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Listening Session: Social Justice and Access to Nature

October 15, 2020 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm

In February 2021, the LRWP will join the New Brunswick Community Arts Council and others for “Windows of Understanding,” in which local non-profits partner with artists to transform main street spaces into “windows of understanding” art installments. Through these art installations the community can learn about social justice issues that don’t make daily headlines.

For 2021 the LRWP is thrilled to partner with Highland Park resident Marcia Shiffman. This year Marcia will help us communicate the “hidden” social justice issue of inequitable access to nature.

Please join us for a Webex listening session on Thursday October 15 from 5:30-6:30 pm to share your concerns, observations, and thoughts related to social justice and access to nature. Your participation will help us better understand the issues, and will help us in the work of communicating these issues through art.

This listening session is free, however pre-registration is required. You will receive a Webex registration link before the event start.

While the COVID-19 quarantine has encouraged people to get a healthy dose of the out-of-doors to breathe fresh air, strengthen immune systems, exercise, and destress, we know that accessing clean, safe, green and blue spaces is much harder for our low socio economic status urban communities. Residents from these communities often don’t have transportation or resources for a visit the Jersey shore or a hike in our state or national parks.

This social justice issue motivates the work of the LRWP in monitoring pathogens at non-swimming public access beaches along the Lower Raritan. We have chosen sites where our State and County Public Health Departments do not monitor water conditions, yet where our most vulnerable residents regularly fish, swim, and otherwise recreate in the water.

We will start the listening session with a brief overview of equitable access concerns in the Lower Raritan, including data from our Summer 2020 pathogens monitoring work.

Want to learn more about Social Justice and Access to Nature? The Children & Nature Network developed a brief literature review on “Equitable Access to Nature’s Benefits“.

Details

Date:
October 15, 2020
Time:
5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Event Tags:
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Venue

Webex!

Organizer

Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership
Email
hfenyk@lowerraritanwatershed.org

Registrations are closed for this event.