, more tragedies, more everything across the globe, not just in your local area anymore. You don’t get the newspaper delivered to your door and you just find out what’s happening in your bubble. It’s everywhere. The entire world is on your shoulders 24/7 when you open your phone, when you are online, when you’re doing anything. And I think our generation a lot of the time is labeled as lazy. Because it’s like “you’re always on that phone.” And yeah, I mean, I have the world in the palm of my hands. I have access to what’s happening all around the world. And that’s a huge burden to bear, it’s very disheartening, I think, just constant bad news. And again, feeling very isolated, because it’s a personal online device, a lot of us have phones and it’s like this news is being delivered directly to us. We have to do something about it as individuals. And it’s hard to feel that community when you know, you’re just being delivered all of this terrible news directly to you every single day. And it’s very difficult because, you know, young people are labeled as lazy or entitled or sensitive even. And sensitivity is not a bad thing. I think being sensitive to these topics is what is going to bring about change. But I think having that much access to it, I think disconnecting is a very important thing, finding things like Marra, finding community, finding people that align with your values, that are working towards the same thing of positive change. And bringing all these things together is incredibly important. Because it’s so, so, so easy to drown in the grief of everything that’s happening in your community and around the world. Because we are the first generation to have all of that at our fingertips.

Neli:
Thank you all so much for sharing. Yeah, I think the one piece that I just wanted to add on is like, how lucky I feel that this is my job. When I was your age, one of the professions I wanted to explore was being a teacher. And I just want to uplift that being a teacher, within, you know, public school systems, private school systems, is so challenging. Folks are not set up well. Myself, even like, you know, going into schools to do presentations, I got to do a presentation with my amazing coworker Karisa on advocacy. Even just walking into the environment and into the space, I feel enclosed, I feel, you know, like a sense of pressure. I cannot see myself as an educator within those spaces and I’m so grateful for the people who are doing that work. And I guess I just want to uplift that systemic piece of like, how can we set up our school systems, our teachers, our educators, so that they can be less tied to test scores, and, you know, focused on college admissions and grades and things like that, and how can we support them within the school systems to get to do like, the work that I’m so lucky to do at Y-WE. Getting to do education in this really, really different way. And it’s all based in relationship. And, like you were saying, Andy, like the sensitivity, and what y’all are talking about with the grief as well as the joy. I think, specifically, the fact that I get to do education work where every young person says their name into the space, every young person gets to share at the start of the program how they’re feeling, what they’re bringing in. And as we close the session, they get to share their reflections on what we did that day, from finding a little snail to connecting it to environmental justice, they get to share their experience and have that valued. I think there isn’t space for that in the school systems. Like emotions, there’s even studies that show that memory learning happens when it’s paired with emotion. Especially, I feel like y’all are saying, not just the bad news, but also the sense of hope, relationship community, the space to like feel all of our feelings to be embodied. That connects to the why. Rather than, like you were saying, Emma, I gotta write this paper, and it’s due on this date. And I’m distracted.

Leah:
Wow y’all I, honestly, I’m speechless. This has been absolutely wonderful to share this space with you. I know that there are a few more questions in the chat. I do want to ask a last question before we start closing out this session, which is just: How can people stay engaged and learn more about Y-WE Grow and to support your work also? So I want to open this up in terms of how we can stay engaged and keep this conversation going past the end of this hour, or this half hour, one and a half hours.

Jaydalen:
I think a great way to be engaged in Y-WE Grow specifically is we have volunteer days on Fridays. So if you’re curious to learn more about the community, and just learn about the impacts. The people that volunteer, that have been involved in the wider community just learning their story is a great way to get involved with Grow and learn more about it. There’s also mentorship opportunities, if you want to mentor.

Andrea:
Y-WE fundraisers! We have fundraisers. Yeah, I think it was Give Big that just ended recently, but we also host like fundraiser dinners, or other fundraising events. I also think what Jaydalen mentioned about, you know, being at work parties or doing mentorships, or even I think when Y-WE has open positions, I’m not sure if they still have open positions, but when they do, you know, even if it’s not a person here directly that can apply just kind of putting that out there towards other people. Just sharing, helping Y-WE do more networking, helping youth do more networking, for our futures. And just for people who can support Y-WE in other ways, I just think building a broader community, casting a wider net for Y-WE is super important in reaching our goals as a community.

Emma:
I agree with both of those things. And I’ll also add on to engage more sustainably with environmental justice work through Y-WE and broader than Y-WE. So that could look like taking some of our suggestions and applying them to your work, whether you work with the city or state or something else. Any passion you have, any occupation you have, the climate crisis, and climate justice interacts with literally everything. So take what you do, take what you’re passionate about, take your networks, talk about it and take action. And then I also put something in the chat. I’m working on a campaign with 350 Seattle to transition Seattle’s big buildings off of fossil fuel. And we’re working on a 2030 timeline. So I’d love if you could sign that petition as well. And just keep amplifying us, keep talking about environmental justice. Thank you for your time today.

Fatima:
I would like to add one more thing, I think it’s super important to tell young people to sign up for Y-WE programs, to encourage them to just sign up and see what they are interested in. I know that there’s Y-WE Grow, Y-WE Write, Y-WE Speak. And all the other lovely programs, I would say that just encouraging young people to sign up for this program, because it is super important. And I just love this community. And I am super grateful. Thank you.

Leah:
Thank y’all. Neli, any last words?

Neli:
Yeah, y’all are great representatives of Y-WE, I’m like wow I didn’t even think to say all of those things. Very thorough. I put a link to our volunteer signup days. And to Andy’s point of fundraisers and community events, we’re having a community gathering on June 17. So I think I have a link, I’ll put that in the chat. Y’all are welcome to join us. Yeah, and I’ll also put a link to our summer programs. If you know young people who are looking for opportunities. I think a big piece, we’re so grateful to have our work funded. And I’ll say that specifically, we’re trying to create more economic opportunities for young people and provide paid stipends for our internship this summer. So yeah, consider, you know, funding opportunities as well for us because we’re trying to kind of maintain that program in particular.

Leah:
Awesome, thank you all. So I think I want to close today’s session out a little bit differently than we typically do, which is kind of, on our terms of the reminder about the next sessions. There is a next session next week. Please check it out everyone if you’re interested in but in our last five minutes together, I’d love to just hear if y’all have any closing words. And before we jump into that, I just want to say thank you again, and also a huge thank you to Candice and to Natalie, my team behind the scenes as well as our interpreters, Laura, Ed, Amber and Joey. It’s been absolutely wonderful to work with you all. And so I’ll hand it over to you all for any closing words in our last five minutes.

Andy:
I guess I’ll go first, I just wanted to say thank you so much, again, for the opportunity to be here and share our voices. I think it’s so important to uplift youth, uplift programs like Y-WE, and share all these beautiful resources. I actually was just smiling from being so giddy from watching all the links going into the chat, it’s just like everything popping up. It’s just like, yes, we have all these resources, and Emma sharing all those amazing resources as well. I think it’s just so beautiful to be here with everybody and feeling really held and not so much as it’s not us against something, but it’s us all together. Right. It’s not like fighting for our point, but just a conversation and communicating and being in community together.

Fatima:
I would like to echo what Andy said. I am super grateful to be here, I think that it is super important to have young people’s voices in spaces like this. And I’m just grateful to know that again, this is a collective work. And it is just not up to one individual to make change. I think it takes everybody to fight for this and to just empower everybody and hold everybody accountable. And it’s a community and I am just super glad to have Y-WE as a community to start and I’m super grateful to broaden that community in other spaces. And I think that, yeah, it takes all of us to fight this. So thank you for having me. 

Emma:
Yeah I want to echo that as well, thank you so much for your time today. It means so much to me and to us. And just again, carry this into your life. Climate justice isn’t a one time thing. It’s every conversation, it’s every act. So please keep that in mind. And then while I have the privilege of having the floor, I wanted to uplift the Stop Cop City campaign in Atlanta, Georgia, where they’re doing such important racial and climate justice work, and they need all the solidarity they can get so if you have a second to check that out, that would be incredible.

Jaydalen:
Yes, I have so much gratitude for being here and sharing my thoughts just being able to voice what I think. I think it’s important to have spaces like this where you can voice what you think and feel. Yeah, just the importance of finding your why, emphasizing that.

Neli:
Thank you, I just want to thank our amazing panelists. Like we often say in Grow, like just showing up, planting a seed, you know, getting your hands in the dirt, that’s enough. Recognizing the pressure that young people experience to be the solutions, the answers to the climate crisis and beyond, and the fact that y’all started with planting seeds and you know, having your hands in the dirt and then also have developed the passion and the why to be able to share so authentically. That’s not an expectation and the fact that y’all are here sharing your truth is so special. So thank you four and all of the Y-WE Grow youth I’ve had the pleasure to work with, and just want to thank Leah and Natalie as well for inviting us. This has been such a special conversation and the opportunity is really appreciated.

Leah:
Definitely. Well, thank you all so much, and we’ll close the session here. Have a wonderful rest of your days and thank you to everyone that stayed with us.


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