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Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

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MELISSA: I’m Melissa Gouge, a Sociologist in the Office of 

Research and Evaluation at AmeriCorps. And today I 

warmly welcome you to our presentation, Civic and 

Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: Exploring 

Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service. Not 

only do we at the Office of Research and Evaluation, 

but also our AmeriCorps programs dedicate funds and 

people power to solving these issues in different 

ways. 

Under increasing conditions of climate change, our 

mission to improve lives, strengthen communities, and 

foster civic engagement through service and 

volunteering is increasingly important. More frequent 

and severe environmental disasters resulting from 

climate change need immediate attention and 

organized, inclusive community and policy level 

solutions. People, Power, Change represents but one 

opportunity we have for slowing, halting, or 

optimistically reversing the effects. 
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In today’s webinar you’ll hear from Dr. Dana Fisher 

who will frame the topic within the literature and 

her own pressing research as she opens the 

presentation. In her brief framing she lays out the 

promise of civic engagement in the fight against the 

global climate crisis. She’ll be followed by Office 

of Research and Evaluation research grantees at 

universities across the United States and in Puerto 

Rico. 

 Our office funded each of these institutions and 

their community partner organizations in 2018 to 

conduct at least three years of participatory 

research in the most collaborative sense, where 

community and university researchers collaborate to 

identify issues around climate change and disaster, 

develop research questions, develop data collection 

methods and analysis, and importantly, to come 

together to devise and implement research backed 

action plans to solve these issues. 
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Whether organized or not, people can see the effects 

of climate change and other local issues. The 

participatory action research process helps to equip 

people with the tools of systematic research, 

organizing around this research to action process 

makes clearer the connections between the issues 

around them, collective solutions, and selfempowerment to demand systemic, institutional, and 

policy level changes to solve local issues, changes 

that are capable of rippling across communities that 

bubble up to greater institutional change. Civic 

engagement of a knowledgeable public will be crucial 

to halting climate change in our time. 

Our presenters today from the University of Nevada, 

University of Puerto Rico at Humacao, Texas Southern 

University, and the University of Houston describe 

the local issues and the communities experiencing 

them, often those who are silenced, vulnerable, and 

most marginalized. Each of them tells a story of 

young people, elders, migrants, and disenfranchised 

folks, the people most impacted by climate change 
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coming together to investigate community problems and 

to institute science based solutions to them. These 

stories of community participation, in particular of 

marginalized people, is but one example of climate 

justice in action. 

After our grantees presentations you’ll hear from 

Shane Dermanjian, an Analyst in our office who took 

his own experiences with climate change and decision 

to do something about it by joining AmeriCorps and 

serving for two years and has since made it his 

career to work at the intersection of research, 

community participation, and climate change. 

Finally, you’ll hear from another scholar and Office 

of Research and Evaluation staffer, Dr. Laura Hanson 

Schlachter, as she offers her reflections on the 

collective story of hope each of these folks present 

with a nod to building a world together that we can 

all enjoy. 
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DANA: Hi, everybody. I’m Dana Fisher. I’m a Professor of 

Sociology and the Director of the Program for Society 

and the Environment at the University of Maryland. 

And I was asked to give some introductory remarks 

about environmental stewardship, conservation, 

climate, and social justice. 

I want to start by thanking AmeriCorps and my 

colleagues, Mary, specifically, and Andrea for the 

invitation to speak. I thought we’d give a little bit 

of context to begin. I’m a sociologist. I study the 

formal and informal institutions of democracy, 

broadly defined. And I use a mixture of quantitative 

and qualitative methods in my research. I have 

extensive research experience studying specifically 

stewardship, activism, civil and political 

engagement, and decision making broadly in America, 

some of it internationally. And much of the work has 

focused specifically on looking at young Americans 

and youth based movements. 
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So, even though I’m very much an empirically focused 

social scientist, I work very hard to communicate my 

findings beyond the ivory tower. I do a lot of work 

with the media, I’ve worked with and presented to 

foundations, civic groups, political campaigns as 

well as governmental institutions. And part of that 

is actually that I have been contributing to the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their 

most recent assessment review, my part is coming out 

in April. I’m part of Working Group Three and I 

specifically was asked to contribute as an author, a 

section specifically looking at civic activism and 

civic engagement and how it plays a role in climate. 

And a lot of the comments that I’m going to be making 

today build off of the work that I’ve been doing with 

the IPCC. 

So, just as a little bit of background here. So, this 

is a definition of environmental stewardship that 

came out of collaboration and long-term work that I 

was doing with colleagues over at the U.S. Forest 

Service. This is part of a paper that we published in 
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2007. And we basically define environmental 

stewardship as a collection of types of activities 

that people might do. Urban environmental stewards 

conserve, manage, monitor, advocate for or educate 

the public about the local environment. 

And in much of my early work, which was in 

collaboration with folks over at USDA and the U.S. 

Forest Service, the focus was on re-greening efforts 

in cities. And we did extensive research in New York 

City, but also comparative research in Washington DC 

as well as in Philadelphia to look at how stewardship 

was taking place and how it was playing a role in regreening efforts. 

More recently we’ve expanded that work. And so, 

you’ll see in the middle here this is a book that was 

written based on the research that we conducted in 

New York City and that is based on a case study 

specifically of the Million Trees Initiative, which 

planted a million trees in New York City. And the 

research was not about the planting of the million 
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trees, because I’m a social scientist and I study 

stewardship, it was actually about the people who got 

involved and did the work of planting the trees and 

how that happened. 

And when we do this kind of work there are a number 

of questions that we ask. I should just say, to take 

a step back before I talk about these questions 

though, that at the same time recently I’ve looked a 

lot at civic participation around climate activism 

and other types of climate engagement, and you see 

here a piece that I wrote for Nature Climate Change 

which was about the broader importance of Fridays for 

Future and the ways that participating in climate 

strikes are likely to have an effect on civic 

participation for the young people who participate, 

but also a piece that I wrote that builds on my 

contribution to the IPCC that talks specifically 

about climate activism and its effects. And I don’t 

mean effects just in terms of civic effects, 

political effects, but I also talk about 

environmental effects there. 
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So, here when we think broadly in terms of 

contextualizing thinking through environmental 

stewardship there are a number of questions that we 

want to ask with regard to what are the effects of 

stewardship. And I think it’s really important to 

think about this in terms of scale because it’s not 

just about the individuals who participate, but also 

the communities involved, those that are involved in 

partnering with the stewards themselves, but also the 

environment and how the environment is affected by 

the stewardship that is taking place. 

So, a lot of the work that I’ve been doing more 

recently asks these four questions. You know, who is 

participating in environmental stewardship across the 

United States? Who doesn’t participate? And if we can 

understand if there are systemic barriers to 

participation. And this is one of the questions that 

we can ask really by thinking through who is applying 

to participate, who is showing interest in 

participating versus who is participating. Are these 
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types of activities related to other kinds of 

environmental and civic participation? Are they 

associated while people are working as stewards? Do 

they have lasting effects as we’ve seen in other 

research on environmental stewardship and other types 

of civic participation? 

But, also how does the nature of the work in terms of 

the site type, the skill level, the organizational 

structure of the activity, and the partners involved 

relate to the nature of civic participation during 

but also after? I know many people in the government 

are really interested in these long-term effects in 

terms of effects on the individuals but the 

communities and the partner groups as well. 

And finally, and I think that this is a really 

interesting question in terms of thinking about how 

does participating in environmental stewardship 

strengthen the roots of democracy? That was the focus 

of the book that we wrote but also more recent 

articles. And connected to that is thinking through 
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how environmental stewardship has actual 

environmental effects in terms of specific ways that 

we think about environmental bads, but also 

environmental goods in terms of protecting 

environmental goods or contributing to environmental 

bads. 

And this comes up a lot when we think about climate 

change and that’s one of the things that I spent a 

lot of times thinking about with regard to the IPCC 

work because one of the questions that we have to ask 

ourselves is how does specific types of environmental 

stewardship around climate, how does it actually have 

effects on contributions to climate change in terms 

of emissions? And one of the big challenges here is 

that very little research actually tries to measure 

that. We have the capacity, but we haven’t done it 

yet. And I talk at length in the piece that you see 

on the left part of your screen about what the 

challenges are there, but also about opportunities 

for thinking through that and starting to measure 

these outcomes in meaningful ways. 
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Finally, before we get to the rest of the speakers, I 

just wanted to share some resources that are 

available. Many of them are available open source 

online. I also am happy to share PDFs. So, feel free 

to get in touch with me if you have questions. And I 

look forward to the rest of the presentations today. 

Thank you so much for coming. 

MELISSA: Thank you, Doctors King and Pritzker. I’ll now be 

handing this off to Dr. Vasquez-Rivera. 

DENAE: Greetings. I am Dr. Denae King from Texas Southern 

University. And I along with my colleague, Dr. 

Suzanne Pritzker from the University of Houston will 

be presenting our findings from our project focused 

on experiences related to civic engagement following 

impacts of Hurricane Harvey. Next slide. 

So two universities, The University of Houston and 

Texas Southern University came together to partner 

with four communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey. 
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And we want to point out that where these communities 

are located on this image is actually where the 

communities are positioned in the city of Houston. 

The communities include Near Northside, 

Pleasantville, Westbury, and the Alief community. 

These are four very diverse communities consisting of 

residents who are Hispanic-Latino, African American, 

White, and even a large immigrant population. Next 

slide. 

So, in 2017, Hurricane Harvey, a category IV storm, 

hit Houston, Texas. It was considered a once in 1,000 

years flood event that left us with 33 trillion 

gallons of rain, $125 billion dollars in damage, 

154,000 homes flooded, over a 100 people lost their 

lives during Hurricane Harvey, 75 Houston schools 

were closed due to damage caused, 175,000 voter 

registration card deliveries were affected because 

Hurricane Harvey hit in August and we were preparing 

for November elections, and unfortunately impacted 

communities are still working to recover to this day. 

Next slide. 
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So, in 2019, we came together to work on a project 

focused on how Hurricane Harvey might have impacted 

the way community members experienced civic 

engagement. And you can see once again we were 

working with our four communities: Near Northside, 

Pleasantville, Westbury, and Alief. 

So, this was a community-based participatory research 

project. We worked with the four communities. Our 

community partners identify residents who then served 

as co-researchers. So, there were 8 co-researchers, 2 

per community. They worked alongside our university 

team to really develop a plan focused on conducting 

focus groups and interviews, and these were done in 5 

languages including English, Spanish, Urdu, Chinese 

Mandarin, and Vietnamese. So, the co-researchers 

recruited their participants and then they were also 

trained by our university team to facilitate these 

interviews and focus groups. So 26 focus groups were 

conducted along with 14 interviews with key 

informants. And that led to a total of 190 
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participants. The co-researchers worked with us 

closely to analyze the findings and also to develop 

recommendations that led to 12 thematic categories 

that really highlighted the challenges and 

opportunities as it relates to civic engagement. Next 

slide. 

Next, my colleague Dr. Pritzker will share more 

findings from the project. 

SUZANNE: So, thank you, Dr. King. So now I want to 

share some things, some findings from our study in 

the words of the participants themselves as we looked 

at the lived experience of civic engagement both 

ultimately as we asked these questions after 

Hurricane Harvey, we learned a lot about the 

experience of civic engagement before, during, and 

after Harvey. 

So, building on that, as we engaged in intensive 

qualitative analysis of our focus group and interview 

data working with our co-researchers, the findings 
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ultimately fell within sort of three big, big buckets 

of findings. We learned a lot about community 

member’s perceptions of disaster prevention and 

preparation. And in the words of one of our 

participants, “We need to be prepared, because this 

isn’t just a one- or two-time thing.” 

We learned a lot about community members’ experiences 

with disaster response and short-term recovery as 

they talked about helping people who are affected by 

the disaster. And then we heard extensive amounts, 

extensive discussion around long-term disaster 

recovery. As Denae mentioned, we conducted this 

research two years after Harvey and residents were 

sharing with us, as we know some still are today, 

that Harvey has come and gone and we still have 

people who are hurting in the aftermath of it. 

So I want to start by sharing with you two major 

themes that emerged around prevention and 

preparation. First, community members repeatedly 

talked about how Houston is not prepared for a 
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hurricane or storm. They shared with us their 

feelings that infrastructure is not built to protect 

the public. They wanted government officials and 

other entities to stop building, to stop building in 

already existing flood zones and contributing, as 

they perceived it, to the problems of the disasters 

that are taking place and how they’re impacted. And 

they felt deep, deep distrust in politicians for 

saying things that they were going to do to better 

protect and prevent disasters but then not following 

through. 

Participants also talked extensively about the needs 

for detailed emergency planning and their feelings 

that those didn’t exist. They wanted faster more 

direct ways to be prepared as a community, 

information for how to prevent disaster or the 

impacts of disaster, but they also wanted more 

supports in their community. They wanted places to go 

and plans ahead of time so not when the disaster hit, 

but beforehand to know where can I go, where can we 

go for safety and shelter. They felt like there was 
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no planning around people who were disabled and 

elderly in their communities and wanted someone to 

come for them and for their neighbors and for there 

to be plans around this. 

And they described also a lack of access to medical 

supplies and needing access as they were, left their 

homes, for example, not being able to access needed 

medical supplies and other things that they need. And 

wanting to see infrastructure that plans for our 

emergencies and for our disasters. 

Community members spoke extensively around disaster 

response and short-term recovery in their 

experiences. So they shared a lot of their emotion, 

how heartbreaking the whole experience was to see the 

disaster hit their communities as these quotes that 

we’re sharing are sort of sub-themes that emerged 

that we saw repeatedly in the data. And participants 

talked about their houses that flooded, seeing 

flooded houses, their own and those around them, and 

how sad that was. They spoke about their anxiety and 
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all of the difficult feelings that they were 

struggling with in the immediate hit and aftermath of 

Harvey, but also just the challenges around not being 

able to get food, other resources directly to support 

them. 

But, they also talked extensively about the feelings 

of support, the ways that participation was 

spontaneous, people jumped in to help each other. 

They came by, they said, ‘Is there anything we can 

do?’ This sort of uniting support, people coming in 

ways that many of them just really stood out. That 

people wanting to come and help and their own 

desires, even as they had been flooded themselves or 

impacted themselves, to want to go and help their 

neighbors, to go help elderly members of their 

communities. 

As this help was happening, though, a theme that kept 

coming up was around coordination. That while there 

was a lot of help it didn’t always feel coordinated, 

it often didn’t feel coordinated. That they didn’t 
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know where to go. They had to go one place for food 

and another place for cleaning supplies and another 

place, and how do they go and where do they go? And 

they felt sort of knocked all over the place and 

unsure, and who was providing this and who was 

providing that? And that left some residents feeling 

like there really wasn’t support. So, even though 

there was kind of this help going on, finding it, 

accessing it felt unsupported. 

Also in the sort of response and recovery phase, 

community members talked about information. They 

talked about – For some community members they talked 

about ways they shared information. Those sort of 

extensive networks of passing information out that 

took place within their communities. And in some of 

the communities we partnered with the ways in which 

the internet was helpful, the ways in which, for 

example, Facebook groups that formed in the immediate 

aftermath of Harvey were helpful in sharing 

information. 
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But, at the same time, we heard extensive frustration 

around needing help and not getting information. So 

while there was some sharing of information between 

each other, there was a lot of lack of being able to 

find information about whether it was resources, 

support, what’s going on? And then particularly that 

this information was not available in languages other 

than English. We live in Houston. Houston is an 

extremely diverse city with people who speak many 

languages. We conducted our research, as Denae 

mentioned, in Spanish, in Urdu, in Vietnamese, and 

Mandarin and finding information in those languages, 

despite large communities that speak each of those 

languages, was very difficult. 

And the in the aftermath as well people started 

wanting to apply for the resources they heard were 

going to be available and then weren’t getting 

information on how to do so and were struggling with 

why am I not qualifying, why am I not getting these 

resources that the media, that my neighbors, that 

others are sharing with me that exist, but I’m not 
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able to get that. So real challenges around 

information emerged. 

This connected I think with discussions around 

leaders. Community members talked about really a 

range of feeling around leaders. How useful response 

is, feeling responsive, to ways in which they didn’t 

trust politicians at all and their employers as well. 

And then finally, we heard a lot about long-term 

recovery. Kind of building on the lack of trust 

people experienced. These questions about where did 

the money go? Money wasn’t distributed fairly. We 

don’t trust what’s happening. These feelings of 

distrust around resource distribution were long 

lasting. Some community members felt that Harvey 

connected them, that it was a catalyst for the 

community, and getting engaged in ways they never 

have before, and yet people also talked about this 

sort of feeling of being forgotten, things going back 

to normal and sort of the urgency that had existed 
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was gone and behind them even as the experiences of 

Harvey lingered. 

And particularly here, several of the neighborhoods 

that we partnered with experienced repeated flooding. 

Harvey was not the only disaster that they 

experienced. And they talked about this sort of 

feeling of what do we do if there’s flooding again? 

We’re sort of abandoned. We’re left behind. What do 

we do when this happens? And this feeling of just 

please don’t flood us, let’s not flood again. And 

then this sort of feeling of we’ve done this again, 

we’re still suffering and we’re still suffering, and 

it’s continuing to go on, no more. How do we stop 

this? How do we better support our communities? Dr. 

King? 

DENAE: And so, as we think about the importance of these 

repeated flooding experiences or these extreme 

weather events, we see that in 2015, the Houston 

community experienced the Memorial Day Flood, only to 

have flooding again in 2016, where we experienced the 
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Tax Day Flood. Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. And then 

in 2019, we experienced Tropical Storm Imelda and it 

just so happened our program officer was visiting 

that day and so she got to actually experience the 

stress and the trauma associated with trying to, one, 

respond to the flooding and figuring out how to 

navigate what to do following the flooding in terms 

of getting to your children and getting to your 

locations. And so, I think that was an interesting 

experience for her. 

And then most recently in 2021, we experienced I 

guess our first real cold weather event where we had 

five to seven days without power and water in the 

Houston community that was caused by Winter Storm 

Uri. So these are repeated natural disasters in the 

Houston community that impacted communities have to 

continue to try to navigate through. Next slide, 

please. 

So, we just want to kind of point out this quote that 

represents participant’s perspectives across the four 
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communities. And this participant said, “When it 

comes down, I’m standing in the dirt praying. It’s 

all you can do. Lord, don’t let this water come in. 

Jesus, not this time.” And so, we just wanted to kind 

of highlight that this was a finding where all four 

communities, participants really resonated in terms 

of them feeling like the repeated natural disasters 

were happening quite consistently, and it’s difficult 

to recover from those. Next slide. 

And so, we worked with our co-researchers to come up 

with some recommendations based on the project 

findings. And the first one really relates to 

meaningful and sustainable disaster preparation with 

a focus on infrastructure. So really understanding 

how the city needs to prepare in terms of flood 

mitigation, flood prevention, and really working with 

communities to understand where flooding occurs 

specifically in their locations. 

And then intentional planning to meet community 

member’s needs. And so, one of the results of this 
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project is that in several of those communities we’re 

actually working on place based disaster plans to 

make sure that there’s a plan in place for residents 

who live in these communities that experience 

recurring flooding that they’re already aware of and 

they know how to implement themselves. 

And then Dr. Pritzker pointed out this one related to 

accessible information as it relates to disaster 

preparedness and recovery. Really knowing where to 

get information from, who should share that 

information, and making sure the information is 

shared in multiple languages. And then the next one 

is focused on increased coordination across 

organizations. And those organizations could include 

community based organization, faith based 

institutions, it include government organizations, 

we’re really working together to make sure that 

you’re not working in silos and that everybody is 

clear about what they’re working on and where 

residents can go as it relates to preparation and 

recovery. 
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And then there’s one related to the awareness of 

distrust. Specifically as we think about resource 

allocation and distribution and making sure that 

those are done equitably. And then the last one once 

again points out that we should really consider the 

community impacts from repeated natural disasters. We 

presented last week in one of those communities, the 

Pleasantville community, on the disaster plan for 

that area, and one of the residents pointed out that 

the importance of whatever we do with that plan that 

we include a mental health component because that 

community had been impacted so many times by natural 

disasters. And so, really thinking about how do you 

work with a community that has experienced such 

trauma. 

And so, we thank you for joining our presentation 

today. And we look forward to sharing more and 

discussing it with you in the future. Thank you. 
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MELISSA: Thank you, Doctors King and Pritzker. I’ll now be 

handing this off to Dr. Vasquez-Rivera. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation:

Carlos: Carlos:

Buenas tardes a todos y todas. 

Mi nombre es el Dr. Carlos 

Vázquez Rivera. Yo soy el 

investigador principal del 

proyecto INARO. 

Good afternoon, everyone. My 

name is Dr. Carlos Vázquez 

Rivera. I am the main 

researcher for the INARO 

project. 

Primero que nada, quiero 

agradecer a todas las personas 

de la comunidad que 

participaron de esta 

investigación-acción 

participativa, al equipo de 

investigación comunitario, y 

definitivamente quiero 

agradecer a Mary y a Andrea, a 

Melissa que han hecho posible, 

que han tenido toda la 

intención y todo el interés y 

todo el apoyo para poder hacer 

realidad este proyecto, y 

llevarlo a su conclusión [¿?]. 

First of all, I want to thank 

all the people in the 

community that participated in 

this participative 

investigation-action, to the 

community research team, and 

definitely I want to thank 

Mary and Andrea, Melissa who 

have it made possible, who 

have had all the intention and 

all the interest and all the 

support to be able to make a 

reality of this project, and 

take it to its conclusion [¿?] 

La tarde de hoy lo que 

estaremos presentando, 

precisamente, es los resultados 

de esta investigación-acción 

participativa que se ha llevado 

a cabo en la comunidad de 

Montones. Queda en Las Piedras. 

Es una zona rural en Puerto 

Rico. Y donde hemos estado 

trabajando el proyecto por 

aproximadamente tres años y 

medio. 

This afternoon what we are 

going to present, precisely, 

is the results of this 

participative research-action 

that has been carried out in 

the Montones community. It ́s 

in Las Piedras. It’s a rural 

zone in Puerto Rico. And it is 

where we have been working 

with the project for 

approximately three and a half 

years. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

30

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Y lo que van a presenciar, de 

lo que vamos a estar hablando 

en este espacio de tiempo va a 

ser principalmente el plan de 

acción comunitario que hemos 

estado desarrollando para 

lidiar con situaciones de 

desastre socio-naturales. 

And what you will witness, 

what we are going to talk 

about during this period of 

time will be primarily the 

plan of community action that 

we have been developing to 

deal with situations of socionatural disasters. 

La siguiente. Next. 

Esto es lo que venía aquí, es 

una vista parcial de Montones. 

El lema que ven ahí, es un lema 

que fue escogido por la 

comunidad. Se llama... o sea se 

lee como sigue ‘Montones de 

voluntades, transforman 

realidades’. 

This is what is showing here, 

a partial view of Montones. 

The motto that you see here, 

is the motto that was chosen 

by the community. It’s called... 

that is to say it reads as 

follows ‘Lots of will 

transforms realities’ (in 

Spanish rhymes). 

Y ahí pueden ver parte del 

equipo que nos ha..., del equipo 

de investigación comunitario 

con el que hemos estado 

trabajando desde el día 1 de 

este proyecto, como mencioné, 

aproximadamente hace tres años 

y medio. 

And there you can see part of 

the team that has been 

supporting us, the community 

research team that we have 

been working with from the day 

one of this project, as I 

mentioned, approximately three 

and a half years ago. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

31

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Luz Sánchez Díaz que es una 

líder comunitaria, lo mismo que 

Alicia Montañez Cruz, y 

Jennifer Abreu Santana son las 

tres líderes que han estado 

consecuente, constantemente con 

nosotros. 

Luz Sánchez Díaz is one of the 

community leaders, the same 

for Alicia Montañez Cruz, and 

Jennifer Santana, they are the 

three leaders that have been 

consequent, constantly with 

us. 

La Dra. Grekchy Meléndez 

Hernández que ha sido la 

coordinadora de este proyecto. 

Nilda Cuadra de Jesús es una de 

varias estudiantes que hemos 

tenido a través del tiempo 

apoyando el proyecto. Y 

Jacquelinee Rojas Livia que es 

la que me acompaña aquí, que ha 

estado de voluntaria 

básicamente por la misma 

cantidad de tiempo. Ella es 

psicóloga social comunitaria y 

decidió unirse a estos 

esfuerzos como mencioné, en 

forma voluntaria. 

Dr. Grekchy Meléndez 

Hernández, that has been the 

coordinator of this project. 

Nilda Cuadra de Jesús is one 

of several students that we 

have had across time 

supporting the project. And 

Jacquelinee Rojas Livia who is 

with us here, has been a 

volunteer basically for the 

same amount of time. She is a 

social community psychologist, 

and decided to join us in 

these efforts, as I mentioned, 

as a volunteer. 

La siguiente. Next. 

Así que lo que primero de lo 

queremos es hablarle un poco 

sobre los que es la IAP, que no 

es otra cosa que integrar, ir 

integrando la investigación, la 

acción y la participación. 

So, what we want to talk first 

is about a bit of what the IAP 

is, nothing but integrating 

investigation, action and 

participation. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

32

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

¿Cómo hemos logrado esto? 

Principalmente lo hemos logrado 

estableciendo unas preguntas 

que han sido validadas por la 

comunidad. Y son las que vienen 

a continuación. 

How have we achieved this? 

Mainly, we have achieved it 

establishing some questions 

that have been validated by 

the community. And they are as 

follows. 

Las dos preguntas que hemos 

estado fundamentalmente 

trabajando desde el día 1 son 

esas que están ahí. 

The two questions that we have 

been basically working with 

from day one, are these: 

¿Cuáles son las características 

comunitarias que inhiben o 

promueven el compromiso y la 

participación comunitaria? 

Y, ¿cómo es la vinculación, o 

ha sido la vinculación 

comunitaria después de una 

experiencia de desastre socionatural que empezó, por 

supuesto con... este proyecto 

empezó con el huracán María, 

atendiéndose a esa situación de 

desastre socio-natural del 

huracán María, que fue en el 

2017. 

Which are the community 

characteristics that inhibit 

or promote community 

engagement and participation? 

And, how is the connection, or 

what has been the community 

connection after an experience 

of socio-natural disaster that 

started, of course with... this 

project started with the 

Hurricane María, assisting 

with this situation of socionatural disaster of Hurricane 

María, that was in 2017. 

Y luego, tuvimos que enfrentar 

en el 2020, enero del 2020 unos 

terremotos que afectaron el sur 

de la isla. Y por supuesto como 

todas y todos sabemos, todavía 

estamos enfrentando la pandemia 

del COVID 19. 

And after, we had to deal in 

2020, January 2020, some 

earthquakes that impacted the 

south of the island. And of 

course, as all know, still we 

are dealing with the COVID 19 

pandemic. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

33

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Siguiente. Next. 

Para nosotros la IAP es un 

método de investigación que nos 

parece el más pertinente, uno 

de los más importantes, uno de 

los que contribuyen con más 

fuerza al desarrollo, 

precisamente, de este nuevo 

conocimiento, a la comprensión 

del trabajo que hacemos en las 

comunidades, y definitivamente 

a resolver problemas, resolver 

situaciones, resolver dilemas 

que se presentan en las 

comunidades. 

For us IAP is a method of 

research that appears to be 

the most relevant, one of the 

most important, one of the 

ones that contributes with the 

most strength to the 

development, precisely, of 

this new knowledge, to the 

understanding of the work that 

we do in the communities, and 

definitively for resolving 

problems, resolving 

situations, resolving dilemmas 

that the communities are faced 

with. 

Como parte del ejercicio y del 

equipo de investigación 

comunitaria en el 2019 

estrenamos nuestra propia 

definición de lo que es, o fue, 

o lo que vamos entendiendo, lo 

que es la investigación-acción 

participativa. 

As part of my practice and of 

the community research team in 

2019 we used for the first 

time our own definition of 

what is, or was, or what our 

understanding is, about the 

participative research-action. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

34

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Y la definimos de esta forma: 

es un método dirigido a 

horizontalizar la investigación 

refortaleciendo a las personas 

involucradas para generar un 

cambio sobre lo que se 

investiga. Eso es lo que hemos 

ido entendiendo hasta el día de 

hoy como investigación-acción 

participativa. 

And we define it in this 

manner: it’s a method to 

horizontalize the research, 

re-straightening who is 

involved in order to generate 

a change on what is being 

investigated. That is what we 

have been understanding until 

today, as participative 

research-action. 

La siguiente. Next. 

Esos tres elementos que tiene 

la IAP, la investigación-acción 

participativa, precisamente, 

son el elemento de 

investigación, el elemento de 

acción, y el elemento de 

participación. 

Those three elements that the 

IAP has investigation-actionparticipation, precisely, are 

the element of research, the 

element of action, and the 

element of participation. 

La constitución propia del 

equipo de investigación 

comunitaria fue un proceso 

participativo, un proceso 

democrático donde en una 

asamblea comunitaria se 

seleccionaron las tres personas 

que mencioné al principio, Luz, 

Jennifer y Alicia, y otros que 

ya no están con nosotros, se 

seleccionaron democráticamente. 

The constitution itself of the 

community research team was a 

participative process, a 

democratic process where in 

community assembly three 

persons were selected, as I 

mentioned at the beginning, 

Luz, Jennifer and Alicia, and 

others that are not with us 

anymore. They were selected 

democratically. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

35

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Así que ya desde el inicio 

mismo de la constitución del 

equipo de investigación 

comunitaria hemos puesto en 

funcionamiento lo que es la 

IAP. 

So, from the same beginning of 

the constitution of the 

community research team, we 

have put into operation the 

IAP. 

Por supuesto, que diseñamos en 

ese proceso, dando un salto en 

todo el proceso histórico que 

llevamos de los tres años y 

medio que mencioné. 

Of course, we designed it 

within that process, jump 

starting all the historic 

process that we had during the 

three years and a half that I 

mentioned. 

Se han desarrollado encuestas, 

se han desarrollado 

entrevistas, se han 

desarrollado grupos focales, en 

donde desde el diseño hasta la 

implementación y el análisis 

propiamente dicho han 

participado todos los que 

componen este equipo de 

investigación comunitaria. 

Surveys were developed, 

interviews were developed, 

focus groups were developed, 

from the design up to the 

implementation, and in the 

actual analysis where all who 

constituted this community 

research team participated. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

36

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Así que no solo ellas y ellos 

han participado en el proceso 

del diseño, sino que también 

han ido y han hecho encuestas, 

han participado siendo las cofacilitadoras de los grupos 

focales y han desarrollado 

ellas mismas entrevistas, 

incluyendo el análisis una vez 

que hemos obtenido estos datos. 

Pues por supuesto, han sido 

analizados por todos y todas en 

el equipo, participando del 

proceso de codificación, 

participando del proceso de 

categorización. 

So, not only have they 

participated in the design 

process, also they have done 

interviews, they have 

participated by being the 

facilitators in the focus 

groups and they have developed 

interviews themselves, 

including the analysis, once 

the data was obtained. So, of 

course, the data has been 

analyzed by everyone on the 

team, participating in the 

codification process, and 

participating in the 

categorization process. 

Tan es así, que hoy, que no se 

ha podido concretar la 

participación de una de las 

líderes comunitarias por 

problemas técnicos. 

Ciertamente, hemos presentado 

en diversos foros comunitarios, 

universitarios, gubernamentales 

los resultados que van a ver en 

parte de esta investigación. 

But today, it has been not 

possible to secure the 

participation of one of the 

community leaders due to 

technical issues. However, we 

have presented in diverse 

communities, universities, and 

government forums, the results 

that you are going to see as 

part of this investigation. 

Lo que queremos decir con la 

IAP es precisamente que 

integra, integra esos tres 

elementos, los integra desde el 

principio hasta el final del 

proceso de esta investigación. 

What we want to say with IAP 

is precisely that, it 

integrates, integrates those 

three elements, it integrates 

them from the beginning up to 

the end of the investigation 

process. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

37

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Los resultados, ¿qué es lo que 

conocemos hasta ahora? 

The results, what do we know 

so far? 

Siguiente. Next. 

Justamente, esta es la parte de 

la que va a hablar un poco la 

líder comunitaria. Ciertamente 

han participado más de 200 

personas. Eso quiero 

enfatizarlo, además del equipo 

de investigación comunitaria, 

han participado más de 200 

personas a través de las 

entrevistas, de los grupos 

focales. 

Precisely, this is what the 

community leader is going to 

talk about. Certainly, more 

than 200 people have 

participated. That, I want to 

emphasize, besides the 

community research team, more 

than200 people have 

participated across the 

interviews and focus groups. 

Las encuestas para el 

desarrollo de todo lo que 

estamos presentándoles aquí a 

ustedes. Eso es super 

importante, de nuevo integrando 

esos tres elementos. 

The surveys resulted in the 

development of everything we 

are presenting today here to 

you. That is super important, 

again integrating those three 

elements. 

¿Qué hemos aprendido en el 

proceso? 

What have we learned in the 

process? 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

38

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Que, para esta particular zona 

geográfica rural, que se llama 

Montones, la noción misma de 

comunidad adquiere unas 

características especiales que 

hay saber, y que debimos haber 

aprendido, y aprendimos en el 

proceso a través de la 

investigación-acción 

participativa. 

That, for this particular 

rural geographic area that is 

called Montones, the same 

notion of community acquires 

special characteristics that 

we had to know, that we had to 

have learned, and we learned 

this using the process through 

the participative 

investigation-action. 

¿Cuáles son, han sido esos 

ingredientes clave en el 

proceso? Que, las comunidades 

están integradas por un grupo 

de personas, que la 

participación definitivamente 

es parte del proceso, que 

compartir es una actividad 

clave para que se siga 

fortaleciendo o refortaleciendo 

la comunidad. Que, la 

diversidad siempre va a estar 

presente. Que es un lugar, por 

supuesto, un territorio, ya 

vieron las fotos de un solo 

fragmento de esa zona, una zona 

hermosa, que es montañosa. 

Which have been those key 

ingredients in the process? 

That, communities are 

integrated by a group of 

people, that the participation 

definitely is part of the 

process, that sharing is a key 

activity so that the community 

can keep straightening or restraightening, That, diversity 

is always going to be present. 

That it is a place, of course, 

a territory - you have seen 

the pictures of only a 

fragment of the area, a 

beautiful area, that is, a 

mountainous area. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

39

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

El sentido de pertenencia juega 

un papel importantísimo en el 

desarrollo de lo que es esa 

idea, o esa noción de 

comunidad. Y un poderoso 

sentido de unión que tienen 

ellos como seres humanos, y 

como vecinos, y como ciudadanos 

que comparten en esa zona. 

The sense of belonging plays a 

very important role in the 

development of what it is the 

idea, that notion of 

community. And a powerful 

sense of union that they have 

as human beings, as neighbors, 

and as citizens that share 

that region. 

Otros elementos que están ahí, 

pues por supuesto es ese... donde 

la gente misma se conoce, donde 

ocurren las comunicaciones 

cotidianas, donde se ve el 

interés por esos vecinos y 

vecinas, donde se hacen 

familia, se ayudan unos a 

otros, y donde es una forma de 

ver el mundo, que, en la visión 

de ellos, ahora mismo, esa 

visión de comunidad está bajo 

amenaza. 

Other elements that are there, 

of course... where the people 

themselves know each other, 

where the everyday 

communications occur, where 

you can see the interest for 

those neighbors, where 

families are made, they help 

each other, and where it is a 

way of seeing the world, and 

that, in their vision, just 

now, that vision is under 

threat. 

La amenaza principalmente de un 

pensamiento individualista, o 

un ‘sálvese quien pueda’, o un 

‘cada cual atiende sus propios 

problemas’, y obviamente, ellos 

quieren también proteger, e ir 

reconstruyendo el proceso. 

The threat is mainly of an 

individualist thinking, of a 

‘everyone for him/herself’, or 

a ‘everybody deal with their 

own problems’, and obviously, 

they want also to protect, and 

re-straighten the process. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

40

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Como les mencioné, nosotros 

tuvimos unas preguntas de 

investigación. Sin embargo, las 

necesidades reales y cotidianas 

de las mismas personas nos 

llevaron a exceder esos 

objetivos como proyecto. 

Like I mentioned, we had some 

research questions. However, 

the actual everyday needs of 

the same people led us to 

exceed those goals as a 

project. 

Y solo por mencionar algunas de 

las actividades que se llevaron 

a cabo porque vimos la 

necesidad de, claramente, 

durante nuestra estadía con la 

comunidad, es que se llevaron a 

cabo ferias comunitarias donde 

se trajeron organizaciones de 

base comunitaria, 

gubernamentales, que ofrecieran 

todo tipo de servicios para la 

comunidad. 

Just to mention some of the 

activities that were carried 

out because we saw the need 

for them, clearly, during our 

stay with the community, is 

that we carried out community 

fairs where we brought 

community based, government 

organizations that offered all 

kind of services for the 

community. 

Hubo al menos dos reparticiones 

de alimentos para toda la 

comunidad. Porque se 

organizaron con distintos [¿?], 

agencias de gobierno, 

comunidades, perdón, 

organizaciones, iglesias. 

There were two deliveries of 

food for the whole community. 

These were organized with 

different [¿?], government 

agencies, communities, sorry, 

organizations, and churches. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

41

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Hubo un proceso de vacunación, 

no solamente del COVID, sino de 

otras condiciones que también 

eran un requisito en la 

comunidad. Y se hizo todo un 

proceso muy participativo de 

cartografía social donde cada 

gente venía de cada sector y 

dibujaba su sector y nos 

ayudaba a identificar dónde 

estaban las casas, dónde 

estaban las personas que tenían 

problemas de movilidad, las 

personas encamadas, las 

personas que necesitaban más 

recursos para en que una 

situación como esta, de 

desastre socio-natural puedan 

entonces ser atendidas con 

prioridad. 

There was an immunization 

process, not only for COVID, 

but also for other conditions 

that were requirements in the 

community. And we did a whole 

process with high 

participation, of social 

cartography where each one 

came from each sector and drew 

their sector and they helped 

us to identify where the 

houses were, where the people 

with mobility problems were, 

the bedridden people, the 

people who needed more 

resources so that in a 

situation like this, of socionatural disaster, were able to 

be taken care of with 

priority. 

Siguiente. Next. 

Aquí les dejo un poco a 

Jacquelinee para que comparta 

lo que hemos ido aprendiendo 

también como el proceso donde 

con el proceso de todas esas 

técnicas de investigación en la 

parte de participación. 

Here I leave you with 

Jacquelinee, to share what we 

have been learning about the 

process of all these research 

techniques in the 

participation part. 

Jacquelinee. Jacquelinee. 
ICF Transcription 

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Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

42

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Jacquelinee: 

Muy buenas tardes. Sí voy a 

presentar esta segunda parte o 

segunda noción que fuimos 

explorando durante la 

investigación y es justamente 

la participación. 

Jacquelinee: 

Good afternoon. Yes, I am 

going to present this second 

part of the notion that we 

were exploring during the 

investigation, and that is 

precisely the participation. 

Fue muy valioso reconocer cómo 

la participación va teniendo 

diferentes formas y diferentes 

miradas. Particularmente, en la 

comunidad de Montones se fue 

identificando que la 

participación se puede definir 

o es un acto de voluntad que 

nos lleva justamente a 

sentirnos parte de algo, y 

cuidarnos entre sí. 

It was very valuable to 

recognize how the 

participation took different 

forms and different looks. 

Particularly, in the Montones 

community, we were identifying 

that participation can be 

defined as an act of will that 

takes us precisely to feel 

part of something, and take 

care of each other. 

También se tiene en cuenta que 

esta tiene diferentes o 

múltiples formas o niveles de 

participación. Es decir, que 

nos permite ver que hay 

diversos rostros de 

participación. Es decir, puede 

ser que alguien participe solo 

preparando el café. O alguien 

participe preparando los 

letreros o alguien participe 

haciendo la comida o la 

merienda. O sea, es decir, hay 

muchos rostros dentro las 

formas de participar. 

Also, we took into account 

that there are different and 

multiple forms or levels of 

participation. In other words, 

it allowed us to see that 

there are diverse faces of 

participation. So, it can be 

someone that participates only 

in preparing coffee. Or 

someone that participates 

preparing banners or someone 

that participates preparing 

food or snacks. So, there are 

many facets within the ways of 

participating. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

43

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Y por supuesto también, la 

comunidad en este sentido, para 

Montones, participar significa 

juntarse y socializar entre 

ellos. Son componentes entonces 

que nos van dando cuenta de 

cómo podemos promover la 

participación en esta comunidad 

específicamente. 

And of course, also, the 

community in this sense, for 

Montones, participating means 

getting together and 

socializing amongst 

themselves. They are 

components then that give an 

account of how we can promote 

the participation in this 

community, specifically. 

Pero, ¿Qué requiere la 

participación? Para el grupo en 

Montones participar requiere 

que nos desconectemos de la 

tecnología, específicamente de 

los celulares, del teléfono 

celular. 

But, what does the 

participation require? For the 

Montones group to participate 

requires that we disconnect 

from the technology, 

specifically the cell phones. 

Pero, también necesitamos que 

las personas prioricen la 

comunidad, partiendo, como dice 

Carlos, de repente dejar un 

poco el asunto de la 

individualidad y más bien 

reconocernos que somos parte de 

un espacio, que somos parte y 

formamos parte con las otras 

personas, y por lo tanto pues 

tener claro nuestro sentido de 

comunidad. 

But, also, we need the people 

to prioritize the community, 

from, like Carlos says, 

perhaps leaving a bit the 

individuality issue, and 

instead recognizing that we 

are part of the space, that we 

are a part with the other 

people, and therefore, to be 

clear of our sense of 

community. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

44

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

También, requiere que se puede 

reconocer las necesidades. 

Reconocer las necesidades no 

solo de cada persona, sino 

también las necesidades de sus 

vecinos. Poder reconocer qué le 

falta, cuáles son sus 

condiciones de vida, y entre 

ellos poder ejercer lazos de 

ayuda. 

Also, it requires that the 

needs be recognized. To 

recognize the needs not only 

of each person, but also the 

needs of their neighbors. To 

be able to recognize what is 

missing, which are their life 

conditions, and to establish 

bonds of help for each other. 

¿Cómo ven las personas que 

alguien participa? 

How do the people see when 

someone participates? 

La comunidad de Montones, pues, 

las personas nos dicen que 

alguien demuestra que está 

participando cuando asiste a 

las actividades, cuando tiene 

iniciativa por hacer algunas 

cosas, cuando cumple alguna 

función, ya sea, de repente de 

llevar algún documento al 

municipio o a las instancias 

del gobierno. 

In the Montones community, the 

people tell us that someone 

shows as participating when 

they attend activities, when 

they have initiative to do 

some things, when they carry 

out a role, perhaps by taking 

a document to the municipality 

or government agencies. 

O, de repente, incluso de la 

función de cuidar el espacio 

donde nos vamos a reunir, que 

es el centro comunitario, entre 

otras funciones. Y también 

buscar soluciones. Es decir, no 

solamente identificar las 

necesidades, sino ver de qué 

manera estas se pueden atender. 

Or, perhaps, even taking care 

of the space where we are 

going to meet, the community 

center, among other 

activities. In other words, 

not only to identify the 

needs, but also to see how we 

can care for them. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

45

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

¿Y qué nos permite la 

participación? Para el grupo de 

Montones, y para nosotros, 

pues, fuimos reconociendo que 

la participación nos permite 

lograr cambios, cambios 

sociales, y por supuesto, 

también nos permite hacernos 

familia. Poder reconocernos 

como un grupo y no reconocernos 

solo como individuos. 

And what allows us 

participate? For the Montones 

group, and for us, we were 

recognizing that participation 

allows us to achieve changes, 

social changes, and of course, 

also allows us to become 

family. Being able to 

recognize ourselves as a group 

and not only recognize 

ourselves as individuals. 

En esencia, pues esta forma de 

comprender la participación nos 

dio cuenta también de revalorar 

la participación en todas sus 

dimensiones, tanto en 

dimensiones personales, 

dimensiones sociales, pero, 

también la dimensión política. 

In essence, this way of 

understanding participation 

gave us the ability also to 

reevaluate the participation 

in all its dimensions, both 

personal dimensions and social 

dimensions, but also the 

political dimension. 

Es un poco ampliar nuestra 

noción de ser y hacer, 

reconociéndonos como sujetos 

que se van construyendo en un 

proceso de acción, propiamente. 

Entonces, a la vez que 

participamos vamos generando 

ciertas subjetividades que nos 

van a permitir, también, 

acompañarnos o seguir 

estimulando esa compañía, entre 

todos con el apoyo mutuo. 

It's like widening our notion 

of being and doing, 

recognizing ourselves as 

subjects that are re-building 

themselves in the process of 

the action itself. So, at the 

same time that we participate, 

we generate certain 

subjectivities that are going 

to allow us, also, to 

accompany ourselves or to keep 

stimulating that company, 

between everybody with mutual 

support. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

46

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

¿Qué la promueve o la limita? 

Eso era alguna de las preguntas 

que también se planteaba, y en 

la comunidad se iba 

respondiendo un poco. 

What promotes or limits this? 

That was one question that was 

also posed, and in the 

community, it was somehow 

responded to. 

¿Qué promueve la participación? 

Pues, entre las cosas que nos 

van indicando qué es lo que la 

promueve es que existan 

espacios para socializar. Es 

decir, espacios que puedan dar 

cuenta de actividades 

deportivas, actividades 

lúdicas, es decir, con juegos. 

También, festejos, celebrar 

cumpleaños, o fechas 

importantes. También algunas 

actividades que se hacen por 

sector cuando se logran ciertas 

cosas. Estos espacios para 

socializar de alguna forma 

promueven que la gente se 

involucre más en estos procesos 

participativos. 

What promotes participation? 

Among the things indicated is 

that what promotes 

participation is that there 

are spaces to socialize. That 

is to say, spaces that can 

allow sport and ludic 

activities. Also, 

celebrations, to celebrate 

birthdays, or important dates. 

Also, some activities that are 

implemented by sector when 

certain things are achieved. 

These spaces to socialize, 

somehow, promote people to get 

involved more in the 

participative processes. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

47

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Pero, también otro elemento, 

muy importante a rescatar, es 

la confianza entre las 

personas. Es decir, que para 

participar yo necesito confiar. 

Y ciertamente, hemos encontrado 

que hay muchos elementos de 

confianza que se van dando en 

la comunidad, pero, la 

confianza es muy pobre, cuando 

se trata de la relación de 

confianza con las instancias 

del gobierno. Algo que tenemos 

que invitar a sentar bases para 

la confianza, para promover la 

participación. 

But, also another element, 

very important to reclaim, is 

the trust among people. That 

is to say that to participate, 

I need to trust. And 

certainly, we have found that 

there are many elements of 

trust that are gradually 

growing in the community, but 

the trust is very poor when it 

is about the relation with the 

government agencies. This is 

something that we have to set 

a base for trust, to promote 

participation. 

Otro elemento que promueve la 

participación es el 

conocimiento de las necesidades 

comunitarias. Es decir, que las 

personas reconozcan, como 

decíamos en la definición de 

participación, que una persona 

reconozca cuáles son las 

necesidades de la comunidad, 

eso también lo motiva a poder 

involucrarse en este proceso, 

necesita que se le informe a 

través de diferentes medios de 

comunicación. 

Another element that promotes 

participation is the knowledge 

of the community needs. That 

is to say, that the people 

recognize, like we said in the 

definition of participation, 

that a person recognizes which 

are the needs of the 

community, that also motivates 

him/her to be involved in this 

process, he/she needs to be 

informed through the different 

means of communication. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

48

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Definitivamente, otro elemento 

son las visitas domiciliarias, 

es decir, necesitan volver a 

esos encuentros, de visitar al 

vecino, o visitar a alguien que 

se encuentre enfermo, o por 

diferentes motivos. 

Definitely, another element 

was the home visits, in other 

words, they need to go back to 

those encounters, to visiting 

neighbors, or visiting someone 

that is sick, or for other 

reasons. 

Y por supuesto, también se 

requiere que entre las personas 

se motiven, se animen, se 

inviten a participar de todos 

estos espacios, y todas estas 

actividades. 

And of course, also it is 

required that they motivate, 

they encourage and invite each 

other to participate in all 

those spaces, and all those 

activities. 

Y por supuesto, también se 

requiere refortalecer el 

sentido de pertenencia. El 

sentir que es un territorio que 

merece ser cuidado, que merece 

ser protegido y merece ser 

compartidos por todos de una 

manera colectiva. 

And of course, also it is 

required to re-strengthen the 

sense of belonging. The sense 

that this is a land that 

deserves to be taken care of, 

that deserves to be protected, 

and deserves to be shared by 

everybody in a collective 

manner. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

49

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

A la vez también se pudo 

identificar algunos aspectos 

que limitan más bien la 

participación. Entre esos 

elementos que limitan podemos 

identificar uno, la falta de 

transporte público. La zona no 

cuenta con transporte público 

que pueda facilitar justamente 

el hacer estas visitas, o poder 

dirigirse a los centros 

comunitarios. 

At the same time, also, there 

were identified some aspects 

that limit participation. 

Among those elements, we 

identified one, the lack of 

public transportation. The 

area does not have public 

transportation that could 

facilitate those visits, or to 

be able to go to the community 

centers. 

Punto número dos es la falta de 

comunicación social. Es decir, 

hay algunas barreras de 

comunicación en el sentido por 

el uso excesivo del Facebook, 

específicamente algunos daban 

cuenta, o algunas otras redes a 

través del teléfono celular, 

pues que de alguna manera 

limitaban o acortaban la 

comunicación entre los vecinos. 

Point number two, it’s the 

lack of social communication. 

That is to say, there are some 

barriers of communication, in 

the sense that the excessive 

use of Facebook, specifically, 

some gave account of, or some 

other media through cell 

phones that limited or 

shortened the communication 

among neighbors. 

Número tres, es las barreras 

intergeneracionales. 

Number three is the 

intergenerational barriers. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

50

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

¿Qué quiere decir? Que hay unas 

diferencias entre los niños y 

los ancianos, por ejemplo, en 

la comunidad. Y las diferentes 

experiencias que tiene cada 

generación también se puede 

convertir en una barrera para 

que estos dos grupos se 

integren. Y puedan también 

compartir sus saberes, 

compartir sus experiencias y 

compartir también los 

conocimientos que van generando 

a partir de estos. Eso también 

se necesita atender porque 

puede... limita la participación 

de la comunidad. 

What does this mean? That 

there are differences between 

children and the elderly, for 

example, in the community. And 

the different experiences that 

each generation has, also, can 

become a barrier for those 

groups being able to 

integrate. And being able, 

also, to share their 

knowledge, share their 

experiences, and share, also, 

the knowledge that is being 

generated from those. That 

also needs attention because 

it can... limit the 

participation in the 

community. 

Otro elemento, el cuarto, es el 

exceso de uso de teléfono y 

tecnologías que está 

relacionado con la falta de 

comunicación. 

Another element, the fourth, 

is the excess use of the 

telephone and technologies, 

that is related to the lack of 

communication. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

51

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Y el quinto, es las 

competencias entre vecinos. Es 

decir, hay una competencia 

constante entre quién tiene más 

o tiene la casa más grande, o 

la tiene más arreglada, o si 

tiene el carro último modelo. 

Entonces, esa visión de 

competencia entre los vecinos 

también es un elemento que 

limita la participación de la 

comunidad. 

And the fifth, is the 

competition among neighbors. 

That is to say, there is 

constant competition among who 

has more or has the biggest 

house, or has the best 

appointed one, or has the 

latest model car. So, that 

vision of competition among 

neighbors also is an element 

that limits the participation 

in the community. 

Y por supuesto, el último 

elemento es el individualismo. 

Es decir, es partir, como ya 

algo que ha mencionado Carlos, 

partir de la idea de que solo 

se trata de un asunto personal, 

que esto es algo que debo 

resolver yo solo, que en esto 

yo estoy solo. Necesitamos 

romper un poco con esa idea. Y 

más bien ver nuestro lado, cómo 

comprendernos como seres en 

relación, seres colectivos que 

se van dando y desarrollando 

justamente en procesos de 

socialización. 

And of course, the last 

element is the individualism. 

That is to say, it starts, 

like Carlos already mentioned, 

with the idea that only this 

is about a personal issue, 

that this is something that I 

have to solve by myself, that 

I am in this by myself. We 

need to break that idea down a 

bit. And instead to being able 

to see just our side, how to 

understand each other as 

beings in relationships, 

collective beings that develop 

precisely in the process of 

socialization. 

Vamos a continuar con la 

siguiente lámina. Creo que la 

continúa Carlos. Carlos no se 

te escucha. 

We are going to continue with 

the next image. I believe that 

Carlos will continue. Carlos, 

we cannot hear you. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

52

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Carlos: Carlos: 

Estaba en mute. 

Quiero enfatizar algo que ha 

mencionado Jacqui, que 

precisamente, en el caso de 

este proyecto, se inició bajo 

la perspectiva de la psicología 

social comunitaria. Que para 

nosotros es precisamente una 

forma de hacer psicología 

porque una de sus 

características es el respeto 

de los saberes de todas las 

personas que están 

involucradas, entiéndase, de la 

comunidad, los estudiantes. Y 

por supuesto, quienes 

componemos la parte 

universitaria. 

I was on mute. 

I want to emphasize something 

that Jacqui mentioned, that in 

the case of this project, it 

was initiated under the 

perspective of the social 

community psychology. That for 

us is specifically a way of 

doing psychology where one the 

characteristics is the respect 

for the knowledge of all the 

people that are involved, 

meaning, of the community and 

the students. And of course, 

those of us that are part of 

the university. 

En ese sentido, también 

partimos de una perspectiva 

social, que quiere decir 

precisamente eso, que 

comprendemos ya no... 

comprendemos que no trabajamos 

con individuos, sino que 

trabajamos con personas. 

In that sense, also, we share 

a social perspective, that 

means precisely that we 

understand that we no longer 

work with individuals, we work 

with people. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

53

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Y las personas son un conjunto 

de redes de relaciones que nos 

van conformando desde que 

nacemos. En ese sentido, vemos 

que es un espacio comunitario, 

porque ese espacio comunitario 

es donde confluye todos los 

otros niveles de los que habla 

la psicología social 

comunitaria, que además del 

personal, el grupal, el mismo 

comunitario, está lo 

organizacional y el 

institucional. 

And people are an ensemble of 

nets of relationships that 

gradually shape us since 

birth. In that sense, we see 

that it’s a community space, 

because that community space 

is where converges all the 

other levels which the 

community social psychology 

talks about, that besides the 

personal, group and community 

levels, there are 

organizational and 

institutional levels. 

Ciertamente, eso nos hace 

partir de una idea de la 

psicología en otro nivel. El 

otro concepto con el que 

nosotros trabajamos mucho fue 

el... un concepto que hemos 

desarrollado aquí en Puerto 

Rico hace varios años, que se 

llama ‘refortalecimiento’. 

Certainly, that leads us to 

have an idea of the psychology 

at another level. The other 

concept that we work with is 

much more than this... a concept 

that we developed here in 

Puerto Rico several years ago, 

that is called ‘restraightening’. 

Es un concepto que comenzó 

precisamente con un debate 

relacionado con el modelo de 

empoderamiento o empowerment 

pero, también en un debate of 

el modelo de prevención. 

It is a concept that began 

precisely with a debate 

related to the model of 

empowerment, but, also in a 

debate on the model of 

prevention. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

54

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

En el caso del 

refortalecimiento, podríamos 

resumirlo diciendo que eso es 

una estrategia de 

transformación que busca 

precisamente transformar 

nuestras debilidades en 

fortalezas. 

In the case of restraightening, we could 

summarize it by saying that is 

a strategy of transformation 

that looks to precisely 

transform our weaknesses into 

strengths. 

Pero, además que debemos 

enfocarnos principalmente en 

las fortalezas de esas 

personas, y las comunidades. Y 

para precisamente tratar de 

encarrillar este proyecto en 

esa dirección desarrollamos 

tres palabras. 

But also, that we have to 

focus mainly on the people and 

the communities. And precisely 

trying to orient this project 

in that direction, we 

developed three words. 

O sea, trabajamos a la luz de 

tres palabras, que debíamos 

evitar en todo momento en el 

desarrollo de esta 

investigación-acción 

participativa. Esas palabras 

son, el paternalismo, el 

clientelismo, y el 

asistencialismo. 

That is to say, we work in the 

light of three words, that we 

had to avoid at all times 

during the development of this 

participative investigationaction. These words are 

paternalism, clientelism, and 

assistentialism. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

55

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

El paternalismo es esa forma en 

la que nosotros nos vemos a las 

demás personas, como si fueran 

niños o niñas, desamparados, y 

actuamos en ese sentido, como 

si fuéramos sus padres, como si 

las otras personas fueran 

ignorantes en ese sentido, que 

no tuvieran los recursos para 

atender sus propios asuntos. 

Paternalism is a way in what 

we see the other people, like 

they were children, 

defenseless, and we act in 

that sense, like we were their 

parents, as if the other 

people were ignorant in that 

sense, that they do not have 

the resources to attend to 

their own problems. 

En el caso del asistencialismo, 

es tratar a las personas como 

si fueran criaturas incapaces 

también de resolver sus 

problemas, y tendemos a llevar 

a las personas de la mano sin 

soltarlas nunca para que puedan 

poder poner en práctica todo lo 

que sí saben. Porque usualmente 

se nublan detrás de aquellos 

que no saben. 

In the case of 

assistentialism, it is to 

treat the people like they 

were incapable of resolving 

their own problems, and we 

tend to take those people by 

their hands without ever 

leaving them so that they can 

exercise everything that they 

do know. Because usually these 

get clouded over, behind those 

that do not know. 

Y el clientelismo, pues, 

usualmente es ver a las 

personas como si fueran eso 

mismo, clientes, por lo tanto, 

es como si uno vendiera un 

producto, como si uno vendiera 

un servicio, y que ahí primaría 

una actitud de mercancía en la 

relación que se establece con 

las otras personas. 

And clientelism usually is to 

see the people like they were 

that, clients, therefore, it 

is like we are selling a 

product, like we are selling a 

service, and from there 

prevails an attitude of 

merchandising in the 

relationship that we establish 

with others. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

56

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

En ese sentido, el plan de 

acción comunitario que es la 

meta última de este proyecto 

que hemos logrado hacer, y 

estamos a punto de completarlo. 

Pues definitivamente, con la 

participación de esas más de 

200 personas con las que 

trabajamos, y del equipo de 

investigación, que ya había 

mencionado, hemos construido 

este documento. Esto es un 

documento vivo. 

In that sense, the plan of 

community action is the last 

goal of this project that we 

have completed, and we are 

almost done. So, definitely, 

with the participation of more 

than 200 people that we worked 

with, and of the research team 

that I already mentioned, we 

have built this document. This 

is a living document. 

Un documento que se ha ido 

reorganizando según las 

experiencias y los saberes que 

hemos ido ganando a través de 

la misma información que hemos 

obtenido a través de esas 

técnicas que ya describí. Pero 

también en conversaciones y 

diálogos según hemos ido 

presentando esto en distintos 

foros. La gente se nos ha 

acercado, y nos ha compartido 

también parte de sus saberes. 

A document that has been 

reorganized according the 

experiences and knowledge that 

we have gradually acquired, 

through the same information 

that we have obtained through 

the techniques that I already 

described. But also, in 

conversations and dialogs as 

we have been presenting this 

in different forums. People 

came to us, and they have 

shared with us part of their 

knowledge also. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

57

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Esto es un documento que 

considera, por supuesto, el 

pasado, el presente y el 

futuro, la historia que tiene 

la comunidad, la situación 

actual que están viviendo, y 

cómo la vamos a poder encarar 

más adelante. 

This is a document that 

considers, of course, the 

past, the present and the 

future, the history that the 

community has, the current 

situation that they are living 

in, and how we are going to be 

able to deal with it in the 

future. 

Aquí en este mismo documento 

podemos ver de nuevo esas 

articulaciones entre comunidad, 

participación e investigación. 

Y como producto, que no lo van 

a poder ver aquí hoy, pero, 

ciertamente es un producto que 

vamos a poder devolver a la 

comunidad para que lo puedan 

utilizar, precisamente para 

lidiar con situaciones como las 

que ya hemos mencionado, de 

desastres socio-naturales como 

son los huracanes, como han 

sido los terremotos, y como 

sigue siendo la pandemia de 

COVID 19. 

Here, in this same document, 

we can see again these 

articulations between 

community, participation and 

investigation. And as a 

product that you are going to 

be able to see here today, but 

also it’s a product that we 

are going to be able to give 

back to the community so that 

they can use it, precisely to 

deal with situations like the 

ones we already mentioned, of 

social-natural disasters like 

hurricanes, like earthquakes, 

and, as still is, the COVID 19 

pandemics. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

58

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Ciertamente, nosotros pensamos 

que el nivel de desastre, por 

eso lo llamamos socio-natural, 

porque no es un desastre 

natural nada más, sino que la 

contribución del ser humano ha 

sido clave, precisamente, esto 

ya lo sabemos a través del 

cambio climático, en los 

efectos devastadores de la 

relación que tiene el ser 

humano con la naturaleza. 

Certainly, we think that the 

level of disaster - recall 

that we called it socionatural, because it is not a 

natural disaster only, but 

that the contribution of human 

beings has been key, 

precisely, this we already 

know through the climate 

change, in the devastating 

effects of the relationship 

that human beings have with 

nature. 

Si seguimos con esa actitud, de 

un antropocentrismo, pensando 

que el ser humano es el único 

centro de lo que ocurre en este 

planeta. Pues definitivamente 

nos hemos abocado a degradar 

cada vez más el ambiente, y 

esta falta de respeto a la 

naturaleza, sabiendo que 

nosotros somos parte integral 

de ella. 

If we keep having this 

attitude, of anthropocentrism, 

thinking that the human being 

is the only center of what 

occurs on this planet, then 

definitely we have dedicated 

ourselves to increasingly 

degrading the environment, and 

showing the lack of respect 

for nature, knowing that we 

are an integral part of it. 

No somos más ni somos menos, 

somos una parte. En ese 

sentido, el plan, como van a 

poder ver tiene una serie de 

componentes que hemos ido 

estructurando a base de los 

resultados de la investigación. 

We are part of this, no more 

nor less. In that sense, the 

plan, as you are going to see, 

has a series of components 

that we have structured based 

on the results of the 

investigation. 

La próxima. Next. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

59

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

El plan de acción comunitario, 

nuestros primeros pasos, 

estuvieron de la mano de 

movilización, la organización, 

la comunicación y las acciones 

que son requeridas para que el 

plan vaya teniendo forma. 

The plan of community action, 

our first steps, went hand in 

hand with the mobilization, 

the organization, the 

communication and the actions 

that are required for the plan 

to take shape. 

Por supuesto, en las cosas que 

hemos identificado a través de 

todas las técnicas que 

mencioné, ha sido la necesidad 

de reclutar más líderes puesto 

que las líderes que están no 

son suficientes para atender 

todo el escenario comunitario 

en donde están. 

Of course, within the things 

that we have identified 

through all these techniques 

that I mentioned, has been the 

need of enlist more leaders 

since the leaders that we have 

are not sufficient to attend 

to all the community scenarios 

where they are. 

Esa ha sido una de las 

características que hemos ido 

trabajando en el reclutamiento 

de nuevos, y nuevas líderes. 

Aplicar lo que sabemos, sobre 

lo que limita y promueve la 

participación que acabó de 

describir Jacquelinee hace un 

ratito. Ponerlo en práctica ya 

que sabemos estas cosas, pues 

ya sabemos dónde tenemos que 

enfocar unas cosas y dónde 

debemos trabajar para superar 

eso que hace que la gente no 

pueda participar. 

That has been one of the 

characteristics that we have 

been working on, the 

recruiting of new leaders. To 

apply what we know, about what 

limits and promotes the 

participation that Jacquelinee 

just described not long ago. 

To apply it, since we already 

know these things, we already 

know where we have to focus 

and where we have to work to 

overcome problems so that it 

increases participation. 
ICF Transcription 

Civic Engagement and Climate Change Mitigation: 

Exploring Opportunities at the Intersection of Research, 

Community Participation, and National Service 

60

Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Concientizar a las personas de 

que los desastres, lo que dije, 

son socio-naturales, o sea, que 

son, además, y seguirán siendo 

parte de nuestras vidas. O sea, 

que podamos desarrollar las 

estructuras emocionales, las 

estructuras cognoscitivas, las 

estructuras de la voluntad para 

poder seguir lidiando con estas 

situaciones. 

Make the people aware that 

disasters, as I said, are 

socio-natural, and that will 

keep being part of our lives. 

In other words, we can develop 

the emotional structures, the 

cognoscitive structures, the 

structures of will, to be able 

to keep dealing with these 

situations. 

Como saben la organización es 

clave en todo esto. O sea, hay 

que establecer, se determinó 

que hay que establecer unas 

brigadas de acción que puedan 

actuar de manera inmediata, sin 

que sea necesario esperar 

porque venga el gobierno, el 

local o el estatal, o el 

federal para atender unas 

situaciones que requieren de 

una acción inmediata. Y que 

esté lista la comunidad y 

personas en la comunidad, o las 

más, con experiencia ya sea que 

hayan adquirido a través de 

estos otros desastres socionaturales, o por la formación 

que tengan como profesionales 

pueden desarrollar estas 

brigadas. 

As you know, the organization 

is key in all of this. In 

other words, it was determined 

that there is the need of 

establishing brigades of 

action that can act 

immediately, without the need 

of waiting for local or state 

or federal government to come 

to attend to those situations 

that require immediate action. 

And the community and the 

people need to be ready, or 

most of them, with experience 

either because they have 

acquired it through of these 

other socio-natural disasters, 

or because of the training 

that they may receive as 

professionals that can develop 

these brigades. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Hay que desarrollar unos 

comités de emergencia por 

sectores. Solo para que tengan 

una idea, de lo se han 

identificado solo en ese barrio 

Montones veinticinco sectores 

culturales que definitivamente 

tienen que ser atendidos, y 

como describí, es una zona 

montañosa, lo que no es 

necesariamente de fácil acceso 

para todo el mundo. 

It is necessary to develop 

emergency committees by 

sector. So, you can have an 

idea of what it has been 

identified in the neighborhood 

of Montones, there are twentyfive cultural sectors that 

definitely have to be taken 

care of, and like I described, 

it’s a mountainous region, 

where it is not necessarily 

easy to provide access for 

everybody. 

Se requiere un vehículo de 

motor para poder transitar por 

esa zona o por supuesto 

caballos, o por supuesto 

cualquier otro vehículo que no 

requiera la fuerza del ser 

humano. Se estableció que 

desarrolláramos unas reuniones 

mensuales, que hemos tenido 

esas reuniones semanales, desde 

que empezó el proyecto INARO. 

Pero, en este caso reuniones 

semanales para darle una 

continuidad a todos los 

elementos que siguen 

componiendo este plan de acción 

comunitaria. 

There is required a motor 

vehicle to be able to travel 

around that region, or of 

course, horses, or any other 

vehicle that does not depend 

on human force. It was 

established that we had to 

develop monthly meetings, and 

even weekly meetings, from the 

beginning of the INARO 

project. In the case of weekly 

meetings, to give continuity 

to all the elements that are 

still comprising this plan of 

community action. 

Y por supuesto, reclutar 

voluntarios y voluntarias en 

todos los sectores, como 

mencioné son veinticinco. 

And of course, recruit 

volunteers in all the sectors, 

as I mentioned, they are 

twenty-five. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

La comunicación es clave, 

también en ese sentido, las 

actividades de preparación son 

super importantes. 

Communication is key, also, in 

that sense - the preparation 

activities are super 

important. 

Para nosotros en Puerto Rico, 

la temporada de huracanes es 

algo que pasa todos los años. 

Por lo tanto, tenemos varios 

meses de preparación. Pero, 

para que precisamente durante 

la etapa de huracanes estemos 

listos y listas para atender 

cualquier situación. Difundir y 

revisar este mismo plan es 

parte del proceso. Crear 

diversos canales de 

comunicación, entiéndase los 

tradicionales como los 

tecnológicos. Es necesario que 

se desarrollen a través de lo 

que vamos haciendo. 

For us, in Puerto Rico, the 

hurricane season is something 

that happens every year. 

Therefore, we have several 

months of preparation, so we 

can be ready during the 

hurricane season to attend any 

situation. Spreading and 

reviewing this same plan is 

part of the process. Creating 

diverse communication 

channels, that is to say, the 

traditional like 

technological, are necessary 

so that they are developed 

through what we are doing. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Y por supuesto, acciones 

continuas o acciones que van a 

requerir una acción permanente 

durante este proceso de 

implementación del plan como se 

había previsto, por supuesto. 

El recogido de la basura, el 

reciclaje, el desarrollo o 

actualización de un directorio 

de las organizaciones 

comunitarias, de base 

comunitaria, no 

gubernamentales. O aquellas 

organizaciones y agencias que 

tengan que ver con esto, de 

parte del gobierno local o 

estatal. 

And of course, continuing 

actions, or actions that are 

going to require a permanent 

basis during this process of 

implementation of the plan, as 

has been foreseen. For 

example, garbage collection, 

recycling, the development or 

updating the directory of 

community organizations, with 

a community base, not 

government. Or for those 

organizations and agencies 

that are related to this, from 

local or state government. 

La constante identificación de 

las necesidades y los recursos 

que cada familia tiene, esto va 

cambiando. Quiere decir que las 

personas encamadas, las 

personas que se enferman, las 

personas que tienen problemas 

de movilidad van desarrollando 

estas condiciones a través del 

tiempo. Algunas empeoran, 

algunas ya no están con 

nosotros. Esto es algo que hay 

que actualizar constantemente. 

Constant identification of the 

needs and resources that each 

family has, this changes over 

time, such as the bedridden 

people, the people that get 

sick, the people that have 

mobility problems or develop 

those conditions over time. 

Some get worse, some are not 

with us anymore. This is 

something we have to 

constantly update. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Hay que identificar puntos de 

encuentro. Esto se refiere 

específicamente a lo que tiene 

que ver con los terremotos. 

Toda vez que no hay zonas 

identificadas como zonas de 

seguridad todavía ... para que en 

el caso de un terremoto que 

afecte Montones, pues la gente 

pueda moverse en esa dirección 

para estar lo más seguros 

posibles en una situación como 

esa. 

We have to identify points of 

encounter. This was referred 

to specifically in relation to 

the earthquakes. Sometimes 

there are still no identified 

areas like safety areas, for 

in case of an earthquake that 

could affect Montones, so that 

the people are able to move in 

that direction to be the 

safest in a situation like 

that. 

Identificar personas con la 

mayor vulnerabilidad, es algo 

que ya mencionamos, integrar a 

las autoridades locales, 

también lo mencionamos. 

Identify the most vulnerable 

people is something that we 

have already mentioned, 

including the local 

authorities - also we 

mentioned this. 

Y por supuesto, mantener 

actualizado un censo sobre la 

realidad en la comunidad. 

Porque ustedes deben saber que 

nosotros que Puerto Rico en los 

últimos diez años hemos perdido 

cerca de 600 mil personas que 

se han mudado principalmente a 

los Estados Unidos. 

And of course, to maintain an 

updated census about the 

reality in the community. You 

have to know that Puerto Rick 

in the last ten years has lost 

near 600 thousand people, who 

have moved mainly to the 

United States. 

La siguiente. Next. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

En el plan de acción también, y 

desde el punto de vista del 

refortalecimiento siempre 

estamos buscando qué es lo sí 

las comunidades tienen. 

In the plan of action, also, 

and from the point of view of 

re-straightening, always we 

are on the search for what the 

communities do have. 

Y en estos momentos la 

comunidad cuenta con una 

escuela, que, aunque 

abandonada, se ha identificado 

como un potencial de recurso, 

para hacer un refugio, para 

hacer proyectos comunitarios, 

para que sea el mismo centro de 

acopio. O sea, los usos que se 

le puede dar a esta escuela que 

actualmente lleva cerca de dos 

o tres años abandonada. Esto es 

algo que la comunidad quisiera 

que se transformara en un lugar 

donde pueda servirle a la 

comunidad en diversos... 

At this time the community has 

a school that, though it’s 

abandoned, has been identified 

as a potential resource to 

make a shelter, to do 

community projects, to be a 

center for stockpiling. That 

is to say, the uses that this 

school could be put to even 

though it currently has been 

for two or three years 

abandoned. This is something 

that the community would like 

to transform into a place that 

can serve the community in 

diverse ways... 

De la misma manera, el huracán 

María destruyó una cancha que 

era un símbolo de un punto de 

encuentro de la comunidad, y a 

la fecha sigue destruida. No se 

ha podido construir, pero, 

estamos trabajando precisamente 

con distintas organizaciones 

para lograr que eso se 

reestablezca. 

In the same way, Hurricane 

María destroyed a field that 

was a point of encounter for 

the community, and up to this 

date is still unusable. It has 

not been possible to re-build, 

but we are working precisely 

with different organizations 

for this to be rebuilt. 

Siguiente. Next. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Por supuesto, no le podemos 

presentar aquí el plan per se, 

con todos los detalles que 

contiene. Pero, está compuesto 

principalmente por estas 

secciones. O sea, la misma 

comunidad nos ha dado luz 

cuando le preguntábamos qué 

debía tener, cuáles eran esos 

ingredientes que debía tener 

este plan para que 

verdaderamente le fuera de 

utilidad a la comunidad. 

Of course, we cannot present 

here the plan per se, with all 

its details. But it is 

comprised mainly of these 

sections. That is to say, the 

same community that has shed 

light for us when we asked 

questions about what it should 

have, which were those 

ingredients that this plan 

should have, to really be of 

use for the community. 

Y estas fueron las secciones 

que nos plantearon para que 

tuviera el plan. 

Un área de coordinación, de 

preparación, un área de aviso, 

una sección de avisos, de 

atención a los negocios, los 

medios de comunicación, 

refugios, evacuación, manejo de 

crisis y búsqueda. 

And these were the sections 

that they proposed for the 

plan to include. 

A coordination area, a 

preparation and notification 

area, a section for 

advertisements, one for 

businesses, means of 

communication, shelters, 

evacuation, crisis management, 

and search center. 

Siguiente. Next. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Y por supuesto, hay otros pasos 

que todavía están por llevarse 

a cabo. Una vez finalicemos el 

plan, el contenido del plan que 

se está desarrollando en un 

lenguaje, en un formato que les 

sea accesible a toda, o la 

inmensa mayoría de la 

comunidad, ese plan se le va a 

presentar a la comunidad. Y 

obtendremos una 

retroalimentación de la 

comunidad acerca de si lo que 

hemos recogido con toda la 

participación y con todos estos 

años de desarrollo, es lo que 

ellas y ellos entienden que 

debe ser ese plan. 

And of course, there are other 

steps that still need to be 

carried out. Once we finished 

with the plan, the contents of 

the plan that is being 

developed, in a language, in a 

format that is accessible to 

everybody, or the immense 

majority of the community, 

this plan will be presented to 

the community. And we will 

get feedback from the 

community about if we have 

included all the results of 

the participation and all 

these years of development, if 

it is what they understand the 

plan needs to be. 

Una vez tengamos esa 

retroalimentación, pues vamos 

entonces a revisarlo una vez 

más, como parte del trabajo del 

equipo de investigación 

comunitaria. 

Once we have that feedback, we 

are then going to review it 

once more, as part of the work 

of the community research 

team. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Y una vez, entonces entendamos 

que hemos alcanzado ese 

documento vivo, orgánico, pues, 

entonces se les va ser devuelto 

de distintas formas, 

principalmente se va a entregar 

copia de ese plan a toda la 

comunidad. También, se va a 

digitalizar y se va a hacer 

accesible a través de distintos 

medios para que ellos y ellas 

lo tengan y lo puedan utilizar 

durante todos estos procesos. 

And once that we understood 

that we have achieved that 

live, organic document, then, 

it’s going to be given back in 

different ways - mainly a copy 

of the plan is going to be 

delivered to the community. 

Also, it’s going to be 

digitalized and made 

accessible through different 

means so they have it and they 

can use it during these 

processes. 

Y por supuesto, una vez que ya 

le hayamos entregado ese plan 

pues vamos a tratar de hacer 

ejercicios de cómo ese plan se 

va a hacer realidad en su 

implementación. 

And of course, once we have 

delivered that plan to them, 

we are going to try to 

practice how this plan is 

going to be implemented. it. 

Pues, básicamente esa es 

nuestra presentación. Los 

dejamos nuevamente con lo que 

es el lema que desde el día 1 

estuvo acompañándonos como 

parte del proyecto INARO, que 

es ‘Montones de voluntades 

transforman realidades’. Ese 

fue el lema que construyó la 

misma comunidad en el 2019. 

Basically, that is our 

presentation. We leave you 

again with the slogan from day 

1 that was with us as part of 

the project INARO, and that is 

‘Lots of wills transform 

realities.’ This was the motto 

that built the same community 

in 2019. 
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Spanish Translation: English Translation: 

Así que muchas gracias por este 

espacio. Muchas gracias por la 

oportunidad. Y definitivamente, 

me reitero en las palabras con 

las que inicié. Agradecemos a 

Mary y Andrea, Melissa, a todo 

su equipo que han contribuido 

desde el día 1, han creído en 

el proyecto. 

So, thank you very much for 

this space. Thank you very 

much for the opportunity. And 

definitely, I repeat the words 

I started with. We thank 

Mary, Andrea and Melissa, and 

all the team that have 

contributed from day 1, that 

have believed in the project. 

Definitivamente pensamos que 

tiene, que AmeriCorps tiene que 

seguir promoviendo este tipo de 

investigación-acción 

participativa, porque es uno de 

los métodos que más respuesta 

le va a dar sobre conocimientos 

que necesitamos, pero, también 

sobre acciones concretas que 

son necesarias para ayudar a 

nuestras comunidades. 

Definitely, we think that 

AmeriCorps has to keep 

promoting this type of 

participative investigationaction, because it is one of 

the methods that has the most 

results to allow us get the 

knowledge that we need, but, 

also about concrete actions 

that are needed to help our 

communities. 

Terminamos Finished. 

MELISSA: Thank you so much, Dr. Vasquez Rivera. I’ll be 

handing this off now to Dr. Willet. 

JENNIFER: Hello, everyone. Welcome to our webinar: 

Making the Invisible Visible – Addressing Climate 

Injustice in Northern Nevada. My name is Jennifer and 
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I am the Director of the Research for Change team 

here in Reno, Nevada. The community partner on this 

project is Jennifer Sims who works at Upward Bound, 

which is a program that supports high school students 

prepare for college and focuses on first gen 

students. 

The other communities members on our team are high 

school students who attend Title I schools most of 

whom are connected to Upward Bound. Many of these 

students are now in college. They refer to themselves 

as the Youth Scientists and the project leaders on 

the study weren’t Youth Scientists, but they 

graduated high school several years ago. The Youth 

Scientists and leaders live in neighborhoods in 

Northern Nevada that are most likely to be affected 

by climate injustice. So they can document these 

issues and think about community based solutions. 

For our research we focused on documenting slow 

violence, which is a type of environmental injustice. 

Slow violence explicitly focuses on hidden 
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environmental problems that happen to hidden people. 

This is in contrast to other environmental problems 

that everybody knows about and affects everyone in 

the community. A distinguishing factor of slow 

violence is that they tend to occur over time and 

accumulate rather than a single environmental 

disaster, but these accumulating problems create 

large issues and difficulties for the community. 

Now an example of slow violence is climate change. So 

you can’t really see the change in the atmosphere on 

a day to day basis, but we know that greenhouse gases 

are accumulating and causing big problems. We also 

know that climate change disproportionally affects 

vulnerable populations the most or hidden 

populations. So in many cases slow violence isn’t 

publicized well, therefore the solution is to make it 

visible so we can work on solutions which is what our 

group has been doing. 

We conducted our project in Northern Nevada in Reno, 

Sparks, and Sun Valley which are areas that are 
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susceptible to slow violence because of both the 

environmental and social and economic factors in the 

area. We live in a fragile environment and wildfires 

and floods are common. Dumping is also common in many 

of our open areas. And we as a team think that there 

are not enough environmental protections or policies 

to support resilience. 

Socioeconomically there are a lot of hidden 

populations. For example, in Sun Valley, a community 

we like to focus in, 45% of the community is people 

of color and there’s an extremely high poverty rate. 

There are also not enough services for people in need 

to reduce vulnerability or to promote resilience. For 

example, services to clear dumping just aren’t common 

in many communities and they aren’t sufficient enough 

to deal with the problem at hand. In addition, we’d 

like to point out that housing affordability here is 

among the lowest in the nation which makes people 

more vulnerable because they are economically 

stressed. 
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So knowing what slow violence is and knowing the 

local factors for slow violence, we focus on bringing 

slow violence issues to light and working on change 

efforts. So our research questions are what are the 

experiences of slow violence in Northern Nevada? And 

from the local viewpoint, how best can slow violence 

be resolved? We worked on a lot of issues related to 

this, but we’re focusing on climate injustice today. 

We use photovoice to document climate injustice. To 

do this the Youth Scientists took pictures of climate 

injustice in their neighborhoods. We then met as a 

group to go over the showed interview to think deeper 

about the issues and how people are seeing different 

types of issues or similar types of issues and 

thinking about how we can make change collectively. 

We also conducted several community surveys to get 

wider input at our events. And we used secondary 

resources to explore issues further. 

So, in our first finding we’d like to show you what 

climate change looks like here and how it connects to 
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injustice. So, we live in a dry environment, but 

floods in certain neighborhoods are really common 

during certain times of the year. So, you see here a 

lake that has flooded into an elementary school so 

the kids can no longer play in their playground among 

other issues. And this lake has also flooded a lot of 

houses in the area. Now a lot of issues are going on 

with these floods which are linked to changes in the 

climate. And other issues that are affecting this in 

some cases the area is a flood catchment area so it 

is intended to flood when needed to essentially 

protect the rest of the city. 

However, people are still living in these areas and 

they have to deal with these floods, but there’s no 

infrastructure around them to protect them or help 

them be more resilient. And as you can imagine, the 

people that live in these neighborhoods tend to be 

much lower income because people don’t want to be 

flooded on a yearly basis. Additionally, this 

flooding has been linked to an increase in 

precipitation combined with increased development. 
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So, as more areas are paved the rain cannot soak into 

the land which creates floods where the water can 

gather. 

Another environmental issue that we frequently live 

with is wildfires. These wildfires are also 

increasing due to climate change. Now wildfires are 

dangerous for several reasons. The Youth Scientists 

often lived closer to the fires because they lived 

further out in the city. One Youth Scientist took the 

picture of the fire that you see from his house, it 

got very close to where he lived. Now the wildfires 

are also dangerous because of the smoke, like you see 

in the second picture. 

Reno is having increasing numbers of hazardous air 

days due to the fires where people are advised not to 

go outside. In 2021, we had the worst air quality 

measures that we have ever had. Now while this 

affects everyone, people with health issues are much 

more dangerously impacted. The Youth Scientists have 

reported that some of their families have taken 
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measures into their own hands because they are not 

supported enough in resilience efforts. And they have 

organized controlled burns to reduce fire risk. They 

believe that much more action by official channels is 

needed. 

As we dug deeper it became clear to us that climate 

change is intersecting with other local issues which 

is our second major finding. Climate change is made 

worse with unjust infrastructure in some working 

class communities. There is not appropriate drainage 

system in Sun Valley, which is what you are seeing 

here, there are just ditches. Now a couple of things 

that are important to recognize. This is Sun Valley, 

the poorest area in Northern Nevada. The neighborhood 

also has the highest percentage of people of color. 

This neighborhood is also a flood catchment area so 

it frequently floods, much more than other areas. 

And it needs very strong infrastructure to deal with 

all of these issues, yet it is comparably weak, there 

is no drainage system. So what happen is that the 
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water doesn’t always flow through the ditches and it 

then covers the road. People in cars can then easily 

fall into the ditch because they can’t see where the 

ditch is. In addition, as you see, there are no 

sidewalks so kids and other pedestrians are just 

walking in the middle of the street so they don’t 

fall into the ditch. There’s also no streetlights, as 

you can see. This creates a dangerous situation where 

kids and other pedestrians have been hit by cars and 

killed because they were walking in the street to 

avoid the ditches. 

Importantly, many neighborhoods in Northern Nevada do 

have appropriate infrastructure even though they are 

less affected by the flooding. This area simply does 

not have appropriate infrastructure. It’s an 

injustice and it’s making climate impacts much worse. 

Another concern the Youth Scientists documented was 

the intersection across climate impacts and people 

who work outside who are often their family members. 

As you can see here, there’s a man framing a house 
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and behind him should be a very clear mountain, but 

it’s obscured because this was during a hazardous air 

day. Most people were told not to go outside during 

these days and our area had declared an emergency 

when schools were cancelled, but people who work in 

these lower income jobs still had to go to work 

outside at great risk to themselves. 

This connects to another issue. You can see that he’s 

building a house. The Northern Nevada area is in a 

severe housing crisis and has been identified as one 

of the most unaffordable areas in the country because 

of high prices and low wages. So he’s building a 

house to support the housing issues in our area, 

however, most of the housing that is built right now 

are luxury homes. So the houses that these workers 

are building and risking their health to do so during 

hazardous air days are far outside of their 

affordability. They cannot afford these houses. 

So the Youth Scientists have been working a lot on 

other slow violence issues that we’d just like to 
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highlight quickly. They worked a lot on dumping in 

their neighborhoods and lack of street lights. While 

these aren’t climate issues they’re negative impacts, 

raise vulnerability in their communities and also 

contribute to making their communities unhealthy 

which then make climate injustices also worse. 

Importantly, like we’ve been discussing, in other 

neighborhoods these issues are resolved. Dumping is 

removed and there are street lights. 

In areas like Sun Valley, which are very low income, 

it can sit for months and the dumping invites more 

dumping. We’ve documented dumping sites over time and 

they just get bigger and bigger as the garbage 

accumulates. And like we briefly discussed about lack 

of street lights, this is creating a dangerous 

situation for pedestrians and this issue is near and 

dear to many of the Youth Scientist’s hearts. Many of 

them know a high school student that was hit and 

killed on a dark street without street lights while 

she was walking to school. So they would really like 
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to resolve these issues. And to stress, other 

neighborhoods have street lights. 

In addition to photovoice, we conducted a Community 

Survey at many of our outreach events and most of our 

participants were from the same communities that the 

Youth Scientists lived in because we asked them 

[unclear] that they live in. And the Community Survey 

confirmed many of our photovoice findings. 70% of our 

Community Survey participants reported severe impacts 

from wildfires mostly that centered on their 

inability to go outside. So this affected their 

incomes because they couldn’t go to work and their 

health, both because they were bothered by the smoke 

because they had an underlying condition and because 

they couldn’t keep themselves healthy because they 

couldn’t workout or exercise outside. 

Respondents also reported a lot of concern with 

dumping. Most participants reported that they were 

seeing one new large dumping site at least once per 

week. They also said that they could see it sitting 
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there for over six months and it’s not being cleaned 

up. Again, this is unique to their neighborhoods, in 

other neighborhoods it’s cleaned up much faster. 

So we studied slow violence in-depth for our 

projects, but the Youth Scientists felt very strongly 

that slow violence wasn’t always fitting their 

situation. So they had ideas on how to improve the 

theory. They really took issue with the assumption 

that these problems are hidden, they felt like they 

weren’t. On one hand they felt like they were 

normalized because they were happening so often that 

people that lived in the communities just got used to 

them. On the other hand, they felt like they were 

being ignored by decision makers and people who could 

make these situations a lot better like through 

installing street lights. So they didn’t think that 

they were hidden, they thought that they were more 

ignored. 

They also felt like while slow violence often points 

to climate change as an example, like we’ve been 
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saying that is not the end of the story, really the 

issue is slow violence plus other issues of 

vulnerability. So, climate change plus infrastructure 

needs, climate change plus lack of affordable 

housing, climate change plus lack of supports. So, we 

need to work on climate issues, but we also need to 

work on these other factors that can make their 

communities much more resilient. 

So the Youth Scientists have been working really hard 

on creating change using their findings. They spent a 

lot of time building relationships with people and 

educating different groups. They presented to the 

communities several times, to teachers through their 

continuing education series, and to all of the 

librarians in the state. Among other successes with 

these presentations, we have heard that there have 

been other youth-led photovoice research to action 

groups forums and we’re so excited that we supported 

that development. 
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They also spoke about infrastructure needs with the 

governor’s staff and spoke at the governor’s 

listening tour with youth to promote driving COVID 

funding into their neighborhoods. They’ve really come 

to be seen as youth leaders within the community and 

people often ask them to speak at events. They also 

built strong coalitions to work on sidewalks with the 

sheriff’s office, the school board, and local 

government officials. And we’ve pressured a lot of 

people to support sidewalk infrastructure in their 

neighborhoods and we can at least say that sidewalks 

are starting to be built in the area. 

They also raised money and donations for homeless 

youth through partnering with a local restaurant, 

which is the picture that you see with the bowls. And 

they organized and distributed winter survival kits 

for local homeless populations, which you can see in 

this picture with Naji and his van. They often like 

to focus on the homeless population because the 

homeless people live in their neighborhoods and 

because they felt like they were most vulnerable to 
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all of these issues that we discussed. So to 

summarize, all of these actions directly stem from 

their research. So we’ve been able to develop 

community identified problems, solutions, and 

actions. 

Another thing that we did was we built a team to 

apply for a NCCC team. The local government suggested 

in Sun Valley that we have a NCCC team work on 

building a sidewalk that you see in this picture. 

This road goes to a school, so many kids often walk 

along the side of the road, which is what you can see 

happening here. Building the sidewalk would function 

as a pilot so we could show other organizations what 

NCCC could do in our communities. We built this team 

with Nevada volunteers, the Red Cross, Upward Bound, 

local churches, and other supporters. And we were 

awarded this team. 

We also designed other activities for the NCCC team 

that integrated our findings, like supporting a 

community clean up day. However, the timeframe was at 
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the beginning of COVID so the project was cancelled. 

And we would love to get this team back into Reno and 

we’re working with our NCCC partners to try to 

reestablish it. 

So, in summary, climate injustice is affecting Reno 

communities. And as you saw, it impacted the 

communities with the fewest resources. It truly is an 

injustice. We need to resolve climate change 

certainly, but many of these other intersecting 

issues like lack of fair infrastructure can be 

resolved now and to support justice they should be 

prioritized. And we think the great thing about this 

is that AmeriCorps teams can support many of these 

issues. 

So, on behalf of the Research for Change team, thank 

you so much for attending our webinar. Please feel 

free to reach out to us. I can say on behalf of the 

Youth Scientists they love when people contact them. 

So we look forward to continuing our discussions. 
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MELISSA: Thank you so much. Dr. Willet. I’ll hand this off 

now to Shane Dermanjian. 

SHANE: Okay, hello. My name is Shane Dermanjian and I am a 

Research Assistant with AmeriCorps Office of Research 

and Evaluation. And I just want to quickly go over 

sort of what got me to start caring about climate 

change and the environment, and sort of what brought 

me to serving in AmeriCorps as a member, and all that 

combined what led me to wanting to work for 

AmeriCorps in the Research Department where I 

currently work. 

So, a quick timeline, we could call it, of the pretty 

significant points in time that led me to this point. 

I would say it started with Superstorm Sandy hitting 

New Jersey in October of 2012. I’m from New Jersey. 

I’ve spent every summer of my life down the shore. 

So, seeing that destruction was pretty impactful on 

me. It really started to get me to care about this 

environmental disaster and disaster recovery. Not 
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that I didn’t care before, but just it was at the 

forefront of course being from New Jersey. 

And then started thinking about climate change 

through some coursework I had while I was in college, 

got me started thinking how all this is all 

connected: disaster, environment, and climate change. 

And then that kind of pushed me to wanting to serve 

with AmeriCorps by first being in the environmental 

stewardship program and then my second brought me 

back home to New Jersey to do disaster recovery on 

Sandy homes. And then from there I attended grad 

school and wound up working at AmeriCorps as an 

intern and here I am today. 

So, thinking of Sandy, you know, it felt like I had 

to do something. This was the community that I loved. 

This picture, it’s a famous picture of the 

rollercoaster in Seaside Heights falling into the 

ocean. I’ve been on that rollercoaster. I go to the 

beach to this day, Seaside Heights, I live right by 

it. So, I felt like I had to do something and then I 
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didn’t just because of the forces that be. Just the 

timing didn’t work out for me. So I put it off, but I 

still had that desire to do something about it. And I 

know I wanted to do something with the environment 

just based off the coursework and that seemed to 

interest me. 

So, that led me to Cape Cod for my first term where I 

did conservation activities, some environmental 

education, and also had some help in planning a lot 

of AmeriCorps flagship volunteer events up there. My 

second term brought me back home to New Jersey where 

I literally rebuilt homes with people for people who 

were still displaced five years after Sandy hit the 

coastline. 

So, all that together it kind of made me think about 

how climate change would just make the need for 

everything I just did all the greater and just the 

destruction that I tended to be all the worse, right. 

So, just having that realization it kind of made me 

think, so, what are we going to do about it? How do 
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we get more people exposed to environmental affairs? 

Not exposed in a way that they have to have a 

hurricane happen to their community, but just how to 

get them to care more about this stuff. 

And then, how do we prepare our communities for 

future disasters which are arguably going to be worse 

in the advent of climate change and sea level rise 

and what have you? And I think AmeriCorps is the 

answer to both of these questions or at least it is 

an answer to these questions. I’m not just paid to 

say that, I firmly believe it, I did it, I 

experienced it, right. 

So, sort of all in all, having that exposure and then 

serving in these fields both just true environmental 

stewardship, working out in the field doing trail 

maintenance, sustainability, things like that versus 

sort of the backend of that which is what happens 

when the environment does what it does and wreaks 

havoc on us, you know, those two things together as 

well as an interest in public policy, answering that 
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question of ‘what are we going to do?’ led me to 

wanting to work at AmeriCorps in research and sort of 

thinking about how we can get more people to care 

about this stuff. 

And to me there’s no better way than just serving, 

getting your hands dirty, and really becoming one 

planet that we call home. Yeah, so if you have any 

questions feel free to contact me. Thank you. 

MELISSA: Thank you so much, Mr. Dermanjian. I’ll be 

handing this off now to Dr. Hanson-Schlachter. 

LAURA: Hello, everyone. My name is Laura Hanson 

Schlachter, and like Shane, I’m a Research Analyst in 

the AmeriCorps Office of Research and Evaluation. I’m 

delighted to have the opportunity to share just a few 

reflections on these thoughtful presentations about 

the links between civic engagement and climate 

change. 
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First, thank you so much to all of our speakers for 

sharing your research and personal experiences. 

Individually and collectively I think you’ve really 

lifted up some important insights about how research, 

community participation, and national service 

intersect in this arena. 

As Dr. Fisher said in her opening remarks, scale 

should be front and center in this conversation. 

There are good reasons to believe that taking action 

on climate change affects not only the individuals 

engaging in the civic sphere, but also the partner 

organizations and the communities involved, not to 

mention the environment or what sociologist Mike Bell 

has called the biggest community of all. We need more 

research on these effects that builds on the work 

presented today. 

From Texas to Puerto Rico, Nevada to New Jersey 

participatory research and national service have 

provided opportunities for individuals to come 

together and identify the impacts of climate change 
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and then act collectively to actually do something 

about it whether that’s leveraging findings from a 

photovoice project to build sidewalks and advocate 

for policy change or highlighting the crucial role 

that language justice plays in disaster preparedness. 

In my mind this kind of scholarship also strengthens 

the roots of democracy. 

And as we think about the future of this work I see 

three big takeaways from these presentations. The 

first is that making a difference on climate change 

has ripple effects over time and space. Not everyone 

will have quite as inspiring a professional 

trajectory as Shane, but his story resonates with a 

growing body of evidence that people empowered to 

build climate solutions together will carry 

leadership skills and a sense of efficacy with them 

throughout their lives and wherever they go. 

The second is that local level research around civic 

engagement and climate change is absolutely crucial. 

I love how the scholars who presented today set the 
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table for youth and community members to share 

stories in their own words and created space for 

collective action to emerge organically. Leadership 

often means listening to local voices. 

And finally, I’m struck by the constructive dimension 

of this work. In the original Latin construction 

means together build and this has been a big theme in 

my own research. So often when we think about climate 

activism what comes to mind is protests and 

petitions, the resistance to what we don’t want. 

These presentations are a good reminder that civic 

engagement, especially when it comes to national 

service, is often about saying yes to what we do 

want. It’s about building solutions together to 

secure our collective future. 

Again, thank you so much to all of our presenters and 

to everyone listening in. Thank you for being with us 

today. 
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MELISSA: Thank you so much, Dr. Hanson-Schlachter and all 

of the presenters today. 

A big thank you to our listeners. We hope you’ve 

enjoyed today’s webinar. This crucial intersection of 

civic participation, research in climate change 

should spark hope for grassroots and institutional 

change and large-scale systemic changes needing to 

solve this pressing problem that impacts all of us. 

As you have heard, time is of essence, but there’s 

hope for us to slow, end, or reverse climate change. 

This is but one tool in our collective toolbox for 

literally holding back the waters of ecological 

disaster. 

Sadly, we’re out of time today. So I’ll end with a 

hearty thanks to our presenters: Dr. Dana Fisher, Dr. 

Carlos Vasquez-Rivera, Dr. Jennifer Willet, Dr. Denae 

King, Dr. Suzanne Pritzker, Shane Dermanjian, and Dr. 

Laura-Hanson Schlachter for your exciting remarks and 

presentations. If you would like to follow up with 

us, or any of the presenters, we can be reached at 
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evaluation@cns.gov or at the email addresses provided 

by the presenters. If you did not catch their email 

addresses, we would be happy to connect you. 

Finally, we would like to extend an enormous thank 

you to the team at ICF Next International who bring 

the magic of this webinar to you. Thank you so much 

for attending and have a wonderful rest of your day. 

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