Communities for a Better Environment Overview

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5610 Pacific Blvd. Suite 203
Huntington Park
California 90255
USA
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Programs: CBE has developed a unique, and uniquely effective program, which involves five distinct elements, all of which combine to help create reduced environmental health risks in industrial communities: * Our community organizers work with urban communities at risk to build successful grassroots campaigns to fight toxic pollution. * Our grassroots leadership training program provides a comprehensive environmental health and justice curriculum for a series of workshops designed to build grassroots leadership skills in adults and youth. Over 700 people have participated in the program in the past five years. * Our expert legal team conducts litigation against corporate polluters and ineffectual regulators to strengthen local and statewide enforcement of environmental laws and regulation of industry. Our success rate in these cases is over 90%. * Our research team provides hard data and high quality research to support our advocacy efforts. CBE researchers have also produced groundbreaking peer-reviewed studies and technological models for industrial pollution reduction and environmentally sustainable industry. * Our national technical assistance program brings an inexpensive, low-tech air pollution monitoring device called the "Bucket" to industrial communities in California and nationwide, so that residents can use the data they generate to pressure regulators and industries to do more to safeguard their health.

Mission:

CBE works for improved environmental health and justice in heavily polluted urban communities. Through an integrated program approach, CBE provides legal, technical and organizing skills, as well as leadership development opportunities, to residents in low-income communities of color facing threats to their health and well-being from toxic pollution. There is increasing awareness that polluting facilities in the U.S. are disproportionately located in or near low-income communities of color, causing disproportionate illness and suffering in those communities, and therefore, environmental health is a civil rights issue, an issue of social justice. CBE''s vision is of a world free of environmental health threats, where all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin or income level, participate fully in the decision-making that affects their health and well-being, and where those concerns are more important in all cases than private economic profit.

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thinkRED

08/26/09

First time I was told to be at Communities for a Better environment from School-to-Career I didn't know what to expect at all. I was a summer youth intern from Oakland High School Environmental Science Academy, so my background knowledge of the environment helped me there. Together with Youth ... more »

bellabicicleta

04/21/09

CBE is truly a grass-roots organization. AND, their work on environmental justice issues in California is truly unique. We all have a place and role in this great green movement, but CBE's role is particularly noteworthy. CBE is leading the way in protecting communities of color in the front line of... more »

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