The Rural Justice team designs and implements programs aimed at protecting farm workers and residents of rural communities from the effects of pesticides and climate change impacts, especially wildfires and extreme heat. We also provide these stakeholders with resources and education to increase their access to safe and affordable drinking water.
Rural Justice Projects
Resource Guidebooks: Extreme Heat and Wildfires
CCEJN has developed culturally relevant materials to educate farmworkers and residents of rural communities on how to be protected from Extreme Heat and Wildfire Smoke. These guidebooks are available in Spanish, they include visuals and graphics that make the content easy to understand.
Contact us for our guidebooks on extreme heat and wildfires.
Water Equity and Justice for Access to Safe and Affordable Drinking Water:
We increase access to safe and affordable drinking water by offering short-term solutions (i.e. water filtration systems) while we build the local capacity to advocate for long term solutions, through policies and programs that increase access to drinking water resources. Drought Resiliency and Economic Stability Among Farmworkers in Rural Communities: This project supports an ecosystem of partners working on movement building initiatives across the state to build farmworker capacity in rural communities for long-term drought resilience planning, action and structural implementation. Farmworker Leaders Working for Health Equity and Climate Justice: This program increases the capacity of farmworkers to mitigate the effects of climate change, including exposure to wildfire smoke and heat waves. We accomplish this by offering education, free Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), “resiliency kits”; as well as access to text notifications during smoke episodes. The program also creates the spaces and tools to strengthen farmworkers’ knowledge and ability to identify and report environmental problems and the competency of the agencies to collaborate and respond more effectively to these problems.
Wildfire Resilience & Farmworker Outreach Advocacy:
This project supports farmworker advocacy and outreach for safety during wildfire and smoke events. We conduct educational workshops, we form cohorts of farmworker leaders who are trained on how to educate the members of their cuadrillas. CCEJN staff also conducts outreach activities to distribute informational wallet cards about the health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure, ways to mitigate exposure and N95 masks.
Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program (MLRP) and Just Transition for Farmworkers in the Central Valley:
We work to identify opportunities to help advance a just transition for farmworkers as the agricultural industry comes to terms that it can no longer operate at the scale that it does today in the face of a growing and worsening climate crisis. CCEJN organizes residents of impacted communities in the Westlands Irrigation District to support the development of proposals of projects that are responsive to community needs.
Weather Resilience Pilot Project:
This project provides weather resilient home solutions for approximately 250 low-income households in the Central Valley. We are targeting communities that are more vulnerable to multiple weather-related emergencies and accompanying quality of life needs. For this pilot phase, CCEJN will be distributing air purifiers, water filtration systems, and heating and cooling devices, to help these households withstand and adapt to the extreme temperatures and poor air quality that plague this region.
Community Engagement in Green Energy Projects:
This project engages communities in western Fresno County in planning and development of clean energy projects. Through collaboration with community leaders, we will focus on increasing funding and policies that truly address the needs of western Fresno County residents.