Gen Z is bringing BIPOC representation to climate activismYoung climate leaders like Diana Fernandez are working to address some of our nation's most pressing issues like racial divisions, political affiliations, and threats to public health. She works for Zero Hour, a youth-led climate justice organization that aims to diversify voices in climate and environmental justice conversations. “[Climate justice] is often a white-led movement—even though it should be the minorities and BIPOC folks on the frontline,” she tells Luz Media. “They’re the ones impacted by the environment the most.” 

In a piece published earlier this month, Luz Media elevates other youth activists who work on environmental justice issues. They are Mari Copeny, a youth activist who started raising awareness of the water issue in Flint, Michigan, at eight years old; Autumn Peltier, a Canadian Indigenous youth named Chief Water Commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation in Ontario, Canada; and Xiye Bastida, a Mexican-Chilean climate activist who received the 2018 “Spirit of the UN” award. 

Find out what Fernandez and other BIPOC climate leaders think about the sustainability movement, what's missing from mainstream discussions about climate activism, and how communities of color can incorporate sustainable living into their lives → 

More: Top 5 climate stories of 2023: Victories build up for environmental justice advocates (Sahan Journal)

SCOTUS decision on mifepristone will disproportionately impact BIPOC The U.S. Supreme Court announced earlier this month that it would hear a case regarding FDA approval for the abortion pill mifepristone. The pill is typically used in combination with misoprostol to perform medical abortions during pregnancy. Advocates and medical professionals say far-right anti-abortion groups, plaintiffs in the case FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, are seeking to revoke approval for mifepristone, which would prevent millions of Americans from terminating unwanted pregnancies.

"Abortion pills have been used safely in the U.S. for more than 20 years, and they are more important than ever in this post-Roe landscape," wrote Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a press release. "That is precisely why the anti-abortion movement is attacking them.” Prism states that this ruling would also disproportionately impact communities of color, who face higher rates of maternal mortality.

Read more here →  

More: 5 movements that mobilized you in 2023 (Prism)

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Breastfeeding advocacy grows in Minn. communities of colorDespite being a bedside labor and delivery nurse for four years, Shukri Jumale faced challenges convincing her Somali American family of breastfeeding's health benefits. This challenge is due to many factors in the community — and other communities of color — including a lack of education about breastfeeding to costly newborn care classes to historical trauma linked to nursing that discourage new parents from nursing. Sahan Journal reports breastfeeding rates are lower among immigrants and communities of color when compared to white Minnesotan parents. Advocates like Shukri warn of the risks of not breastfeeding an infant, which the state's department of health also cautions: "Infants and [pregnant people] who are not breastfeeding are at higher risk of poor health outcomes." Read more here →

Highlighting the innovators transforming health outcomes in our communities

Mary Lu Dolce (Chicksaw) has lost a finger, and is battling the autoimmune disease Lupus but that hasn’t stopped her fitness journey. The traveling nurse and horse trainer placed second in this year's Miss Health and Fitness competition, which she says she entered to inspire others and bring awareness to the First American people

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