Environmental Health and Justice
Leadership Development

The Community Strategies for Sustainability and Justice Program (CSSJ) at the Pacific Institute works to build the capacity, effectiveness, and independence of our community partners working to bring about environmental health and justice improvements in their neighborhoods. Through myriad workshops, trainings, and lesson plans, the CSSJ program provides community partners with the knowledge and skills necessary to perform research on key issues and to develop, organize, and facilitate advocacy campaigns for change.

Our current workshops and trainings focus on: 

• Community-based participatory research;
• Capacity-building, organizational development, and advocacy skills and practices (e.g. Introduction to Workshop Planning, Facilitation 101, Advocacy 101);
• Specific environmental health and justice issues (e.g. Freight Transport 101, Environmental Health 101).

The Community Strategies Program is now working to take the high-quality lesson plans and trainings we have developed, tested, and refined over the years and to turn them into standardized, exportable curricula that can meet the needs of our current partners and a wider set of Bay Area organizations.