"Create schools and spread education in all liberated areas."
amilcar cabral
youth initiatives in education + leadership development
East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC) works to develop young leaders in our community with a focus on community- and family-inclusive popular education and leadership development. We foster positive, cooperative, and affirmative spaces for our community members to learn, grow, and challenge ourselves and each other.
Currently EMEAC operates school garden programs and supplemental classroom engagements on environmental justice and our afterschool and summer Youth Street Team community outreach and political education program. Our staff are currently working to integrate additional school sites for educators looking for support in starting gardens and sustaining creative, environmental justice curricula and to integrate and expand our two tracks of community outreach and in-school educational experiences. Further, we are working with community based experts in nature-based education, to expand opportunities for our young people, to benefit from outdoor learning in wilderness/conservation spaces.
We broaden awareness in our communities and neighborhoods, in order to usher in a new season of cooperation, a deeper level of community-based power to build a more just and sustainable society.
EMEAC Street Team
Our youth street-team program brings together leadership of grassroots community organizations, emerging youth leadership, and both new and potential voters, from across Detroit and throughout Southeast Michigan. The work of our young people during the pandemic helped us strengthened relationships with partner organizations working in key areas and neighborhoods, all while reaching out to build new relationships, and working to ensure our collective health and survival.
EMEAC’s 2023 programs in the Youth Initiative in Education and Leadership Development are ramping up again. Throughout the spring, summer, and fall, we partner with grassroots, community organizations leading the way toward justice in Detroit; we train and educate a selected cohort of young people in campaign development, canvassing and community outreach, design thinking, collective impact, and the fundamentals of community organizing. The program is youth led and designed. For more info, contact our program coordinator, Alana Burke at alana@emeac.org. Young people 14-19 or the parents of those people people are welcome to apply here.
Outdoor Education
Gardening EMEAC works in Detroit Public School providing extra curricular lessons, field trips and experiential learning labs and is expanding to two additional sites. The students range from pre-K to 8th grade. Students learn about the environment through hands-on participation in the school garden. They plant seeds and tend to the plants as they grow and produce fruit. Some vegetables are picked to grow because the students have never been exposed to them.
Garden-to-Table Nutrition Education Produce is prepared by students as they learn healthy cooking methods. Students are taught about food preparation methods that make delicious meals while preserving nutritional value for beneficial consumption. Students take field-trips to visit U-Pick farms for fruits that we don’t grow.
Near Peer Teaching Students participate in near-peer learning. In a small group, 8th grade students do research on low cost, healthy produce available in our neighborhood. We take field trips to local markets to see the range of fresh and/or organic produce at each market. We look at the prices and quality of produce. Students create taste tests to help determine their preferences, drawing conclusions based on the research, and creating participatory lessons to share with the kindergarten students along with take-home packages of information to parents.
Environmental Learning Students come to EMEAC’s in-school environmental lab and participate in up-and-active learning games, including: the Recycle Relay, Fall Leaves Obstacle Course, Eco Arts Day, and Paper Making.
Office Hours
Mon – Sat
10.00am – 4.00pm
(except holidays)
email: umoja@emeac.org
phone: (313) 556-1702
Detroit, MI 48201
