Now Accepting applications for Cohort 3
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DEADLINE: JULY 29, 2022
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Emerging Leaders Cohort
Launched in the Fall of 2020, the Emerging Leaders Cohort is a CFE equity initiative designed to identify and support early-career Black, Brown, Indigenous & People of Color (BIPOC) leaders from member organizations and provide them with mentorship and skills-building opportunities so that they can take on increasing leadership within the network, in the broader movement for environmental health, and in the communities that they serve.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Cultivating a diverse and inclusive group of emerging leaders is critical to the life blood of CFE and the organizations represented. This initiative seeks to develop leadership among emerging leaders from member organizations, with special focus on early-career staff who are BIPOC, are staff at POC-led organizations, from Community-Based Organizations, and/or from organizations that work in/with environmentally overburdened communities.
Through a combination of mentorship, training, and service learning, participants receive targeted mentorship and skills-building opportunities. The program runs from September to August, during which mentees work with their mentor and CFE leads to implement a project of their choice. Mentees are paired with experienced mentors and meet regularly throughout the program. Curriculum in the program is geared towards providing mentees with the skills needed to lead within a collaborative systems-change network. To support their participation in the program, mentees receive a stipend of $1,500 and mentors receive a stipend of $1,000.
As a result of the ELC previous mentees have taken on leadership roles within their home organizations and within the Network. They’ve also taken the tools and training from the program back to their organizations to implement.
If you’re not currently affiliated with a CFE member organization and would like to explore whether membership and the ELC are right for you, please contact us!
Examples of past projects led by mentees
- Healthy Spaces Project
- Network Evaluation
- Cross-Node PFAS Initiative Resource Building
- PFAS Disposal Symposium
- Climate, Toxics, Equity, and Health
- Children’s Environmental Health Education landscape analysis
For a full list of potential projects, see our proposed menu of projects for Cohort 3.
When I joined the ELC — I was part of the first cohort — I had just joined my home organization at CEHN… I was working on the Healthy Spaces project...I didn't really know much about the connection between building materials and also how that can affect human health. And so, that project also gave me another perspective...then I also applied to be one of the Co-Program Managers for the second year.
"CFE is just this really positive community of individuals and nonprofits who recognize the value of collaboration to really create change... and one avenue to do that is to uplift existing resources... for my project, we've been able to create access and amplify visibility of PFAS resources that exist within the network. And by creating that access and amplifying that visibility, we've mobilized support for underserved communities, both through legislative initiatives that we've been a part of and our PFAS Symposium that was extremely successful."
"As mentors we're learning as much if not more than the mentees through this experience... it is valuable for me to learn about how people are experiencing the workplace, how they're experiencing the network, to reflect on my own learnings over the course of my career and ways that I can access that to support not only my mentees, but other people in the network."
"CFE listened and they reacted… In 2019, CFE was 33% BIPOC leaders, in 2020 45.5%, and 2021 we were at 85.7%. And leaders who are people under the age of 30 went from basically nothing up to more than a quarter of the network leaders… I've been a part of a lot of things. I've never seen that radical change in an institution."
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Cohort 2 Participants
MENTEES
Simeon Brown
Environmental Justice Clinic, Vermont Law School
Caron Fajardo
Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center
Veronica Ung-Kono
Environmental Justice Clinic, Vermont Law School
Roxana Amaya-Fuentes
Children’s Environmental Health Network
Dominique Flores
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
Tammy Davis
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
Jazmine Johnson
Physician’s for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles
Amanda Hernandez
Individual Member
Summer-Solstice Thomas
Silent Spring Institute
MENTORS
Walter Lewis
Homewood Children’s Village
Fred Brown
The Forbes Funds
Polly Hoppin
Lowell Center for Sustainable Production
Ruth Rominger
Individual Member
Motaz Attalla
Individual Member
Nse Obot Witherspoon
Children’s Environmental Health Network
Katie Huffling
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
Sandra Curtis
Individual Member
Debra Erenberg