Season 2, Episode 5: Resilience in the Bronx - Imani Cenac
Hey, Everyone! Welcome back to Brym - it’s Season 2, Episode 5! And it’s almost the Holidays! A quick note before we dive in about this new Season and how it’s a bit different than Season 1 (if you haven’t already caught our drift)…
First of all, huge thanks to my friend Nicolas Vivas Nikonorow for his genius music in our podcast episode!!!
In Season 2 of Brym, we will be highlighting stories directly from changemakers across the world - inviting them to tell their own stories in their own ways in the spirit of Citizen Journalism! In addition to a written piece that they write themselves, we’ll also be doing interviews so you get to hear from their own voice as well!
In this week’s Climate Story and Interview, we hear from Imani Cenac! Imani is the Resiliency Organizer with NQ - Nos Quedamos (English Translation: We Stay). The work happening in the South Bronx through NQ, see: Community Land Trusts, Community Gardens, Multi-Family Housing, and upcoming Resiliency Hubs (read on) - has all been hugely inspirational to Brym. So excited to share Imani’s story and hopefully everyone can learn from their unique model!!
As always, feel free to follow along on our Substack or Apple Podcasts as well! Hope you enjoy…
Resilience in the Bronx
Author: Imani Cenac, December 15, 2022
There isn't one part of my life experience that drew me to environmental Justice; it was a plethora of different moments. Over time, Climate justice came to me as women in my family opened my eyes to the wonderful world of gardening.
Then, my interest in food justice skyrocketed after reading a section of the book “Let Them Eat Ketchup: The Politics of Poverty and Inequality” by Sheila D. Collins for my Community Leadership class in college. I’d seen informationals on how ketchup is manufactured and the amount of corn sugar that goes into it. It was astonishing that the administration at the time was willing to categorize ketchup as a vegetable. And not to mention that students (and lower income ones even more) rely on these meals for their daily nutrition.
A simple statement in the title of the book raised how large the issue of food insecurity is on a national and global level. Even when we think of the United States being a “wealthy” country, there are still billions of pounds of food being wasted, simply because people can't access it.
From that point on I wanted to learn as much about the topic as I could. During the COVID lockdown in NYC, I threw every seed and scrap I could find into pots around the house - tomatoes, basil, lettuce, and peppers. In this time when I felt trapped in solitude, my green surroundings made me feel less lonely.
Disclaimer: We aren’t really supposed to plant on the fire escapes in NYC, but this was the time when I spent most of my days at home. It made me happy to look outside each morning and my tomatoes, mint and basil in such a small space.
In Saint Lucia, my Godmother has an oasis of mango and green banana trees surrounding her home and she’s been adding more strategically placed florals to her yard. When I visited she seemed so happy and she told me that just looking out her back door into her green space improves her mood. I love the idea of being able to go into your yard and pick out food items straight from the earth.
Even one of my Grandmothers here in the Bronx has created a spot in her home that will take you back to being in the islands; various plants stacked on top of an extended table alongside her apartment window.
This is just part of the oasis that my Godmother calls home back in Saint Lucia.
I wanted my work to connect back to these experiences and build on them. So I joined Nos Quedamos (NQ), fascinated with their connection to community gardens. I saw the potential for how these gardens could act as food distribution centers for their neighboring residents, especially as we were coming right out of COVID restrictions.
For a bit of context, Nos Quedamos was born to preserve the homes of the people who lived there. In 1994 a group of members saw what they needed for their community to thrive and developed a residential plan for Melrose Commons based on that. The population in this district experiences high rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, asthma, and more. I’ve referred to these health statistics of South Bronx residents for the majority of my Public Health Projects. If we can create spaces that provide a similar quality of resources in these lower-income neighborhoods, just as there are in wealthier ones, health outcomes will become better and disparities will be reduced.
My work with NQ started on the Environmental Justice Youth Team. We began as a team focused on methods to reconnect our organization with the community. Our goal was and still is to activate a rooftop garden in one of NQ’s co-owned buildings. Activation of this rooftop garden will create a model for other buildings to do the same. My vision is to connect residents to a space where they can grow produce that will thrive.
Here is the base design for what our Resilience Hubs will look like. They were designed by Pvillion.
My passion led NQ’s staff to invite me to New Orleans to attend a convening of like-minded organizations that we could exchange ideas with. Discussions on what Resilience means was the first step in preparation for my new position as Resiliency Organizer! One of the projects we’re working on is to create Resiliency Hubs (see picture above) - spaces for the community to receive support during times of crisis. This is a project that Nos Quedamos has been working to push forth for a couple years now. The Hubs will have stormwater collection systems and solar panels that generate energy to power broadband internet, providing community members a place to work or hang out.
In the near future, I hope that my team can use the model that we are in the process of creating to gain the trust of our resident constituents, who have historically been left behind in reconstruction improvements. When we gather our group with aligned interests, we can structure a sustaining, resident-led rooftop ‘healing garden’ that grows not only food, but other herbs and flowers that have beneficial properties. Projects like this have been adapted in various parts of the world so far, but we want to make sure that our model acknowledges the cultural practices of people who will be using these spaces.
Yes, we want to embrace newness and benefits of change, but there’s also something comforting about the idea of incorporating pieces from home.
Huge thank you to Imani for sharing her beautiful story! Up next, look out for lots of exciting things in the works for 2023!!
Have a great rest of the week everyone and a safe weekend.
