Wednesday, 9 Oct 2002

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.

Today has been tough. The Environmental Justice and Health Union website is up and running (as of yesterday), but I cannot stop myself from tinkering with it. Meanwhile, the newsletter, Catalyst, is done, and while the content is great, I am not thrilled about the format. So after all that worrying yesterday about getting the newsletter on the website, I decided to wait until we come up with a better format before posting it. Until then, I will simply email it to EJHU members. And then there are the other things I’m worried about, like food for the launch party tomorrow night. What am I going to feed these folks? Plus, I still have to write my speech.

Within an hour after the website went up, I started receiving congratulatory emails from friends. I truly appreciate such support. While the goal of the Environmental Justice and Health Union is to support the activities of other people, to provide information and promote communication between environmental justice activists and environmental health professionals, I enjoy the recognition for the hard work I put into creating the website. I believe it uniquely explains how environmental disease threatens poor minority communities and what solutions exist. I also know, though, that the website would not be nearly as strong as it is if I hadn’t had the help of at least a dozen other people.

One of the greatest challenges for the Environmental Justice and Health Union has been to bridge the digital divide. After all, some environmental justice groups have limited access to the Internet. So the question is, how can EJHU serve them despite having so little staff support? Through discussions with many people, I have come up with a number of partial solutions.

First, we designed the website with the assumption that folks have dial-up Internet connections on old computers with limited memory. The web pages are simple, with few graphics, and fit well on smaller computer screens. The goal was to create a website that is easy for any computer to access and read. Second, we designed a “Tech Tips” section, which lists services available at no cost to support the technological development of small community groups. Such services include free computers, software, and translation. Third, membership in the Environmental Justice and Health Union is free to small community groups. EJHU seeks to support such groups, and their limited budget makes a membership fee a more onerous burden than it is for larger groups. Fourth, we offer the option of receiving our newsletter by fax rather than email. Catalyst is one of the main benefits of becoming a member of the Environmental Justice and Health Union and we wanted to take advantage of ways to distribute it to members without the expense and administrative burden of regular mail. Finally, we give folks the opportunity to submit their thoughts. Both Catalyst and the website provide means to give feedback and encourage readers to do so.

But we know that even such efforts do not entirely solve the problem of limited and unequal access to technology. Thus, communication via other means became critical. The most obvious option is to actually go out and speak to people. To that end, I will be going to the National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., later this month. I attended the first summit in 1991 and look forward to seeing old faces and new at this event. Throughout the summit, I will be letting folks know about the Environmental Justice and Health Union and encouraging them to join.