El Puente
El Puente is a youth- centered human rights organization, focusing on education, the arts, environmental justice and wellness to inspire leadership for social justice. Its mission is to inspire and nurture leadership for peace and justice, working as a human rights institution in NYC and Puerto Rico with national and international impact. El Puente creates community-led movements of self determination through a holistic leadership and membership program model, as a high impact youth and community development organization.
Among El Puente’s priorities are environmental justice, anti-gentrification/"placekeeping" initiatives that deeply acknowledge and approaches community-led planning and development as an intersectional, interconnected process - one that looks at art, culture, health, education and environment all simultaneously as a way to ensuring and nurturing a sense of belonging and ownership - in order to both improve material conditions and to stay rooted in community.
BQE Environmental Justice Coalition
El Puente, along with UPROSE and the New York Environmental Justice Alliance are leading the BQE Environmental Justice Coalition, a coalition of residents, environmental justice advocates, organizations, allies, and elected officials committed to achieving a comprehensive transformation of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE). This coalition is rooted in principles for equitable transportation and access and healthy environments. It seeks to push for a transformation of the BQE that addresses the public health and environmental harms of the highway.
As our societies face the unequal impacts of climate change, it is imperative to rethink how our cities and infrastructure are designed and the relationships that we collectively form have with land.
El Puente’s Southside Summer Jam for Justice, Williamsburg
