NOLa receives $50,000 for youth-led climate change projects
1st July 2024 · 0 Comments
By Safura Syed
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) — New Orleans has received $50,000 from Bloomberg Philanthropies to invest in youth-led projects that help address the climate crisis, Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s office announced earlier this month.
The city was among 100 cities around the world to participate in Bloomberg’s Youth Climate Action Fund, which aims to provide young people with financial tools to design and implement climate solutions. The award will be distributed by the Greater New Orleans Foundation, a philanthropic organization, in the form of grants ranging between $1,000 and $5,000.
People between the ages of 15 and 24 with a project idea can now submit applications for a grant, but must be associated with a nonprofit that can accept the funds. Applications closed on July 1 and winners will be announced in mid-August. The mayor’s offices of Youth and Families and of Resilience and Sustainability are spearheading the initiative along with GNOF. Asya Howlette, the director of the Office of Youth and Families, said she is excited about giving young people this opportunity.
“We’re saying, ‘We want you to be pioneers of what comes to be in our city, and so here is some seed money for you to start to do that work,’” Howlette said. Residents in climate-vulnerable cities like New Orleans – which is susceptible to deadlier hurricanes, increased flooding, and extreme heat – experience a toll on their mental well-being. According to the American Psychological Association, flooding is associated with increased levels of anxiety, PTSD and depressive symptoms. Underserved communities, like people of color and those with disabilities, are at higher risk of danger from acute climate events and their associated mental health setbacks. Dan Favre, the director of environmental programs at GNOF, hopes the fund will help create more equitable climate solutions.
“When I talk about equitable climate solutions, equitable climate adaptation and mitigation, it means projects that center BIPOC and other communities who are most affected by climate change,” Favre said. “And then, through that, you catalyze a reduction in environmental harm for everybody.”
Arthur Johnson, executive director of Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development, hopes that the city will commit to granting the money equitably while making sure that underserved communities know about the fund.
“There are projects that may be coming from communities that are usually left out,” Johnson said. “Sometimes they don’t apply because they don’t feel that they have an opportunity [to be selected for a grant].”
Anna Nguyen with the Office of Resilience and Sustainability said the fund’s selection committee is committed to diversifying how the grants are distributed by age, location in the city and project type. Howlette said the Office of Youth and Families has reached out to the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center, school leaders and libraries to help spread the word.
According to the APA’s 2023 report, being involved in creating climate solutions can help reduce the effects of climate anxiety in young people. Howlette said she hopes the fund will also increase the youth’s trust in their city and encourage them to stay in New Orleans.
“If we do not give them opportunities – a multitude of opportunities – when they’re young and coming up through our city, then I think that limits what they believe is possible,” Howlette said. “We want our…young people to say…‘New Orleans is a city that believed in me, that gave me opportunity.’”
Although community and youth-led climate solutions can help reduce anxiety, the APA report says the best way to address mental health problems and the climate crisis that causes those problems is by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The mayor’s office is looking for applications that align with the city’s Climate Action Plan, which aims to have net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The plan has strategies for reducing emissions by investing in clean energy and divesting from fossil fuels, lowering energy usage and improving energy and water infrastructure.
Sage Franz, a member of the New Orleans chapter of the Sunrise Movement, said the group is applying for funds to create a street performance with massive puppets. Franz said she believes the initiative might be meant to quiet calls for more radical strategies to reduce emissions, like divestment from fossil fuel companies. Franz pointed to a generous tax break the city has granted to Shell, a major polluter and emitter, as an example of New Orleans’ inconsistency in creating climate solutions.
“[The Youth Climate Action Fund] feels like a Band-Aid to some degree because a community garden – while getting funding to do that – is amazing in New Orleans, the bigger fight and the fight that no one is really trying to tackle is against big oil and gas in the state,” Franz said.
Climate activists also pointed out that these grants are not enough money to institute large-scale projects like replacing surfaces that don’t soak up rainwater with ones that do or even maintaining a community garden. However, the city has the opportunity to receive $100,000 more in funding from Bloomberg if the initial $50,000 is used by this December.
While Franz said the initiative is a step in the right direction, she said “we need to be doing a lot more” to truly address the climate crisis.
This article originally published in the July 1, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
