“That’s why I came to YSE,” says Reynolds, who admits that after her undergraduate studies in geology and biology at Brown, she wanted more space to “address issues of racial injustice” in environmental challenges.
For Reynolds, the next step will be returning to UPROSE as a policy planner addressing climate justice in New York City — with a bolstered passion for justice, a deep investment in the city that raised her, and a network of environmental professionals at her back.
This theme of solidarity follows Yeampierre throughout her career, which saw her as an attorney and the dean of Puerto Rican Student Affairs at Yale. Today, she serves as the executive director of UPROSE, an intergenerational, primarily BIPOC female-led organization working at the intersection of racial justice and climate change. Despite UPROSE’s unique environmental angle, Yeampierre always brings her mission — and story — back to “cultural brilliance as a solution.” “This build[ing] of relationships across ethnicities and across languages,” she said.
When more than 300,000 people marched in the streets of New York City during the People’s Climate March, in September 2014, Elizabeth Yeampierre, a co-organizer of the event, made sure that young people of color stood at the front of the line.