On May 9, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its co-sponsors, American Public Health Association, the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities – Network (EPIC-N), Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Justice journal, and Groundwork USA, announced the Phase 2 winners of the Environmental Justice (EJ) Video Challenge for Students.

The winning teams, which consisted of college students and local community organizations, worked together to develop community capacity building strategies to address an environmental justice issue important to a local community.

A team from the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University won second place recognition for a video called Making Eastwick Whole about improving the quality of life for residents of the Eastwick community in Philadelphia which is significantly affected by flooding.

The student team partnered with the Eastwick United Community Development Corporation to develop proposals for community capacity building.

Penn student team members include Aminah McNulty, Allison Nkwocha and Jackson Plumlee.  The member from Drexel was Nina Valentine.

Click Here for the written proposals.  Click Here to watch the video.

“This challenge showcases how collaboration between the next generation of environmental justice advocates and community organizations can produce truly innovative ideas to address environmental and public health issues affecting communities,” said Chris Frey, Assistant Administrator of EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “We are encouraged by each team’s exceptional efforts and look forward to creating pathways for continued community capacity building that will help us to achieve our mission to protect human health and the environment.”

In Phase 1, college students created videos demonstrating innovative approaches to identify and characterize an environmental justice issue in a community using data and publicly available tools.

In Phase 2, students worked collaboratively with local community organizations to develop a community capacity building strategy and an accompanying video that demonstrates effective community engagement and advocacy to address the environmental justice issue identified in Phase 1.

Visit EPA’s Environmental Justice (EJ) Video Challenge for Students webpage for more information.

[Posted: May 9, 2023]

5/15/2023