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YEL Project Goals are to...
Gain
an awareness of environmental justice
Be provocative and inspiring
Provide facts
Inspire the audience to take action
Provide the audience with a sense of history
Overview
Environmental
Justice is the right for everyone to live, work, and play in a clean and
safe environment. Unfortunately, many communities are deprived of this
basic right. In our society today, we use industries to create products
that we all need. The waste that these industries create has to go somewhere.
Certain communities are often made to carry the bulk of the burden; the
waste winds up in their neighborhoods. Usually, this is due to factors
of "environmental racism". These same communities are deprived
of resources to which we are all entitled. There must be a better way
of making products and distributing the wealth of society so that everyone
gets what they need. No one community should have to take on these burdens
alone.
Environmental Justice
Our
society today uses industries such as: power plants, landfills, toxic
waste disposal areas, commercial and city dumps, chemical testing laboratories,
manufacturing plants, repair shops, chemical disposal and treatment plants,
sewage disposals, and sewage treatment plants. Unfortunately, these various
industries all have to go somewhere. Usually, they will wind up in neighborhoods
where the residents are discriminated against based on age, creed, economic
status, ethnicity, gender, or remoteness from society. These communities
have been deprived of their voices on the international, national, state,
or even city level.
We are all capable of seeing these injustices. All people should have a right to food of an adequate and healthy quality, buses and traffic access, community voice, representation, accessible police and fire departments, accessible public institutions, accessible stores, clean water, economic stability, safe and updated structures, proper health care, and qualified schools.
What could be done to preserve the rights of these communities?
We the public can ask our representatives to find or fund better ways
of making products whose byproducts are pollution hazardous to select
communities' health.
We
all can advocate for the people who are suffering these environmental
injustices by voicing our opinions and asking that these people get proper
representation.
We
can become informed about the products we use, the waste they produce,
and where this waste goes.
We
can report environmental injustices to the government and EPA.
All our communities can stand by each other to make sure that we all get an even deal.
Did you know that there is a "declaration of environmental justice rights" called the Principles of Environmental Justice? In 1991, global activists - grassroots and national leaders - came from all over the world to plan how to best address environmental injustice issues. They redefined the environmental justice movement completely. On October 27th, 1991, in Washington, D.C., the Summit delegates adopted the seventeen Principles.
What We Did
During the school year of 2002-2003, the I-YEL team brainstormed, wrote,
produced, and performed a play about environmental justice. Set in the
mythical city of Baylandia, Not In My BAAAckyard: the Great Widget
Conspiracy shows how any community can lose its voice if it stops
questioning what society does. Leon, the main character, is opposing the
owners of Wonder Widget, whose gigantic factory is spewing toxic waste
into the surrounding community. As a result of the pollution, the residents
begin to lose their voices and sound like sheep.
All year long, we researched environmental justice issues. We went on toxic tours with Literacy for Environmental Justice, an urban environmental advocacy organization dedicated to educating society about Bayview Hunters Point, and Ma'at Youth Academy, a multicultural environmental organization dedicated to advocating for a cleaner environment, particularly to the people of Richmond City. Through their stories, we learned about how communities all over the Bay Area are kept in horribly polluted conditions. Some people are silent, but others, like the young leaders of Literacy for Environmental Justice and Ma'at Youth Academy, are working hard to make their voices heard - to YELL above the silent oppression that so plagues their communities. Both groups successfully bring their communities together to conceive and create positive alternatives to the environmental injustices they face.
We split into three committees: Outreach, Costumes and Props, and Script-Writing. While the Outreach committee toured and critiqued theatres to choose which one would house our play, the Script-Writing committee came up with the idea of a product called Widget, which no one can define and everyone needs. They wrote the script and characters as the Outreach team photographed, noted, and chose the Marsh Theatre, a perfect place for an environmental education group from Crissy Field. The Costumes and Props committee conceptualized the characters' appearances, the scenes' settings, and the props.
Once the committees did the initial footwork, the group began rehearsing: memorizing lines, role developing, blocking, scene work. Eventually, we created our masterpiece.
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