UPROSE has led environmental justice efforts in Sunset Park with a focus on climate justice and sustainable growth. The following Impact Statement showcases UPROSE’s key initiatives and successes in promoting community resilience, youth leadership, and a shift to a greener, just future.

 

1. Leadership Development and Base Building

• Trained over 100 youth leaders of color through its Climate Justice Youth Training, focusing on the nuances of environmental justice and community activism.
• Engaged over 200 adults and elders in community learning circles, covering vital topics such as Just Transition, social cohesion, resilience, and climate justice, thereby cultivating intergenerational community leadership.
• Organized 8 NYC Climate Justice Youth Summits, drawing in over 3,000 young people from across the NYC region to raise consciousness about climate justice issues.
• Significantly expanded open spaces and made infrastructure improvements that included the restoration of the B37 service, the prevention of a 520 megawatt power plant siting, enhancements to make 4th Avenue more pedestrian-friendly, and the planting of hundreds of trees.
• Successfully trained an average of 50 young people per year over the past five years, contributing to a robust pipeline of informed, passionate environmental justice advocates.

2. Cutting-edge Just Transition initiatives

• The re-launch of the Green Resilience Industrial District (GRID) plan, aiming for the green reindustrialization of Sunset Park’s industrial waterfront, operationalizing a Just Transition for the community.
• The introduction of the Just Transition Worker Resource Initiative, a pioneering effort to connect the historically marginalized communities of Sunset Park and surrounding areas with the opportunities of the emerging clean economy, focusing on jobs and training.

3. Historic Investments/Achievements

• Mobilizing for the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in port rehabilitation funding, paving the way for an offshore wind assembly and maintenance hub on the waterfront. This monumental effort is expected to create 1,200 jobs in the clean energy economy.
• Leading a successful 7-year campaign against a rezoning proposal that threatened the displacement of Sunset Park’s working-class residents and small businesses. This victory ensured the space for a community-led Just Transition.
• Celebrating the opening of Bush Terminal Park in fall 2015, a 22-acre park developed on a historical brownfield site. This achievement marked a significant environmental justice victory, reflecting the community’s recreational, public health, and climate needs.