the Social Ecology Project, in review
wholeness-centered, heart-grounded, community driven, place-based climate advocacy and environmental justice organizing
about the social ecologies project
Through the Social Ecologies Project, we build on our community health and wellness, political education and arts & culture programs to develop leadership within our community, preparing ourselves for ongoing collective self-advocacy in a way that centers and produces justice in alignment with our ecosystems, those social and natural.
EMEAC + Cass Commons is a sanctuary and community base for freedom movement work in the heart of Detroit. African spiritual principles and the liberation movements of people around the world guide our practices, operations and programs. The purpose of all such programming is to develop Black leadership in particular, to ready our communities, especially our youth, to analyze our lives, material conditions, to think and speak for ourselves and chart our own course toward self-determination. Our intention is to create a just environment that affirms the humanity and dignity of everyone, as we work to build unity among grassroots justice organizations. We steward, protect and share an historic and essential space, The Commons, for political organizing, art production and other community enterprises. We are evolving a model of social justice movement independence and sustainability.
Grassroots Community Organizing
Ecology Education & Training
Healing
Arts & Culture
Move-
ment Practice
space + place
A Case Examination of Place-Based Organising in Environmental Advocacy Work
Check out this critical inquiry on Detroit’s EMEAC Cass Commons, surveying community response data, examining critical questions of site- and place-based organizing, the value of culture and identity in climate advocacy, comparing models of community centers and movement facilities, and the challenges of maintaining community spaces for the purposes of facilitating and building grassroots power in the environmental justice movement.
read more +
Movement Practice
Environmental Justice is a Yoga.
A central focus of our Social Ecologies Project is collective, community-controlled public health initiatives. Community health, by us and for us. We know environmental justice begins with the environment that we can cultivate and control within ourselves and for our bodies. Our Community Yoga Practice brings us together and brings us into better conversation with our bodies as we release tension and stress and build a foundation of strength from which to sustain our work.
Taught by Tracy of HotFlowerYoga, a Bikram and mat pilates and trauma-informed instructor, who brings years of experience in affirming, beginner’s mind focused community health education.
Ecology Training
We need a metabolic shift to fix the metabolic rift.
Whether guiding conservation projects, practicing citizen science in our local parks, or installing solar in a community garden, we use ecology training to build skills and confidence in our community members and partners to be well-equipped and -educated advocates for our ecosystems.
Through our composting trainings for example, we build a practice understanding of the powerful potential in composting to reduce harmful waste accumulation. We don’t want or need any expanded landfills. We don’t need corporate controlled waste management. We need community-controlled, regenerative bio-waste management.
To begin to build our confidence as the community that is seeking to be empowered and lead in our own solutions we need to continue to grow our skills and spread education amongst one another.
Join EMEAC and Sustainable Community Farms for a 4-week intensive composting school where you will learn about how to compost starting in your home and how to properly produce highly nutritious compost no matter where you live or how much space you have!
Board of Directors
We work to build environmental justice through democratic, revolutionary organizing. And we believe that an educated and organized mass of everyday people can transform society from a force of environmental destruction to one of healing and regeneration.
East Michigan Environmental Action Council works to build a movement to produce environmental justice as a transformation of society. We work to build a transformative environmental justice movement from within the broad base of neighborhoods and communities of Southeast Michigan. We analyze our community’s collective problems and work toward real solutions, those that address root causes and produce lasting change, working within our Six Pillars of Power:
- Science & Knowledge Production
- Eco-Socialism: Ecological & Economic Freedom
- Black Liberation: Internationalism & Solidarity
- People’s schools: Political Education & Organizing
- Black Arts & Culture: Spiritual Grounding & Ancestral Veneration
- Radical Futurity: Youth Power & Intergenerational Study
Office Hours Mon – Sat
10.00am – 4.00pm (except holidays)
email: umoja@emeac.org
phone: (313) 556-1702
Detroit, MI 48201
