Environmental Justice Resource Center
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Mission
"The Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta University was formed in 1994 to serve as a research, policy, and information clearinghouse on issues related to environmental justice, race and the environment, civil rights, facility siting, land use planning, brownfields, transportation equity, suburban sprawl, and Smart Growth. The overall goal of the center is to assist, support, train, and educate people of color students, professionals, and grassroots community leaders with the goal of facilitating their inclusion into the mainstream of environmental decision-making. The center is multi-disciplinary in its focus and approach. It serves as a bridge among the social and behavioral sciences, natural and physical sciences, engineering, management, and legal disciplines to solve environmental problems. The center's programs build on the work that it staff has been engaged in for over two decades." www.ejrc.cau.edu
Objectives
There are 5 main objectives of the EJRC:
- To develop three-way partnerships among "impacted" communities, environmental justice groups, and historically black colleges and other minority academic institutions;
- To increase the quality and quantity of environmental, health, land use, and economic development, and transportation information available to grassroots community groups
- To link via the Internet people of color organizations that are working on environmental justice, brownfields redevelopment, empowerment/enterprise zones, minority health, transportation equity, livable and sustainable communities, Smart Growth, and related areas;
- To assist community groups and other stakeholders in implementing environmental, health, energy, transportation, and sustainability benchmarks they have set for themselves.
- To facilitate the development of mechanisms, policies, and procedures for the inclusion of people of color, impacted communities, and underrepresented groups into public decision making.
