Mayor Murray Engages with Youth at Equity & Environment Initiative Storytelling Workshop

The Equity & Environment Initiative (EEI) in partnership with The Seattle Globalist piloted an innovative series of free storytelling workshops. There were two purposes for these workshops. One was to support the community’s needs, giving community members the skills and training to share and lift up their community stories while connecting those stories to the work of the city. The other was to increase participation of people of color in the environmental work of the city and ensure their stories are incorporated into the Environmental Equity Analysis creating real, relevant, and personal data. Each workshop gave participants audio recording and media skills that they could share with their community for future story gathering and reporting. The workshop also gave community members, who may not identify as environmentalists, the opportunity to discover their own environmental connections and develop their own personal “environmental” story. These collective stories give opportunities for the voices and stories of people of color to be heard, to help shape Seattle’s environmental movement, and our city’s environmental priorities.

On Sat. Feb. 27^th, Mayor Murray attended the final workshop at the 2100 Building. With 30 other participants in attendance he shared his own environmental story. He also gave remarks reinforcing his commitment to the Equity & Environment Initiative highlighting that environmental issues and civil rights issues cannot be seen as separate. This message resonated with participants and were very inspired by Mayor Murray’s commitment to this work and to hearing their stories.

These stories will be published as part of the Equity and Environment Initiative’s partnership with the Seattle Globalist. They will connect to quantitative data to ensure that stories and numbers influence how we do our work.

The Equity & Environment Initiative is focused on deepening Seattle’s Commitment to race and social justice in environmental work centered on equity. To find out more on the Initiative visit: http://www.seattle.gov/environment/about-ose/equity-and-environment.