Rethink Diné Power with Erin and Amanda

Cross posted from Youthnoise by Trina Chi

Erin Coffey (left) and Amanda Hass (right) recently won the 2009 Focus Roots Fellowship to help communities transition towards sustainable energy sources. The Focus Roots award includes $10,000 and operational support, a bicycle trip from New York City to Washington D.C. to promote a clean energy future, and a ticket to Copenhagen to attend the COP15 Climate Treaty Negotiations.

Amanda and Erin's project, Rethink Diné Power, seeks to use art and community organizing to stop pollution from a coal-power plant in the Navajo Nation, New Mexico.

Why did they choose to embark on this project? As Erin explained in her Focus Roots essay...

"Amanda Hass and I this summer have had the opportunity to travel to Abiqui, New Mexico to facilitate a youth leadership training. At this training we met a remarkable Navajo community organizer by the name of Eloise Brown. Eloise, along with a coalition of Indigenous Partners and other environmental allies have been fighting the Desert Rock Coal Plant proposal for the past three years. She has given up her day to day life, her health and well-being in order to protect not only the Navajo community but our national community as well. As we listened to Eloise's story of struggle and sacrifice, we found ourselves being pushed out of our state of inertia..."

And this is what happens when two women break out of their state of inertia and decide to take action:

Did you have any community organizing experience before you started this project?

EC: To be honest, I had very little experience in community experience before this project. I had been campus organizing in Pennsylvania. I had worked the Power Vote campaign in Fall 2008, Powershift 2009, and the Sierra Student Coalition's Campuses Beyond Coal Campaign this summer.

Before I met Elouise Brown, I had a hard time forming my personal thoughts about climate change. I remember during Powershift a reporter asked me what Climate Change meant to me, and I couldn't give him a great answer. Climate Change is such a vast issue that is hard to grip your head around because it affects every aspect of life.

But then something happened that helped me crystallize what Climate Change meant to me. I was reading an article about cultural distinction. There are indigenous cultures, people, that are in danger of becoming extinct because of our insatiable consumption of fossil fuels and natural resources. Climate Change to me is a social injustice. Climate Change is the Navajo people fighting to protect their land and people. Climate Change is the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Climate Change is the nations of Maldives, Kiribati, and Tuvalu in danger of disappearing beneath the waves.

AH: In high school, I was working with a group on getting the renewable energy purchase increased in Montgomery County, Maryland, which we won! Then at New York University, I did a couple projects while working at the Recycling Department with composting and move-out drives, where we'd collect things that would otherwise be thrown away and donated it to charity. Also I worked on the Power Vote campaign, getting people committed to thinking about the environment as a priority for the 2008 presidential election, by getting petition signatures around New York City.

You recently took a trip out to the east coast to bike from New York City to Washington D.C. on the Climate Ride. What was that like?

EC: Well, actually only I rode in the Climate Ride. Early on we knew that one of us was going to Copenhagen and one of us was going to participate in the Climate Ride. Amanda doesn't know how to ride a bike (how, I do not know) so the decision was pretty easy.

I had not been on a bike for about a month and I didn't have any time to train for the 300 mile bike ride. I honestly thought I was going to die from muscle atrophy. But amazingly my body cooperated with me, I felt stronger each consecutive day of the ride. The only thing I wasn't prepared for was sitting on a bike seat for that long. That was the hardest part.

I learned that biking for long distances is mostly a mental feat and when you have 125 fellow bikers alongside with you, it makes the ride much more easy as well as enjoyable.

Also, I learned that you can patch your inner bike tire with a Cliff Bar wrapper. I thought that was pretty cool.

Now that you're back from the bike trip, what have you been working on lately?

AH: Now that Erin's back, we've really been able to solidify our youth project ideas and pitch them to local groups and community members. The Boys and Girls Club in Shiprock is now taking on our Storycrafting Sessions, where youth work in small groups with a local professional storyteller to craft their own personal stories in a way that motivates others to act and highlight issues, a skill very important to activists.

What has been the most challenging aspect of Rethink Diné Power?

AH: For me, it's getting to work in such a marginalized community, where people really don't have a lot of the basic needs and are putting the environment and their health at a lower priority than the promise of jobs.

EC: I think the most challenging aspect of this project has been building a relationship of trust with community members. What we are doing is a very unique concept to most of the community and there is a long history of organizers and people coming to the Navajo Nation and leaving with unfulfilled promises. We aim to change that image of  outside organizers and commit fully to our promises till they are fulfilled.

And the most rewarding part?

AH: I'd have to say that the same thing that makes this work challenging is the exact same that makes it rewarding. We recently went to a clean energy forum for a college in Durango, Colorado and the concerns of the students there were turning off lights, driving their SUV less, all relevant concerns to their lifestyle, but quite trivial compared to the issues facing people only 60 miles away.

EC: The most rewarding aspect so far has been the opportunity to listen and learn from this beautiful culture. Indigenous cultures have a much longer memory of history than we do, and they carry this through story. The spoken stories of the Navajo people are captivating and more valuable than any American attempts of recording of their history .

I hear that you're going to Copenhagen soon. Will you tell us a bit about the upcoming trip and how it might help your project in New Mexico?

AH: The conference is aimed at creating a global climate agreement that will start in 2012, which is the end date of the existing Kyoto Protocol. My presentation is where I can talk about the prevalence of coal in the Four Corners Region, its impact on the Navajo Nation's communities and how their resistance against non-renewable energy should be admired and reflected in the treaty drafted at COP-15.

What are your plans for the future?

EC: Our plans are to help establish a strong foundation of empowered youth within the Shiprock community, then expand our projects to communities across the reservation, as well as have Navajo youth plug into (or create their own!) existing activist groups across in the nation.

AH: Basically, we want to get more youth engaged in activism, so our future plans include hosting community events, collaborating with existing groups, putting on youth programs.

What can others do to help this cause?

AH: If you're in the Navajo Nation, give us a call or shoot us an email! We love meeting people and hearing about what is going on, cause we don't know everything.

Thanks, ladies. For more information, check out the Rethink Diné Power blog or go to Focus the Nation.