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INVOLVEDA resilient community is created by the community
You can play an important role in increasing climate resilience in a way that works for you.
Community members, especially those who have been historically excluded and are most at risk, have been and will continue to be centered in the Resilient Northeastern NJ process. The Faces of Resilience series and art projects, which are highlighted below, elevate the experiences of community leaders who dedicate their time to increasing resilience and improving their communities. Through interactive murals in public spaces across the region that are integrated with the Faces of Resilience series, the projects have provided opportunities for community members to engage around resilience and build awareness about climate change issues through art.
Community members have also been involved in the Resilient Northeastern NJ program by participating in community meetings, providing feedback on reports, engaging on social media, and through the Community Advisory Council, which is made up of residents from the four cities and guides the program’s process.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
This project has the potential to impact thousands of people in underserved communities for generations to come. Therefore, incorporating the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion into project processes and outcomes is critical to the success of Resilient Northeastern NJ.
OUR DEFINITIONS
- Embraces variety and differences in the people who participate in project processes, whether by their experiences, race, culture, age, language, or other characteristics
Equity
- Goes beyond equality, which is fair and just treatment of all potential and existing community members
- Means ensuring that decision-making processes and project outcomes, including burdens and benefits, are responsive to the diverse needs, challenges, and histories of people who could be affected
- Involves creation of opportunities to address historic, current, and future disadvantages for underrepresented populations
Inclusion
- Is achieved when a diverse group of people feel and are welcomed into decision-making and project processes
OUR COMMITMENTS TO INCORPORATE DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
- Ensuring that project processes prioritize the voices of historically underserved communities
- Acknowledging and confronting the country’s history of systemic racism and discrimination
- Sustaining action and assessment of progress towards equitable resilience goals and towards the reduction of existing disparities
SOME WAYS THAT WE ARE WORKING TO ACCOMPLISH THIS INCLUDE:
- Reaching out to potential partner organizations to help lead engagement and get input from the people they serve
- Providing multiple different ways to engage as easily as possible
- Providing ways to get and receive information in multiple languages
- Creating a Community Advisory Council made up of a diverse group of residents from each community
ANYTIME ENGAGEMENT MATERIALS
Click the links below to check out our engagement materials.
Learn more about the materials in the Resource Library. Where available, the Resource Library also includes materials in other languages.
Faces of Resilience
The heart of any community is the people living and working within it. Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken and Bayonne are cities at the center of Northeastern New Jersey’s thriving economy, but more than that they are home to movements that are pushing New Jersey into a new era. In our hope to highlight the changes and growth happening in these cities, Resilient NENJ sat down with people who are leading the environmental activism and community building movements in each city to shed some light on the reasons why our strategies and the work that we’re doing truly matters in our state as well as in the greater global community.
Watch as the faces of our communities discuss the meaning of resilience and how it impacts each city and the rest of the world.
We’re always looking for new faces to highlight in this series! If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else for a video, please get in touch with us!
Watch Ahmed Lack & Damon Mont discuss Bayonne
Watch Maria Nunez-Lopez, Kim Gaddy, Daniel Wiley, Alex Hodgkinson, and Melissa Miles discuss Newark
Watch Ray Baylon, Foday Koroma, Aleyna Kilic, and Pranavi Joshi discuss Jersey City
Watch Ron Bautista and Elizabeth Ndoye discuss Hoboken
Dalilah Navarro
Resilient NENJ Regional Arts Coordinator
Lilia Diaz
Community Advocate
Juba Dowdell
Deputy Coordinator of Newark Office of Emergency Management
Fallon Davis
CEO and founder of STEAM URBAN
Public Art
We worked with artists who have lived in and worked in NENJ communities to create art installations that highlight Resilient Northeastern New Jersey’s commitment to the community and our goals of creating a brighter future.
HOBOKEN
Frank Sinatra Drive & 1425 Hudson Street, Private Lot, Hoboken, NJ
Clarence Rich
When Clarence Rich, a former Hoboken resident and classically trained street artist, read through the Resilient NENJ plans, he was inspired by the idea of flooding and the shoreline around Hoboken. His work depicts his signature patterns over the rising tide and the sunrise welcoming a new era of Resilience in Hoboken.
This stunning work will be used as an installation. Over time, it will be moved to different locations along the shoreline of the city.
JERSEY CITY
Holland Tunnel entrance: 541 County Rd 637, Marin Blvd, Jersey City, NJ
DISTORT.
A major inspiration for the concept behind the murals and graphic design for this project came from Mount Rushmore. We wanted to depict the people actively working towards environmental change as the leaders of a new era.
DISTORT. is a classically trained, Jersey-City based artist known for his signature works on metal and his fusion of street art and baroque painting styles. His work incorporates themes of mythology, environmentalism, and current events. His piece depicts the activists in the Jersey City portion of our video series.
383 Communipaw Avenue Jersey City, NJ
Hiro Hubbard
Hiro Hubbard is a fine artist known for his colorful depictions of nature and culture, with recent work capturing scenes from everyday life in vivid detail. His work has been exhibited throughout the East Coast including. When we live in cities, surrounded by concrete and limited green space, we sometimes forget that we are part of nature. In his mural, Hiro depicts a city street transforming into a river as a symbol of the link between nature and the Jersey City community that we may not realize exists. The mural is a statement of hope for a brighter and safer future for Jersey City.
NEWARK
Riverfront Park, Jackson Street Bridge Stairwell, 709 Raymond Blvd., Newark, NJ
Daniel Joseph Wiley
Daniel Wiley, artist and community organizer, has lived in Newark’s Ironbound section since he was born. Inspired by the Mount Rushmore concept, he collaborated with photographer Sheena Ocot and typographer Gabe Ribeiro to create a mural that pays homage to the ironbound’s heavily Brazilian and Latin American population. He modeled his piece at Newark’s Riverfront Park after the famed EscadariaSelarón, using the colors of the beautiful sunsets that can be seen at the park’s promenade.
All of the women in the portraits can be seen discussing resilience and environmental impacts of climate change in our video series.
Education
We know that our students are the future of our communities. Children deserve to understand what’s happening in their community and to feel empowered to take action to improve it. We’ve created educational tools for each grade level to help parents and teachers explain resilience. Each workbook contains an age-appropriate explanation of Resilient NEN J’s goals, a short story, and fun and engaging exercises to help students grasp the concept of resilience and how they c an be a part of progress.
Click each image below for downloadable documents for your students.
Many ways to participate
There are various current ways you can engage with Resilient Northeastern NJ. Please continue to check back for more ways to get involved.
MEETINGS AND EVENTS
Explore our Meetings & Events page to learn more about our past engagement events. Stay tuned for more information on upcoming events.
Social Media
Follow us on:
Twitter and Facebook @ResilientNENJ
Instagram @resilient_nenj
Sign up
to get project updates via email
Call our project hotline at
COMMUNITY ADVISORY COUNCIL
The Community Advisory Council is a diverse group of community representatives from Jersey City, Newark, Hoboken, and Bayonne. The Council is facilitated by representatives of Ironbound Community Corporation. Council members meet quarterly and have the following responsibilities:
- Share information about the project with their community
- Review materials as needed
- Ensure effectiveness of engagement of socially vulnerable and historically underserved populations
- Ensure community priorities are clearly reflected in the planning process
THE REGION TEAM AND STEERING COMMITTEE
The Region Team refers to the entities that partnered together for Resilient Northeastern NJ. Representatives of each Region Team entity sit on a Steering Committee that leads the program. The Region Team entities include:
- JERSEY CITY
- NEWARK
- HOBOKEN
- BAYONNE
- HUDSON COUNTY
- IRONBOUND COMMUNITY CORPORATION
