CJA is proud to announce two new steering committee co-chairs! We’d like to extend a huge amount of gratitude to out-going steering committee co-chairs, National Coordinator of Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) Cindy Wiesner and Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) Executive Director, Byron Gudiel, who have worked hard to build CJA into a stronger alliance that has increased capacity to support our member organizations and created a stronger network.
NEW STEERING COMMITTEE CO-CHAIRS
UPROSE Executive Director Elizabeth C. Yeampierre is a nationally recognized Puerto Rican attorneyand environmental justice leader of African and Indigenous ancestry born and raised in NYC. Her award-winning vision for an inter-generational, multi-cultural and community led organization is the driving force behind UPROSE. She is a long-time advocate and trailblazer for community organizing around just, sustainable development, environmental justice and community-led climate adaptation and community resiliency in Sunset Park. Elizabeth is the first Latina Chair of the US EPA National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
“The fight for climate justice is more than the recognition that the climate crisis most impacts those that are least responsible. It is the understanding that this crisis is the culmination of centuries of subjugation – of human labor, of natural resources, and of political power. The solution is not to solely address the challenge of carbon emissions while leaving a system of racism, patriarchy, classism and exploitation intact. CJA embodies the understanding that the path to climate justice is local, is grounded in the grassroots, is driven by solidarity, and demands systematic change.”
Mateo Nube is one of the co-founders of Movement Generation: Justice & Ecology Project. He was born and grew up in La Paz, Bolivia. Since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, he has worked in the labor, environmental justice and international solidarity movements. Popular education, union organizing & cultural work have been foundational pillars of his political formation.
“I am tremendously excited by the visionary and oppositional economies that CJA member organizations are strategically threading together across the country. Our task, as an alliance, is to build the alternatives that both starve and stop this suicidal banks and tanks economy while simultaneously birthing the local living, loving, linked economies that will carry us all into a healthier tomorrow. I am ready to roll up my sleeves, alongside freedom fighters across many frontline communities, to make this dream a reality! ¡Pa’ adelante CJA!”
We are excited about the possibilities that our new co-chairs’ extensive environmental and climate justice experience and leadership wisdom offer as they provide strategic guidance, fiscal oversight and organizational development & support to our alliance over the next two years.
Cindy and CBE will continue to be integral to CJA, will play advisory roles as our new co-chairs take on their new duties, and will stay on the steering committee.
