Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area Fellowship 2024: Engaging Community with Environmental Justice Programs

Overview

In the Bay Area, as throughout the world, under-resourced communities are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change impacts. Since 2016, Climate Resilient Communities (CRC) has been on the ground, learning the specific needs of residents in diverse, under-resourced communities in East Palo Alto, North Fair Oaks, and Belle Haven (Menlo Park). CRC’s outreach cultivates environmental awareness while giving local residents a voice in proactive resilience planning and adaptation. By building stronger alliances between residents, schools, local government programs and community-based organizations and implementing direct interventions, this work creates resilience against climate-related stresses such as sea-level rise and economic instability.

CRC’s work is guided by residents and community leaders through their Climate Change Community Teams. CRC partners with other community based organizations, faith-based organizations, and residents to generate and meet community-identified needs. To that end,  CRC has three programs: Resilient Adaptation, Resilient Education, and Resilient Homes.  Resilient Adaptation focused on providing tangible mitigation projects to make communities resilient to climate change. The Resilient Education program supports community awareness and education to promote climate action and advocacy initiatives. The Resilient Homes program organizes community resident in-home repairs and climate adaptation to withstand climate events.

Through this fellowship, you will be part of an exciting and growing organization, and have the unique opportunity to meet and learn from experienced community leaders. You will directly contribute to building climate resilience in a way that empowers low-income residents and brings the material changes a just world requires.  

About the Fellowship

The intern would be expected to focus on one or two projects over the summer. Some examples may include the following:

Youth Climate Collective (YCC) The summer of 2024 will be the 2nd year of the YCC program. An intern would support the implementation of a series of summer workshops and develop strategies and curriculum for a youth peer mentorship program after this cohort.

Rain garden project 25 residents will receive a rain garden and water cistern system in 2024. The systems, provided to residents at no cost, will promote food sovereignty, increase home values, curb water scarcity, and reduce the risk of flooding. An intern would assist in collecting data about the impact of the first installations, and help manage and recruit for future installations.

Community Vulnerability Assessments This program focuses on hearing the needs of community members in regards to current and future impacts of climate change and providing both short term and long term solutions. The intern would research some of the solutions the community proposes. 

Preferred qualifications:

• A passion and commitment for environmental justice and community-based work

• Willingness to actively listen to community priorities

• Excellent organizational skills, ideally including past experience in planning events

• Strong writing and communication skills 

• Demonstrated experience in communicating with diverse audiences; excellent human relations skills

• Prior experience interacting with high school students is preferred

• Experience with social media and digital media is a plus

Stipend

Undergraduate Cardinal Quarter Fellows receive a base stipend of $6,500 (+$500 cost of living adjustment for the Bay Area) to support living expenses during the fellowship. Financial aid and supplemental funding may be available to students who qualify (learn more here).