“Breathing in this neighborhood is hazardous to our health,” read the signs of protesters wearing gas masks as they stand alongside the West Side Highway at seven in the morning, in front of the North River Sewage Plant in Harlem.
This was twenty years ago when on Martin Luther King Day, the current New York Governor, David Patterson and We Act for Environmental Justice co-founder, Peggy Shepard and five other individuals known as, “The Sewage Seven,” were arrested for holding up traffic.
Twenty years later, The West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. (We Act’s official website ) also known as We Act for Environmental Justice, is still continuing to serve the Northern Manhattan area. We Act works with low-income Latinos and African Americans to inform, teach, and guide the residents on dealing with issues in their communities. Peggy Shepard, Chuck Sutton, and Vernice Miller-Travis founded the organization in 1988 with the purpose of calling attention to the poor management of the North River Treatment Plant.
Since 1988, We Act has organized various programs to combat more issues besides the pollution of the North River Treatment Plant. The Environmental Health and Community-Based Participatory Research Program that is headed by research coordinator, Ogonnaya Dotson-Newman is one of them.
This program works to address community health issues and concerns. Newman’s program is constantly working on problems pertaining to children in regards to lead poisoning prevention, asthma, and basic environmental health in the New York Northern Manhattan area.
Growing up on the west coast in California, Newman already knew about We Act through her studies on environmental health. This spring will mark her one-year anniversary with the organization.
“I always knew I wanted to work and translate science for the community. Coming to We Act has really been a dream come true.”
Newman saw We Act as a program that is replicated from many other community services in the world. Her arrival in New York City and her employment at We Act is something she calls, “amazing.”
“This position is different because I am in a different geographical location and am able to really plug into community work in a way that I have always dreamed. I was able to in some ways institutionalize the job that I pictured myself having when I first began my journey through higher education, “she says.
Newman’s program has approximately seven projects. They are set with the purposes of educating researchers and community members on the best routines for human protection during research. As well as finding/implementing ways city residents can better serve the environment and also creating public awareness on air quality/lead poisoning. This is pertains to immigrant communities.
However, the maintenance of these programs has to be carefully structured so they may run efficiently. Newman explains there must be constant outreach for them.
“Follow-up is really important. Also making sure that the facts are correct and the information that needs to be presented is something that people can use and apply,” she says.
She further explains that the information has to be valuable to people, because otherwise they will find no reason to use it in their lives. The knowledge will motivate the residents to make changes for themselves and their community.
“We are making sure you are utilizing and sticking to the principles of collaborations and encouraging folks to be involved in a collaborative process, ” Newman says.
The Environmental Health and Community-Based Participatory Research Program that she manages has also started a training program. The purpose of this program from the beginning was to “mobilize” the community.
Newman places a lot of importance on this program because as she says, “we want to empower and also facilitate bi-directional learning and education.”
With the help of a variety of training and organizational models, We Act is able to work with the community residents in preparing them to identify issues in their communities and what steps they should follow for improvement on such issues. More particularly, Newman’s environmental program follows a curriculum for training that comes from, Community-Based Participatory Research Partnerships which is a program that works with environmental and community programs to help, “foster critical thinking and action on issues,” as stated on CBPR’s website.
Newman believes the We Act’s Environmental Health and Justice Leadership Training has been a success with the last set of graduates completing their work in 2005.
One of the most important and long standing issues within the West Harlem community has been asthma. “It has become an increased worry and there has been deeper engagement around the issues and examining factors associated with the building of the environment,” she says.
Through research Newman has noticed that the rates of child asthma in Upper Manhattan have been growing steadily and the difference in asthma rates of West Harlem, other areas of Manhattan and separate parts of the country are evident.
Photo Courtesy of We Act
She adds that the rates of asthma have grown and are an affect of air pollutants from sources of waste processing and city buses.
One of We Act’s successes is directly related to asthma which is due to the organization and outreach of her program.
“The emissions from the MTA’s bus fleet have been reduced by 95 percent.” (This is due to the new eco-friendly buses.) But, she still doesn’t see this milestone as a job completed. She presents the question, “does this mean that the MTA is where it needs to be?”
Her response is no.
“But with the introduction of hybrid buses and particulate traps on the fleets…the contributions are enormous.” The proof of change will come with the decrease in one particular area. “Hospitalization rates due to asthma,” she says.
At the end of March, We Act and Newman collaborated with the Columbia Center for a daylong conference: The Translating Science to Policy: Protecting Children’s Environments. This partnership with Columbia University was set with the purpose of improving and preserving the quality of air in Northern Manhattan. We Act is paying close attention to the indoor and outdoor toxins that promote asthma. The use of pesticides, dust mite droppings, waste management and area traffic are only a few air quality issues that are proving dangerous in triggering asthma symptoms and attacks.
The main objectives of the conference were presenting the research findings and opening the forum to discussions or presentations on the main topics of the center’s research. This discussion was also paired with the most important tool of getting people involved in what Newman calls the “grassroots” level with the focus on environmental health. Moving forward various goals were set. A website is set to be launched to alert the community on such precautions as to when children are advised to stay indoors when the air quality is particularly high. This same site will be a place for parents and other individuals to turn to for updated information on their community as related to the environment.
“We act emphasizes the importance of providing a quality environment for communities of color and low income,” Newman says. Her program believes that a lot of attention must continuously be paid to children and especially children at a greater risk to become sick.
This relates to, “pre and post-birth infants whose bodies, some more readily than others, develop asthma in response to early exposure to pollutants.” She goes further on to say that, “a record number of children living in Northern Manhattan communities have already developed asthma.”
Newman points out the decrease in pollutants due to the MTA’s (Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York) changeover to more eco-friendly buses, but with the work of her program and it’s various collaborations with other organizations she hopes more change will follow.
The success and failure of these projects has depended on a great deal of funding from public and private sources. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and New York Department of Environmental Conservation have been vital to We Act’s survival. But, with the state of the current economy We Act has had some difficulties that they continue to work through.
“Of course we will run into issues with funders given the current economic crisis, but we are always working towards diversifying the funders that we have in order to maintain our stability as an environmental justice organization,” she says.
She doesn’t take these efforts lightly and knows that it all comes with hard work. “We are working overtime to submit applications for grants to ensure that we can continue to do work in the pursuit of environmental justice,” Newman says.
“It’s amazing that we have continued to generate financial support around our work for 20 years,” she says.
Programs related to youth have been put on hold due to lack of funding, but We Act is confident that in the near future they will have funding in that department and for the opening of their environmental justice center.
On June 17th, 2009 We Act will hold a gala titled, “Celebrating Environmental Leadership and Action!” at The South Hall at Riverside Church here in New York City. This will be an evening to mark the anniversary of We Act’s community service and to honor the contributions of its members and community residents who have worked persistently to the common goal of making West Harlem an environmentally safe neighborhood.
Photo Courtesy of We Act
We Act’s co-founder Peggy Shepard, was recently the honorary recipient of a prestigious award of her own. In 2008, she was awarded with the Jane Jacobs Medal for Lifetime Achievement. Jane Jacobs in her lifetime was a trailblazer for community service and with the work of her and others like Peggy Shepard, cities, towns, and villages are gradually making a difference to improve the world.