People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights

While our home is in the Mission, our communities live throughout the Southeast side of San Francisco in neighborhoods like the Excelsior, Portola, Visitacion Valley, and Bayview Hunters Point.  Environmental hazards from the whole city are concentrated here, affecting our health, and harming our children, families, and elders the most. PODER builds grassroots leadership among immigrant families to confront the harmful environmental conditions that keep us from living full and healthy lives. 

The Immigrant Power initiative is a collaborative project with the Chinese Progressive Association focused on building the leadership of immigrant families to confront harmful environment conditions.  

Environmental health hazards affecting our communities include: 

• Poor Air Quality
• Transportation pollution from freeways and old buses
• Irresponsible clean up efforts of power plants
• Insufficient access to health services
• Inadequate pedestrian safety

 To tackle these issues, the Immigrant Power Initiative:

• Trains community members to use technical devices that monitor pollution
• Provides opportunities for immigrants to learn about and build alliances across culture and ethnicity
• Explains how to navigate and lobby the government to bring about change in their communities
• Uses art and creative activities to communicate important information about environmental health and justice
• Organizes and supports actions that fight the pollution and displacement of immigrant families
• Challenges scientific analysis that doesn’t take into account the experiences of immigrant families

Most recently, the Immigrant Power Initiative focused on addressing environmental health problems caused by traffic pollution in the Excelsior neighborhood.  Read more in our 2007 Annual Report. 

GET INVOLVED:

PODER is looking for community members to join the Immigrant Power Committee.  This committee hosts workshops and meetings on Saturdays every other month.