A Project of YAOTL

Open letter: A right to a safe and civil education March 23, 2010

March 22, 2010
To Whom It May Concern:
As you may know, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and their allies in the non-profit sector are working on the Illinois Safe and Civil Schools Act, a legislative effort to address youth-on-youth violence in Illinois’ schools. As a collection of youth-centered organizing initiatives deeply committed to the struggle against violence, we would like to voice our position that any effort aiming to address school violence must be based on principles of restorative and transformative justice.
The undersigned organizations believe unconditionally that every student has the right to a safe and civil education; however we are concerned that legislation such as this could lead to the creation of “zero-tolerance” policies which reinforce the school-to-prison pipeline. The school-to-prison pipeline refers to the national trend of criminalizing, rather than educating, our youth and “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies are often the first step in a young person’s journey through that pipeline. These policies ignore circumstances around violence, fail to address conditions which create violence, and often disproportionately target marginalized students whom such efforts are stated to protect.
Furthermore, policies which focus on punishment rather than change can only deal with violence after the fact and put young people into artificial categories of bully and victim. Dealing with school violence in this individualized nature ignores the systemic violence which marginalized students face daily. By failing to recognize the inherent violence of a heterosexist curriculum, gendered dress codes, school closings, militarization, and other forms of systemic violence, this legislation has the possibility to divert energy and resources away from efforts to change the culture of schools and truly end violence. (more…)

350 Chicago Climate Action Saturday Oct. 24th October 23, 2009

Support Clean Air in Chicago and a strong International Cimate Treaty!
Mass Rally on 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action
October 24th, 2009 at 1 p.m. in Pilsen
For more information go to: www.howgreenischicago.org
Organized by: Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, LVEJO, Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network of Chicago

Marisol Becerra | Power Shift 09 March 12, 2009

In 2003, Marisol Becerra volunteered with Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) to map and inventory the toxins found within 150 blocks of her predominantly Mexican-American community, Little Village in Chicago. Marisol was enraged to discover that in Little Village more than 60,000 youth in a two-mile radius of the Fisk and Crawford Coal Power Plants are forced to breathe air that violates EPA standards. She was inspired to act, she said, “in order to shut down these coal power plants, build more parks, and clean up the toxics. We must organize more people to stand up and fight.” Her first step was launching the youth branch of LVEJO — Youth Activists Organizing as Today’s Leaders, YAOTL. Based on the data Marisol collected, YAOTL collaborated with Chicago-based Open Youth Networks to devise OurMap of Environmental Justice, an interactive online map that includes 12 youth-created videos, descriptions of toxic sites, and gang territory delineations. With this map, Marisol educated her community about local environmental injustice and motivated them to become involved in campaigns. The map uses poignant facts and videos to educate about the different pollutants and contaminants in Little Village that cause 41 premature deaths and 550 emergency room visits annually. In 2008, Marisol was awarded a Brower Youth Award for her commitment and work.

Campaign Updates August 20, 2008

The campaigns throughout the summer have accomplished a lot. The health survey group is focusing on finding out the health results of the people around the celotox area and how it is affecting them. They are trying to link the celotox are with all times of different illnesses. The other campaign is coal power plant.

They are focusing on making a documentary of different life stories of people that live around the coal power plants and how this has affected their lives or health. They are also dedicating a lot of time to outreaching and trying to get together a community meeting.

The third campaign is public transit. They have been outreaching in order to get a 31st bus. They have been meeting with the city and are being supported by them to go along with the idea of having a 31st bus. The main focus of the group is to make visual material to show the businesses in the community and to
have them sign a petition in order to get the bus running by mid year.
The tif campaign has been outreaching and held their first meeting with two different organizations named S.T.O.P. and Stay Fly. The meeting was a success other then trying to keep them on task it went well. The group now is trying to get ready for a community meeting witch is going to be hosted by the youth. The whole meeting is going to be led by the youth and we are the ones that are going to get the place to host it and get the word out and get people to attend the meeting.

La Villita demands a 31st street bus July 21, 2008

CTA meeting July 16th.

La Villita is in desperate need of faster and better public transportation services. Our community has lacked adequate service for eleven years now. We have no service on one of our busiest streets, 31^st street. This, opposed to the North-side communities, is particularly disturbing given the fact that those communities have a bus on all major streets. So, what is being done to get us this bus?

Mike Pitula, LVEJO’s public transit community organizer, has spoken out along with members of his campaign (including two of our youth members Carlos and Marisol) in order to demand and encourage an additional bus route. This route would give the residents in Little Village greater access to their own community. We attended a CTA board meeting on July 16^th and met with the CTA Vice President of Planning, Jon Paquet, who agreed to schedule a meeting in order to talk more about where the route will take place and when it will be made a reality.

We’ve made tremendous progress so far, but there is even more that we need to push the CTA for. Little Village High School is the only high school that does not have regular service within two blocks after school hours. As of yet CTA has not agreed to extend the service to and from LVLHS.

During the meeting, one of the issues addressed was the need for community support in order to ensure that the CTA was making a mutually beneficial decision. It is also important to remember that the 31^st street bus is in its initial stages of planning. Another important issue to consider is funding. CTA has agreed to apply to get federal funding by an August 8^th deadline. Hopefully, we will have a 31^st street bus by the beginning of the upcoming year.

Honey Well and EPA come to Little Village By: BB&J June 17, 2008

Our community organizers and residents gathered on June 16th to go protest for a clean park. unfortunately EPA”s representatives left from the gathering after all of us arrived. This was before we even finished what we had to say.They said they would take the petitions but they did not have time to talk. We still had the courage to keep protesting. We definitely got people’s attention, so they joined us on our journey to demand our right for a clean park. We are most definitely still working toward this theres no doubt. WE WANT A CLEAN PARK! We will be gathering again on June 25, 2008 come out and support us. For more information contact LVEJO.

Meyer Steel Drum Pt. 2 May 5, 2008