Victor Medina of Futures Ignite testifies on environmental civic action

And are we live?

Amazing.

All right.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Dinowitz and Joseph, for holding this hearing.

My name is Victor Medina, and I am the Civic Science Leadership Program Manager at Futures Ignite.

We work, we partner with New York City Public Schools to propel bold college and career futures for every college student so that when each one graduates, they plan to be excited about the work that they're doing and to make it real.

And I think that that's one of the things that I love about the opportunities that the New York City of Civic Grading provides.

So my background is in environmental leadership and education for the past 15 years.

I've done this both here in New York City as well as in Westchester County, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.

And I often feel that my role talking about environmental conservation and climate justice and environmental justice often is delivering the gloom and doom news.

And the question that I get from every age group, from sixth grade through high school, whenever we present the issues of environmental injustice, whether they be caused by redlining practices and environmental racism through our history, is what can we do?

Like, that's the biggest question.

And I think that this is a place that our organization is developing to give students an outlet.

To make a difference in the ultimately the community.

that they will inherit.

And what I hope that the, you know, which is part of why I support and we support the inclusion of the CEO of Sir Grenades as part of all New York City public schools, as well as for college credit,

is because it not only gives them an incentive to do so, but that there's a reward and recognition, I think, at the end of the day.

for being engaged and making the communities that they are a part of and that we all are a part of a better place.

A quick shared example of how this has taken place in Futures Ignite are in our founding school at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School.

Students led a movement with various partner organizations that observed poor air quality, poor sanitation on 182nd Street, including the presence of needles from folks that use opioids throughout the area.

And this led to a student-led movement that I do not take any credit for to really create a permanent open street on 182nd Street between Amsterdam and Broadway.

And that is all student idea facilitated with teachers and programs staff that have been in organization longer than I.

And we are looking to bring that now to various other schools, namely Intake Academy in the Bronx, the students of which were here a moment ago and had to go on the rest of their day.

Sorry.

But they're all engaged in evaluating right now what are the things that their community needs.

And the hope that we have is to empower them to make those changes and make differences.

And I just hope that they can receive credit accordingly.

So thank you so much for holding this hearing and for advancing this really important work for all of our students here in the city.

Thank you.

And yes, of course, the students from InTech, as everyone here should know, go to school in my district.

Yeah.