DETROIT DIGITAL JUSTICE COALITION: The Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DJC) is comprised of people and organizations in Detroit who believe that communication is a fundamental human right. We are securing that right through activities that are grounded in the digital justice principles of: access, participation, common ownership, and healthy communities. East Michigan Environmental Action Council along with 10 other grassroots organizations and independent technologists in Detroit founded the coalition which emerged out of conversations that took place during the 2009 Allied Media Conference workshop, "A Healthy Digital Ecology: Creating a Community Vision for Federal Broadband Funding." Since August 2009 we have been building a shared vision for digital justice in Detroit, strategizing around collaborative applications for federal broadband funding, and preparing for community-wide educational events that will include everything from Internet policy workshops to hands-on technology stations.

STAND UP SPEAK OUT: (SUSO) is the advocacy arm of EMEAC. SUSO programs and activities advocate for environmental justice in Southeast Michigan through legislative policy initiatives while encouraging community involvement through our youth and adult education and training.

SUSO has recently worked in conjunction with other environmental justice organizations in Detroit to make pro-environmental policy changes like the Zero-Waste Detroit initiatives to eliminate tax payer subsidies for a major environmental polluters like the Detroit Incinerator. SUSO has also advocated for successful pro-environmental regulations like the anti-idling ordinance for commercial vehicles within the city limits of Detroit.

SUSO also conducts environmental education classes and training in select local schools for students in grades 6-12. SUSO also is conducting a youth leadership initiative aimed at young people ages 16-20 in the Detroit community.


ZERO WASTE DETROIT: EMEAC is a member of Zero Waste Detroit, a coalition of Detroit organizations that support and work toward the implementation of the City’s adopted New Business Model for Detroit Solid Waste. This Business Model aims to eliminate the incineration of Detroit’s trash, and instead implement a city-wide recycling program. Coalition partners include: Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, East Michigan Environmental Action Council, Ecology Center, Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit, Greenacres Woodward Civic Association, Rosedale Recycles, Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES), Michigan Environmental Council, Sierra Club Southeast Michigan Group, Sierra Club Environmental Justice Program, Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, and the Sugar Law Center for Environmental Justice.


GREENER SCHOOLS: The Greener Schools Initiative brings children in Detroit schools closer to nature. We believe that by instilling a sense of interconnectedness and love for the environment our youth can become advocates for their environment and their communities.

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MULTICULTURAL ENVIRONMENTAL ARTS & SCIENCES (MEAS) LABS provide environmental justice education in the classroom through hands-on lessons covering subjects including biodiversity, air quality, water quality, food security, cooking, and Sharing Nature with Children. We currently have two labs at Palmer Park Preparatory Academy and Nsoroma Institute where students investigate local environmental issues, grow their own vegetables, sell plants to parents and teachers, and create nature themed or recycled art projects. We work closely with teachers in order to supplement their core subjects and align our lessons to Grade Level Curriculum Expectations.


THE UGLIEST SCHOOLYARD COMPETITION provides a way for Detroit public and charter schools to create their own natural environments and outdoor classrooms at their school. Winning schools receive a $10,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation for their outdoor classroom. A University of Michigan Landscape Designer teachers an introductory course in landscape design and the students themselves participate in the design and construction their own natural spaces in their schoolyards. Projects and designs have included a meditation path, a pond, a native plant habitat, and an interactive showcase for green technology.

GARDENING ANGELS: program is a partnership with the Luella Hannan Foundation through the Community Foundation's Senior Engagement Program. Gardening Angels brings youth and seniors together in partnership to work for environmental justice and healthy, sustainable communities. Through a process of sharing and learning, youth and elders explore environmental justice and food security issues; they work together in school garden projects; and young people document the histories of their elders to learn about their lives and the communities that shaped them. Activities include Learning Circles, Oral History trainings and recordings, gardening exchanges, and food justice lessons.



REMEDIA: The Remedia program does media production for East Michigan Environmental Action Council, which is an Environmental Justice non-profit based in Detroit. Remedia empowers community members, youth and adult, with the skills and technological tools to tell their own stories about environmental issues in SE Michigan. These can be public service announcements, music videos, short films, digital art works or documentaries about air quality, water access and affordability, land use or food security. We also have an environmental justice media fellows program where program participants are hired by area justice organizations to meet their media needs around documentation and promotions.

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DETROIT FOOD JUSTICE TASK FORCE: While abandoned by major supermarket chains, Detroit, like many inner city communities, has rich social and environmental capital that has been largely untapped or under-utilized in addressing food security for the people in our communities. The Task Force brings together a broad coalition of local growers, social, environmental and media justice organizations, schools, churches, food educators, restaurants, caterers and restaurant suppliers, the City of Detroit, representatives from the Michigan Environmental Council, community activists, residents and stakeholders. The members of the task force represent a broad spectrum of experience and resources in food production, distribution, land use, restaurant and other end users/retail options who will work together to:

• Develop and implement strategies to expand urban agriculture production Improve food access and security
• Create jobs
• Contribute to community sustainability.

To empower Detroiters to assess and improve food justice and security in their own neighborhoods, FJTF will develop Planning Toolkit providing information and resources on:

• Food Justice Literacy
• Best Practice Research and Development
• Environmental Justice Literacy
• Community Assessment and Data Analysis
• Food Justice Media & Media Literacy

DETROIT DIGITAL JUSTICE COALITION: The Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DJC) is comprised of people and organizations in Detroit who believe that communication is a fundamental human right. We are securing that right through activities that are grounded in the digital justice principles of: access, participation, common ownership, and healthy communities. East Michigan Environmental Action Council along with 10 other grassroots organizations and independent technologists in Detroit founded the coalition which emerged out of conversations that took place during the 2009 Allied Media Conference workshop, "A Healthy Digital Ecology: Creating a Community Vision for Federal Broadband Funding." Since August 2009 we have been building a shared vision for digital justice in Detroit, strategizing around collaborative applications for federal broadband funding, and preparing for community-wide educational events that will include everything from Internet policy workshops to hands-on technology stations.



DETROIT FUTUREDetroit Future consists of three programs that put the Detroit Digital Justice Principles into practice: Detroit Future Media, Detroit Future Schools and Detroit Future Youth. These three programs collaborate to tell stories about their accomplishments, challenges and realizations, with the goal of making the work transparent and replicable. The Detroit Future DECODE (documentation, evaluation and communications) team synthesizes those stories into a new narratives about Detroit and its future.

Detroit Future Media
DF Media is growing a community media economy in Detroit. Students choose to focus on either education, entrepreneurship and community organizing and select media production workshops in video, web and graphic design to integrate with their focus track. Participants graduate with the unique skill sets necessary to train other Detroiters in digital media, create their own jobs, foster collaborative forms of community wealth creation, and support media-based community organizing for a better Detroit. 

Detroit Future Youth
DF Youth aims to strengthen and deepen youth social justice organizing in Detroit by partnering with youth programs that focus on social justice based education and multimedia creation, who are using digital media to transform ourselves and our communities. Our mission is to build a Detroit youth network. Our Vision is to grow a youth led movement in Detroit. Network members share a commitment to authentic youth-leadership development that fosters the future creators, problem-solvers and social change-makers our city needs.


Detroit Future Schools
DF Schools partners graduates from Detroit Future Media with K-12 teachers to design and implement digital media arts-integrated curriculum. The goal of DFS is to use digital media arts to provide the project-based learning experiences that students need to understand and shape their worlds. Participating teachers and artists receive a full year of professional development support to implement and improve their instructional practices.



DETROIT DIGITAL JUSTICE COALITION: The Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DJC) is comprised of people and organizations in Detroit who believe that communication is a fundamental human right. We are securing that right through activities that are grounded in the digital justice principles of: access, participation, common ownership, and healthy communities. East Michigan Environmental Action Council along with 10 other grassroots organizations and independent technologists in Detroit founded the coalition which emerged out of conversations that took place during the 2009 Allied Media Conference workshop, "A Healthy Digital Ecology: Creating a Community Vision for Federal Broadband Funding." Since August 2009 we have been building a shared vision for digital justice in Detroit, strategizing around collaborative applications for federal broadband funding, and preparing for community-wide educational events that will include everything from Internet policy workshops to hands-on technology stations.