Proud to be emerging

Recently, I was selected as a 2007 fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program, a year long fellowship which promotes and builds new leaders for the environmental movement. I am delighted! I am part of the Greater Boston area network, as the national program recruits fellows from different regions across the country.

This represents a transformative opportunity for me. It is a culmination of a range experiences I've had over the past year, beginning with being elected to serve of the board of Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), a grassroots organization in Boston working for environmental justice for communities of color and low-income people here.

In a previous blog, I linked the struggles of women of color-led liberation movements in the US to addressing "spiritual deforestation." My initial thinking around this was inspired by the Nobel Peace prized activism of Wangari Maathai, from Kenya who started the Green Belt Movement of mobilizing women there to plant trees. Sister Wangari was honored by the government of India for her work, and recently gave a speech in Delhi, where I visited for the first time about a year and half ago.