Roots of Success: Environmental Literacy Curriculum

❗Intern Spotlight❗

Intern Liz Flores is from Sacramento, California. She is currently a second year student at Scripps College where she studies Environmental Analysis with a focus on race, gender, and class. At Roots of Success, Liz is working with the social media accounts, conducting interviews with students, instructors, and staff for stories, and working on the google ad grant. She is looking forward to increasing Roots of Success’s community engagement. On campus, Liz volunteers time to "Nobody Fails at Scripps", a mutual aid group at Scripps, where she organizes fundraisers and manages their social media. Aside from school and work, Liz loves to take care of houseplants and read fantasy and young adult novels.

❗ANNOUNCING: GREEN JOBS AND CAREER PATHWAYS GUIDEBOOK VOLUME TWO❗

We are thrilled to announce that we have just produced "Volume Two" of the Green Jobs and Career Pathways Guidebook. Volume One focuses on 100+ jobs that students can pursue immediately upon graduation. Volume Two focuses on 100+ jobs and career pathways that require advanced study or additional training. These include jobs in Administration, Finance, Human Resources, Law and Policy, Planning, Compliance, and other fields.

Our goal is to ensure that RoS graduates are familiar with a wide and diverse range of employment opportunities in environmental fields, ranging, for example, from installing solar panels (a job described in Volume One) to working as an accountant in a solar energy firm (a job described in Volume Two).

All RoS instructors are provided with copies of the Green Jobs and Career Pathways Guide Books so they can talk with and counsel RoS graduates about what careers they can pursue after they graduate from the program. Volume Two will be released in fall 2022!

Intern Spotlight!

ROS intern Tess Gibbs is a fourth year student at Scripps College studying Environmental Analysis with a focus on environmental justice. At Roots of Success she is helping ROS staff to improve our data collection systems and communication with program partners. Tess is also helping us to develop a plan to distribute the new Roots of Success Oregon Employment and Advocacy Guide, which we developed to support individuals taking the ROS course while incarcerated in Oregon, as well as others seeking to work in environmental fields in Oregon.
Prior to interning with Roots of Success, Tess was focused on issues related to prison abolition on her campus and in the Inland Empire regions. Tess writes that “the connections I’ve made working with others through organizing inspire me more than anything else I’ve experienced.” Going into her fourth year, Tess plans to focus her thesis on the intersection of abolition and environmental justice. When she has some free time, Tess loves to hike, ski, play soccer, and lay out in the sun. We are so happy and appreciative to have her on the ROS team!

Jaime Armour, a previous Roots of Success student and instructor at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, has graduated from college with three degrees! She got her AA in Science, General Studies, and Transfer degree. Prior to graduating college, Jaime was incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional facility where she says she struggled to find purpose and passion in her life. Roots of Success helped her find that. She says now her “passion in life is to inform other people and teach them about the climate and our world and how to respect it and be grateful and give back to the planet that gives us life”.

As a student, Jaime says Roots of Success changed her life: “from the first day I walked into the classroom, I knew that that was where I was supposed to be”. After being a student, she became an instructor of the Roots of Success program. As an instructor she talks about the “magic” that happens in Roots of Success classrooms– it's a “miracle”. Jaime loves when the “light goes on in the student’s eyes and when they “go from ‘I’ to ‘we,’ and they don’t even know it”.

Since graduating, Jaime has received a multitude of scholarship offers from other colleges. She’s not sure exactly what she wants to do next, but she knows she wants to bring Roots of Success to more people including those at Columbia Gorge Community College, correctional facilities, and other jails. She says that those who take the Roots of Success program are set up for success, and although it is not a drug and alcohol program, “it also attends to that too. Because when you find your passion, and you find your purpose, that replaces that empty hole that you have when you’re using drugs”.

We are so very proud of Jaime and her accomplishments and hope to share more stories of Roots of Success graduates and instructors!

❗ANNOUNCEMENT❗

As of this year, Roots of Success is its own independent 501c3 organization!

If you feel inclined, donate using the linktree in our bio!

❗Roots of Success is hiring❗

Roots of Success is hiring an Apprenticeship Marketing and Outreach Coordinator to join our team! If you are committed to serving underserved populations, and excited about interacting with a wide variety of new and existing partner organizations in the green jobs, workforce development, reentry, and environmental education space, this job is for you! Familiarity with the Apprenticeship landscape a plus. This is a part-time position with the possibility to move to a full-time role.

To apply, visit https://ideali.st/JWvLCt

❗Intern Spotlight❗

🌱Katelyn Ramirez is an incoming senior at University of California Berkeley studying Society and Environment in the College of Natural Resources. At Roots of Success, she is working with Raquel Pinderhughes to look for funding from different sources/foundations and is also interested in social media outreach. In the past, Katelyn has worked with the Students for Climate Justice at Berkeley to spread awareness about the harm the college has done to their community and environment. They look forward to working with their college’s UC Green New Deal coalition that challenges the institution to think of its students over the possibility of profits. Katelyn is committed to creating and fostering community and is eager to get involved with Roots of Success.

Katelyn is one of five interns and we will be doing spotlights on each of them! Stay tuned to hear more!🌱

🌱Instructors teaching the Roots of Success Environmental Literacy and Work Readiness Program are trained, certified, and guided by the Instructor’s Manual and multimedia content. Rather than feeding students information, instructors facilitate discussions and engage students using interactive, dynamic student-centered teaching methods. Raquel Pinderhughes and Grady Mitchell told a group of interns that the “magic” happens when instructors guide the conversation but take a step back and allow their students to work in groups, problem solve and share lived experiences.🌱

🌱Introducing the Oregon Employment and Advocacy Guide!🌱

In order to provide as much support as possible to the students taking Roots of Success in Oregon Prisons, we have created the Roots of Success Oregon Employment and Advocacy Guide. This guide is designed to provide people who take our course while incarcerated with the information they need to access employment opportunities in environmental sectors and to do advocacy work in environmental justice sectors when they return to the community. The guide will be distributed to every prison, parole and probation officers, environmental justice organization, and workforce development training programs in Oregon and will be available on our website for our graduates and others as they seek employment in the green economy and as they get involved in efforts to improve their communities. We are very proud of the work that was done by this almost entirely volunteer team over a year and a half! Expect it to be released in the following months!

🌱We had the pleasure of training The Unity Council and Glory Gardens NOLA to teach our Roots of Success Environmental Literacy and Job Training Program. We are excited to be working with both groups!

The Unity Council “envisions a joyful, united, and engaged community where people have the power to shape their lives. Their mission is to promote social equity and improve quality of life by building vibrant communities where everyone can work, learn and thrive. Their programs aim to provide the community with the tools, knowledge, and resources to transform their lives and ultimately achieve their long-term educational, career, and financial goals.”

Glory Gardens is an organization that “designs and builds ecologically regenerative gardens and green spaces that reduce flooding and contributes to the health and wealth of households by providing access to produce that is sustainably grown, nutrient dense, and marketable. Their focus is to center gardens as an impactful tool for implementing a holistic approach to improving the lives of individuals and the health of communities.”

Interested in becoming a certified teacher of the Roots of Success Environmental Literacy and Job Training Program? Contact us through our website!🌱

Thank you to Roots of Success instructor Basia Skudrzyk for sharing this beautiful video with us!

"Thank you Angela A. Moore from Missouri Historical Society for sharing your message to our graduating Cohort 2 Roots of Success Environmental Literacy & Job Training Program class! We were impressed to learn that you and your team are the very first to achieve zero waste certification in building a home and a museum not just in our state, but in the country! Thank you for sharing your message on how people can come together to make success a reality.

Thank you to Jean Ponzi for putting together a great green panel focused on green initiatives for our scholars. Together we are making a space for Roots of Success Environmental Literacy & Job Training Program to succeed in our community. As Jean said it best, "Ecology - it's all about relationships. It's all about relationships in our place. This is how we make green workforce initiatives work. By looking at nature and how nature is teaching us how to do things as a species helps us learn how to do things the right way. Nature is an ally when your spirit is seeking to be restored."

Angela Moore - MO Historical Society - Roots of Success message 4-26-22

Shoutout and much love to alum Geoffrey from PowerCorpsPHL cohort 15! After starting with PowerCorps in Fall 2020, he is now working at Philadelphia Streets Dept. on traffic engineering. Well done, sir!