New Writing Award: Courageous and Transformative Action for Environmental Justice

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We are pleased to announce a new writing award available to UCI undergraduate and graduate students for their reflections on and research about environmental justice. The Courageous and Transformative Action for Environmental Justice Writing Award lifts up struggles and leadership for environmental justice, with a focus on collective efforts to advance global environmental health, ecological restoration, and community solutions, broadly conceived.

The Award follows the living model of Flint, Michigan, pediatrician and environmental justice advocate, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha (author of What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City, 2018) whose commitment to young people’s health and rights to clean water brought national attention to the Flint water crisis. It draws inspiration from exceptional community leaders who, like Dr.Hanna-Attisha, have taken personal risks and overcome social and political barriers to champion environmental justice—through organizing in their own communities and activism that reaches beyond. Moved, also, by Will See of Detroit, Michigan, whose work as a contemporary performance artist, writer, and environmental justice cultural worker bridges music, poetry, education, and organizing; we welcome submissions from all genres and disciplines (e.g., political and policy analyses, creative writing, translation of science into action, choreography) as long as they are intelligible for lay audiences. Both Dr. Hanna-Attisha and Will See visited UC Irvine to work with our communities in Winter 2019.

The 2019 EJ Writing Award cycle is now complete. The 2019 awards ceremony took place on June 4, 2019. Enjoy the photos below and in the album to the right. Please visit the UCI Sustainability Resource Center for details about the 2021 EJ Writing Award cycle.

Please visit the UCI Sustainability Resource Center for details about the 2021 EJ Writing Award cycle.

2021 Award Co-sponsors:

The Humanities Equity Advisor and Special Assistant to the Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Department of African American Studies; Center for Excellence in Writing and Communication; Community Resilience; Cross-Cultural Center; Program in Public Health; Sustainability Resource Center; Schools of Law and Social Ecology

Deadline: April 30, 2021

Questions?

Contact sustainability-center@uci.edu. Place “EJ Writing Award” in the subject line.

2019 Award Co-sponsors:

The Department of African American Studies, Center for Excellence in Writing and Communication, Community Resilience, and Schools of Education, Law, Social Ecology, and Social Sciences

2019 Award Ceremony Photos