kier blake

How are you using education to build more sustainable and equitable communities? Tell us about your EE work and impact.

Through environmental education, I challenge conventional paradigms by addressing the intricate roots of injustice, especially within marginalized communities. 

As a founding member of the annual Earth Month and Climate Convergences in NYC, I co-create intergenerational, collaborative spaces for workshops, teach-ins, and classes. These gatherings foster community learning, raise awareness, and connect justice-seeking groups. Our goal is to provide culturally-relevant, accessible climate and social justice education to low-income communities of color. Working alongside Indigenous wisdom keepers, environmental justice elders, frontline organizers, and youth activists, we show that leadership and education can extend beyond institutional settings. Grounding our events in nature and community, and showcasing real-world examples of justice and equity, we’ve reached over 4,880 individuals, empowering them to take action. 

As a Co-founder at Start:Empowerment (S:E), I’ve also mentored 40 youth in our Youth Organizing Fellowship, a program that provides mentorship and micro-funding for impactful community projects collectively halting two pipeline projects, composting over 10 tons of organic waste, and addressing water inequity along the Texas-Mexico border. In running programming like this, S:E has been able to benefit 4,000 students in New York, Texas, and beyond through the integration of these learnings and youth leadership into curricula we introduce in schools.

Tell us about your journey to where you are today. What inspired you? What has your path been like?

This is an amended answer taken from a piece written for Next100 here: 

My life is filled with memories like in the summer of my sixth birthday in Crenshaw, California, where I played soccer to the whistles of our coach with the hum of pumpjacks drilling for oil in the background. I recall imagining those pumpjacks as dinosaurs in an industrial Jurassic Park. 

However, it wasn't until I moved from Crenshaw to East Flatbush, New York for college that I truly understood the impact of environmental racism. Currently, 153,000 people, including myself, live atop the North Brooklyn Pipeline, a silent menace threatening to jeopardize sixty-three schools, eighty-one daycares, nine hospitals, and three nursing homes, not if, but when it leaks. 

It was in New York that I also began teaching through Start:Empowerment, an Environmental Justice Education nonprofit I co-founded that started by piloting programming in the Bronx. There, I realized the similarities between East Flatbush and Crenshaw. 

These reflections revealed a pattern of disregard for low-income communities of color—textbook environmental injustice. 

Now, my mission is to use education as a tool to increase awareness on environmental injustice and empower youth to innovate, imagine, and build a just and sustainable future. 

You can watch the visualizer on the collective work I am a part of here.

How can people learn more about or support your work?

You can learn more by connecting with me personally on social media and staying up-to-date on my work at kierblake.com. 

You can reach out to the team at Start:Empowerment by emailing us at info.startempowerment@gmail.com and follow the greater work of policy innovators like me through Next100, https://thenext100.org. 

A Little More About Me

Describe your work in a haiku.

Roots of justice grow, 

In shared spaces wisdom flows, 

Youth lead, futures glow.

What is your superpower? Which of your qualities best fuels the work you do? 

My superpowers include visionary foresight, community-building, mentorship, cultural competence, strategic planning, and fortitude, all essential for driving meaningful change and fostering inclusive, sustainable solutions to complex social and environmental issues. 

The qualities I feel best fuel the work I do are the abilities to couple visionary foresight and insight to be able to bring things from the imaginary realm to real life. After all, in order to challenge conventional educational paradigms to address the roots of injustice, one needs to have a plan to push boundaries for the betterment of society. Especially for historically marginalized communities.

What’s a passion project of yours outside of your work? 

Being a core organizer for the Earth Month and Climate Convergences each year.