The Green For All Academy
The Green For All Academy aims to expand, educate and engage the base of support for climate solutions and a clean-energy economy in America. It does this by identifying and cultivating local leaders from communities of color and low-income communities across the nation, helping them develop and apply their skills and resources to organize for change in their cities. Academy Fellows are on-the-ground leaders in the movement to create an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.
How the Academy Works
Academy Candidates go through a three-day training ranging from media and messaging to the economics of green. They commit to a nine-month term of service as ambassadors of the movement in their communities. After nine months of organizing educational events and workshops, speaking at conferences, running policy and organizing campaigns, creating training programs and urban gardens, and otherwise serving their communities, Academy Candidates graduate to become Green For All Academy Fellows.
For Fellows, Green For All’s ongoing leadership development opportunities include: advanced trainings and convenings; coaching; resource support; national speaking and leadership opportunities; regional projects with other Fellows; opportunities to both mentor and be mentored; and channels into Green For All’s specialized departments.
The Academy Fellows
The Green For All Academy has trained three classes. Nearly 100 Green For All Fellows are now pioneering new and effective strategies for engaging low-income communities of color in the national debates around climate solutions and green jobs. They work in more than 50 cities in 25 states (plus the District of Columbia) throughout the country. Once they have completed their nine-month term of service, Fellows join an active alumni network that Green For All maintains online. As alumni, Fellows have further opportunities to develop their leadership, such as the three-day training planned for the summer of 2010. They also continue to be connected to a national support network of Fellows, other issue-based programs, resources and trainings, and leadership development and speaking opportunities.
The Fellows and Green For All's Strategy
While Fellows take individual initiative in creating events tailored to their communities, they also participate collectively in strategic Green For All initiatives.
Green Jobs Now!
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The first class helped draw more than 50,000 people to Green For All’s "Green Jobs Now" National Day of Action in September 2008, organizing anchor events in major metropolitan areas throughout the country.
The first and second classes both joined Green For All staff and allies in Washington D.C. last February to lobby their congressional representatives and deliver petitions, photos, and testimonials from their communities. Fellows called for green investment in struggling communities, targeted-hiring provisions and job training for low-income workers and workers of color, and green service opportunities — all of which came to fruition in bills like the Serve America Act and the American Clean Energy and Security Act.
The third class has been a key part of Green For All’s efforts to get a strong climate and energy bill through the U.S. Senate. The third class has also participated in the Green The Block Campaign (including days of service) and served as key volunteers in Green For All’s efforts to green major concert tours like those of the Black Eyed Peas and Drake.
Green For All looks forward to investing further in the Academy Fellows and, together, helping to create a green economy that lifts people out of poverty in 2010 and beyond.
The Focus of the New Class
We are very excited to be ushering in our fourth Academy class, in November 2010. This exceptional group of leaders will be focused primarily on leading community-based initiatives for improvements in local green infrastructure as well as providing environmental literacy education to their constituents using the Roots of Success environmental literacy curriculum. The Roots of Success curriculum will help to prepare community members to participate in the growing green economy as business-owners, employees, and advocates. Local projects will be focused in a number of growing sectors of the green economy such as Food security/community agriculture, Water preservation, Energy efficiency, and Renewable Energy.
Uduak Ntuk — Bakersfield, CA
Uduak Ntuk is an engineer with one of the world’s leading integrated energy companies. He is a technical professional that believes the economy and the environment are not mutually exclusive. Committed to protecting the environment and promoting sustainability, he has volunteered with the non-profit Alliance for Climate Protection since 2006 where he was personally trained by Nobel Laureate Al Gore to deliver dozens of technical presentations on the science and solutions to Global Warming.
