Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
Community Engagement
The
Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) has developed and
embraces a model for community partnership that is called “Communiversity.”
This model emphasizes a collaborative partnership between universities
and communities. The partnership promotes bilateral understanding and
mutual respect between community residents and academicians. In the
past, collaborative problem-solving attempts that included community
residents and academicians were one-sided in terms of who controlled the
dynamics of the interaction between the two, who was perceived as
knowledgeable, and who benefited. The essence of this approach is an
acknowledgment that for effective research and policy-making, valuable
community life experiences regarding environmental insult must be
integrated with the theoretical knowledge of academic educators and
researchers. Either group alone is less able to accomplish the goal of
achieving environmental equity, but the coming together of the two in a
non-threatening forum can encourage significant strides toward
solutions. The DSCEJ has advanced the communiversity model with the
formation of the DSCEJ Community Advisory Board (CAB). The board
consists of grassroots community leaders, non-profits, academics, and
government officials along the Louisiana Mississippi River Chemical
Corridor and the Gulf Coast Region.
The DSCEJ partners with communities harmed by racially disproportionate
pollution burdens and attendant climate vulnerabilities. In these
partnerships, the Center builds the capacity of communities to respond
to environmental threats and hazards through workshops that train
community members to:
- monitor environmental hazards in their neighborhood;
- understand the risks of toxic exposures;
- research online environmental data;
- know their rights and the duties of governmental agencies; and
- develop strategic advocacy for policies and decisions that prevent and remedy unsafe environmental conditions.
The Center provides technical assistance to community partners that
focuses on building environmental science and environmental justice
literacy as well as strengthening their participation in policy
decisions on issues of concern. This technical assistance includes:
preparing environmental justice analyses and reports on proposed or
existing developments requiring environmental permits; collecting
toxicological and epidemiological data; advising on effective
environmental remediation and community relocation; providing expert
testimony in legal cases; and conducting community health surveys,
community mapping using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and
community environmental health profiles.
The Center also provides a wide array of organizational assistance to
sustain community partners that include leadership development,
strategic advocacy, outreach and membership recruitment, grant writing
and fundraising, and collaboration with diverse organizations.