EDUCATING PEOPLE WITH THE TOOLS TO TAKE ACTION TOWARDS INTERSECTIONAL HEALTHCARE.
“Education without social action is a one‐sided value because it has no true power potential. Social action without education is a weak expression of pure energy. ”
— Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
EDUCATION
We know that action begins with education. So we are developing enriching, fun, and invigorating educational materials that are founded in real, up-to-date science for anyone ready to explore the health effects of environmental crises, the intersections between cracks in the American healthcare system and these large-scale ecological instabilities (i.e. climate change), social determinants of health, inequities in access to healthcare across race and socioeconomic class, and most importantly (!) what we can do about it.
Education is one of the most underutilized health interventions.
At Avritah, we believe that an education at the intersection of these issues serves as an opportunity to acquire the tools to understand the tangible and intangible ways that we can take action to recreate the systems that have led to environmental degradation and that the environmental crises that appear before us have impact on our health at all levels. Additionally, we hope to provide insight into the reforms that need to happen in order to create a system of healthcare that serves all people impacted by these problems.
EVERYONE HAS A VOICE
The quest to take action to prevent the degradation of the environment and to reform systems of human health to serve everyone who needs access and care requires our complete collaboration and willingness to learn.
As environmental systems sicken and our work for justice becomes daily, we believe that everyone, from patient to doctor, from citizen to politician, from socially engaged human to activist needs to understand these systemic issues. Furthermore, it is crucial that each of us understands how we can come together to act at the inflection points closest to us that can be used to leverage widespread change.
Often, change comes from uplifting the voices and rallying behind the young people and communities who are most affected by these issues of environmental health. This is precisely why we are developing an accessible platform to educate all folx interested in these intersections and the ways that they pertain to the areas that they find most immediately relevant for their action.
Our Platform
Curriculum
We are working on a digital platform for education at the intersection of health and the environment led by BIPOC youth and their allies. We hope that this platform is one that can be integrated into the classroom, used for school clubs (see our upcoming Chapters for more!), worked into professional development trainings, included in self-education, revisited for relearning how to care, focused on for intentional self-renewal, or simply indulged in for a refuel of passion.
Accessibility
We believe that this curriculum should be made accessible to everyone. In its creation, we particularly considered young people as well as the need for current and future health professionals to bring forward these conversations in their training and in their community circles to create an ethical system of healthcare that considers effectively both people (of all racial and ethnic backgrounds) and the planet.
Chapters
Our chapter model seeks to bring the insights of Avritah and the larger mycelium to which it is connected to campuses and communities everywhere. As the intersections of health equity and environmental justice become increasingly clear, it is deeply impactful to realize the collective action and platform that we build as a community. We believe that chapters allow us to approach environmental issues with a community-based and action-focused model and will also allow us to mobilize nationally around the issues we care about most. Please reach out if you’re interested in bringing Avritah to your community!
Coming Spring 2020.
SPOTLIGHT PROJECT
Harvard Environmental Action + Leadership Summit
HEALS was created by Team Avritah & co-hosted by the Harvard Office of Sustainability + Earth Friendly Products, Makers of ECOS. 100 students, university admin, politicians, business leaders, and scientists came together to highlight opportunities for systemic change.