My Passion Towards Eradicating Environmental Injustice by Veda

My Passion Towards Eradicating Environmental Injustice by Veda - May 2023 Scholarship Essay

Throughout my life I have held a deep connection with my environment, which includes the people around me, the outdoors and respecting nature, and a motivation to learn from and about the communities I am not correlated with. With my passion of interest being towards both people and nature, I have found Environmental Science and Social Justice to be the majors that will lead me to working towards my passion of eradicating Environmental Injustice.

Through spending my time outside by mountain biking, rock climbing, and gardening, my love for nature has made clear since childhood that my future job would likely be surrounding environmental issues. Where I struggled was finding what would drive me to work in the environmental field, and developing a passion strong enough to stick with in my future. How this changed was through witnessing the inequalities historically underrepresented people and low-income communities face compared to the wealthy neighborhoods in my city, Richmond. Seeing this has taught me that environmental issues are more than damage happening to our planet, and directly correlate to the people who do not receive environmental protection. The surroundings of wealthy-neighborhoods in Richmond are shaded and cool, have beautiful parks and maintained sidewalks, shaded and seated bus stops, grocery stores, and vibrant community gardens that receive funding, all within walking distance of residential areas. About a five minute drive from this beautiful representation of Richmond, you are met with complete covering of pavement that somehow still lacks sidewalks, not a park that has been kept up with in sight, bus stops with no shade or seating, the nearest grocery store being a fifteen minute drive (unless you count the gas station), and to top it off, a Wastewater Treatment Plant neighboring these communities. As I began piecing together the ways these injustices correlate to a pained environment of both people and nature, I learned that environmental issues are not limited to nature, but fully represent the people being affected as well.

My first initiative towards serving others struggling in these areas began through volunteering at parks that did Free Farm Stands, which looked like giving out free food to anyone who comes. While I still enjoy helping with this, last year I began investing my time towards the Green Team, which is run by GroundworkRVA (a non-profit that educates youth on environmental injustice and creates green spaces and food accessibility in Richmond). What my team does is learn how communities are being overlooked by the city and the environmental issues they face, build greenspaces, rain gardens, and maintain our farm in a public housing community. I spend my Mondays, Wednesdays and some Saturdays working here tending our farm and passing out our harvest, removing invasive species, building garden beds and rain gardens for residents of Hillside Court Public Housing, attending Climate and Environment symposiums, as well as the previously listed things my team does. My experience at Groundwork has unlocked my passion towards serving others facing environmental injustice and raised me to learn that by listening to and doing specifically what those experiencing these injustices ask of me is how to properly serve others, rather than ignorantly basing a situation off of my personal experience, further damaging a community.

By hearing those facing injustice as well as those successful in serving a community’s needs at Climate Change symposiums, I have learned that how I can help others is through listening to what an overlooked community is asking, and doing specifically that. Considering that I have never experienced the oppression others have, my goal is to help others struggling by placing the attention on what they say they are lacking, and helping their voices be heard rather than making myself the spokesperson. This could look like listening to what a community that lacks accessibility to affordable food says they need and raising funds for those changes to happen, rather than assuming what should be done, which is led by ignorance and oftentimes a “savior complex”. Through this I can serve those who have lacked representation and also keep the privilege I carry in line by not coming to solutions with the experiences I have had, and instead allowing change to be led by those experiencing injustice.

With my passion in mind, majoring in Environmental and Social Justice is what will expand my knowledge to best serve overlooked communities. Spending my time listening to those that are underserved, and being blessed with the work experience I have had, has shown me what sparks my interest and will best suit what I put my energy towards in the future.