Awards Database

Partners: UA James E. Rogers School of Law

• Award Date: Jul 2017
• Award Amount: $99,788
• Duration: 2 years
• Status: Completed

This 2-year project will introduce YWCA, UA and community leaders to alternative development models, including the principles used by BRAC International, the world’s largest non-governmental organization (NGO), in order to pilot a strategy that has the potential for community wealth building, environmental sustainability and greater resilience for the people of South Tucson and beyond. the evidence shows that conventional development models fail the Southwest Doughnut test. New models are needed. BRAC International, ranked the #1 NGO in the world in 2016, is working on multiple continents in communities very similar to South Tucson to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods, break the cycle of poverty, and empower marginalized and vulnerable people. But BRAC has yet to penetrate the North American continent. This project will bring BRAC’s entrepreneurial experience and knowledge to bear on our region’s most pressing challenge.

• Award Date: Mar 2017
• Award Amount: $24,000
• Duration: 2 years
• Status: Completed

Alison Deming, Professor, Department of English at UA College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, is a poet and essayist and writes about nature and science. In 2014, the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice granted professor Deming a Distinguished Chair award.   

In 2015, professor Deming launched the Gran Manan Field Studies in Writing Program to bring students from the University of Arizona Creative Writing Program to Grand Manan Island in the Canadian Maritimes to work on research and writing to create place-based literature that explores how the arts and literature can contribute to our understanding of environment and climate change. In 2017, the University of Arizona Creative Writing Program launched a companion program, Field Studies Southwest Program, aimed for MFA students spend two weeks in southern Arizona exploring how literary and documentary arts can create humane responses to environmental, social justice and border issues in the region.

The new southwest project is coordinated by recent MFA alumnus (and Grand Manan Field Studies alum) Francisco Cantú. Associate Professor Susan Briante serves as faculty facilitator. Ethnobotanist and Patagonia resident Gary Paul Nabhan also serves as a consultant. Participants work in collaboration with the Borderlands Earth Care Youth Institute, a program sponsored by the Borderlands Habitat Institute, engaging culturally diverse youth in hands-on restoration work of the local ecosystem while providing leadership and educational opportunities. Students also visit migrant shelters, the Border Community Alliance, and other organizations working for social justice on the border.

• Award Date: Mar 2017
• Award Amount: $35,000
• Duration: 2.5 years
• Status: Completed

Nina Rabin was Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law where she served as Director of the Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program, an interdisciplinary program on immigration law and policy. In August 2018, Nina started working as Director of the Immigrant Family Legal Clinic at UCLA School of Law. Mrs. Rabin's project focuses on efforts to bring more resources, expertise, and attention to bear on the immigration courts in Tucson and Eloy, Arizona.

As immigration enforcement increases, there will be more pressure on the immigration court system to process cases quickly. It is necessary to ensure refugees and immigrants are receiving due process. Rabin proposes three efforts. First, work closely with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project to organize a series of trainings, and develop online and print materials for pro bono attorneys. The trainings and materials would cover topics including representation in bond proceedings, gender-based asylum claims, and other immigration relief for long-term residents with U.S. citizen children. Second, launch an organize a court-monitoring project to track what is happening in immigration courtrooms in Tucson and Eloy. Third and finally, Rabin would set aside a small fund to be devoted to media documentation of the work. Mrs. Rabin believes it is essential to tell the stories of the immigrants and refugees so that the narrative is not dominated by fear-inducing images.

Shefali Milczarek‐Desai, Assistant Clinical Professor at UA Immigrant Justice Clinic & Workers' Rights Clinic, took the lead of the project after Mrs. Rabin left. Milczarek-Desai will continue Rabin's legacy by 1) Creating training materials for pro bono attorneys to represent immigrants and asylum seekers in detention and deportation proceedings; 2)Training pro bono attorneys and student interns to provide direct representation to immigrants and asylum-seekers in detention and deportation proceedings; 3) Providing student interpreters and translators to assist non-Spanish speaking attorneys; and 4) Documenting immigration justice work through film and storytelling.

Milczarek has experience in training and mentoring J.D. and B.A. law students to become the next generation of legal professionals dedicated to providing access to justice by advocating for vulnerable and marginalized populations with client-centered and cross-cultural representation in the inextricably linked areas of (a) immigration and asylum law, and (b) immigrant workers’ labor and employment rights law. She has collaborated with community partners, including Keep Tucson Together (KTT), the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP), the Mexican Consulate, the International Rescue Committee, the Southside Workers’ Center, Nuestras Raices (Pima County Librarians), and the Arizona Employment Lawyer’s Association, to widely disseminate knowledge of legal rights and support community action. Also, she's been engaged in Research, Writing, Policy Recommendations, and Advocacy that result in long-term, sustainable practices, and institutions. 

Partners: Sonoran Institute and Watershed Management Group

• Award Date: Jan 2017
• Award Amount: $79,153
• Duration: 2 years
• Status: Completed

This project works with community groups and non-profits to improve equity and justice issues around green infrastructure and urban connectivity along the Liberty Bike Boulevard, 4.85-mile route of existing residential bike routes on Tucson’s southside. The work focuses on harnessing community interest, non-profit study and action, and city activity through community-university partnership. Year one of the project focused on developing the project activities and dialogues to begin to shape the community engagement process with particular emphasis on the partner network. The team will focus on engagement at the neighborhood level in year two.

Partners: Eric Dhruv (Ironwood Tree Experience), Melodie Lopez (Indigenous Strategies)

• Award Date: Jan 2017
• Award Amount: $49,309
• Duration: 2 years
• Status: Completed

Lack of male participation in education and tribal lifeways related to land-use practices and management is a key environmental and social justice issue in Indian Country today. Youth engagement in these areas is also necessary for building sustainable Native nations. Very little research discusses the social justice issue of Native boys’ engagement, even among educational initiatives targeting boys and young men of color. Few social justice programs targeting boys and men of color, in turn, speak to land-use issues and environmental justice. This project  investigates and documents Native boys’, young men and leaders’ perspectives on Native youth engagement and environmental justice issues, creates resources highlighting promising programs and educational approaches for engaging Native boys and young men in educational pathways and environmental justice issues related to tribal land use and management, fosters intercultural and intergenerational discussion of Native boys’ and young men’s perspectives on engagement, education, and environmental issues and possibilities, creates an intertribal and intercultural network of youth, tribal leaders and educators focused on social justice and environmental collaboration, knowledge-sharing and problem-solving and plans related educational program changes in the College of Education at UA, the Native Educational Alliance, and the Ironwood Tree Experience while identify new collaborative program and action research opportunities to increase Native youth engagement in education and tribal lifeways related to the environment.

• Award Date: Jan 2017
• Award Amount: $76,000
• Duration: 2 years
• Status: Completed

Faculty fellow Vasiliki Karanikola, research scientist with the University of Arizona’s Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department, works with marginalized communities on the Navajo Nation lands to improve access to clean water. Installation of water purification systems which use alternative energy sources, such as solar, treat water sources with impaired quality. This work also provides opportunities for growth by creating business models for vulnerable communities reliant on improved water, food and energy circumstances. Karanikola also serves as faculty advisor to Engineers Without Border – University of Arizona Chapter which provides engineering consulting services to the Nalwoodi Denzhone Community, a non-profit organization of the San Carlos Apache Reservation in southeastern Arizona. Karanikola is spending the 2017-18 academic term at Yale University to perfect analytical skills critical to her work and to her department.

• Award Date: Jan 2017
• Award Amount: $76,000
• Duration: 2 years
• Status: Completed

Faculty fellow Wilder, research scientist with the Institute of the Environment, is interim director of Tumamoc Hill, a facility of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.  His fellowship provides support for Wilder to renew the vision of outreach and research at Tumamoc Hill as well as to expand his biological research in South America.

Partners: Arts, Environment and Humanities Network (AEHN)

• Award Date: Jan 2017
• Award Amount: $2,500
• Duration: 2 weeks
• Status: Completed

Virginia Grise is a playwright who visited the Tucson area to collaborate with the University of Arizona English Department and Borderlands Theater to workshop the script of Their Dogs Came with Them, an adaptation of Helena Maria Viramontes’ 2007 novel about four young Mexican American women in East Los Angeles during the 1960s and the hardships, challenges, and successes of dealing with colonist abuses. Ms. Grise’s visit and workshopping allowed local community members to participate and inform the work through the incorporation of their experiences into the lives of the characters. The visit included two workshops, public readings, and the development of collaborations. One outcome of the visits is that Ms. Grise and UA professors are imagining a more comprehensive program to address environmental and social justice challenges in prison through storytelling and theater. Ms. Grise builds on and sustains the work of this visit through her development of The Convivial Arts Practice Institute.

Partners: Forum Speakers

• Award Date: Jul 2016
• Award Amount: $5,000
• Duration: 1 week / 2 people
• Status: Completed

Funding for two visiting associates allowed their participation as panelists in the conference, Food, Water and Arid Lands, as well as wider dialogues in communities. The visiting associate funds supported Andrew Mushita, who works with the Community Technology Development Trust in Zimbabwe, studying seed exchange, biopiracy, small-scale farms and seed trusts, and Alejandro Argumedo, affiliated with ANDES and Potato Park, working on protection and development of Andean biological and cultural diversity and the rights of indigenous people of Peru. Both visitors participated in conference panel discussions and following the conference visited local Tucson groups such as Native Seed/SEARCH and the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. They traveled with Gary Nabhan to northern Arizona to have conversations with several Navajo and Hopi groups about collaborations and coalitions.

Partners: UA Kitchen Garden, City of South Tucson

• Award Date: Jul 2016
• Award Amount: $36,140
• Duration: 1 year
• Status: Completed

The Haury seed grant provided essential support to explore the complex connections between recidivism, training, and employment while simultaneously greening the environments of communities highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and urban heat island. Working with four distinct cohorts of individuals with past felony convictions, Green Streets of Tucson built cross-sector partnerships that spanned the local, county and state penal justice systems, various departments of three jurisdictions, and a wide array of community based organizations The team developed a community-based reentry training and coaching program, aspects of which continue beyond the grant period. The project also addressed City of South Tucson’s resilience to climate change by expanding tree canopy and improving the health and diversity of the urban forest. The project engaged 63 adults and deeply engaged 22 inmates in landscaping and sustainability topics creating a reentry program that bridged the transition from inside prison to the community and can serve as a model for community programs. Pima County funded continuance of this work.

Partners: NAU, Dine Tribal College, Dine Citizens Against Ruining our Environment, Navajo Nation, Fort Lewis College

• Award Date: Jul 2016
• Award Amount: $600,000
• Duration: 3 years
• Status: Completed

The Gold King Mine Spill in 2015 near Silverton, Colorado, disproportionately impacted the Diné (Navajo) people. Their deep spiritual connection to the natural environment, their subsistence activities (primarily agriculture) along the San Juan River, and the long legacy of environmental injustices to them make such environmental disasters especially devastating. In addition, the Diné were completely ignored by the regulatory authorities. The goal of this project is to empower individuals with scientific knowledge to increase the diversity of voices responding to the spill and the resilience of the community to respond to contamination by understanding and thereby minimizing the effects. Building tribal capacity through training of Diné tribal college students, environmental interns and community health representatives will help the community and be used to develop a model of community capacity building aimed at empowering affected communities to college samples, minimize impacts, and engage in informed decision-making.

Partners: UA Community and School Garden Program

• Award Date: Jul 2016
• Award Amount: $10,000
• Duration: 2 months
• Status: Completed

Climate change is increasingly recognized as one of society’s greatest challenges, and understanding the role of cities in catalyzing transitions toward more sustainable, democratic, and resilient sociotechnical configurations is especially urgent. Infrastructure is at the heart of sustainable urban transformations, yet the practices that underpin and catalyze spatial planning, infrastructural diversity, and equitable access remain poorly understood. Meehan collaborated with two UA faculty members to advance understanding of urban transitions through discursive analysis of water infrastructure plans, policies, and practices in select Southwest cities. The outcomes of this project included curriculum development in conjunction with UA’s Community and School Garden Program, development of research collaborations and publications.

Partners: Friends of Saguaro National Park and Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

• Award Date: Jul 2016
• Award Amount: $98,155
• Duration: 2 years
• Status: Completed

The Bio/Diversity Project is a collaborative effort to develop and implement a pilot program with K-12 students and teachers to create a pipeline from the internship experience into the Next Generation Ranger Program of the Friends of Saguaro National Park. These efforts work to improve science identity, motivation, and self-efficacy among K-12 student participants, such as girls and minorities, and thereby increase the diversity of voices included in discussions of environmental problems and development of solutions via the creation of environmental science education-job training-mentorship pipeline.

Partners: Ak-Chin Indian Community, Tohono O'odham Nation, Baboquivari High School, Ha:sañ Preparatory & Leadership School, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Hiaki High School, Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona (ITCA), UA Native American Science & Engineering Program (NASEP)

• Award Date: Jan 2016
• Award Amount: $60,000
• Duration: 2 years
• Status: Completed

Native and young voices are not heard in many discussions of environmental health, social justice and environmental challenges. The Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center worked with Native American tribes to bring Native voices to the fore in discussions of environmental health and climate change in Indian Country through the Indigenous Stewards magazine and the Tribal Forum. The project expanded readership of the magazine and held two Tribal Forums.

Partners: Ramirez-Andreotta (UA SWES), Betterton (UA Atmospheric Sciences)

• Award Date: Jan 2016
• Award Amount: $25,000
• Duration: 1 year
• Status: Completed

Families in southern metropolitan Tucson have been disproportionately affected by pollution in the past and unless things change, will continue to be affected in the future, especially as human-made global warming impacts the climate. Sonora Environmental Research Institute, Inc. (SERI)'s promotora program has worked in the southern Tucson community for over ten years through the promotora program in a culturally appropriate manner and language. Promotoras who have received training in environmental health and spread their knowledge throughout the community through home and business visits. The underserved community lacks knowledge regarding climate change and many have pre-existing vulnerabilities including poor housing, environmental conditions, and economic instability. SERI and partners from UA Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences and UA Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science created a new promotora certificate program focused on climate change and environmental sustainability. Through workshops, home visits, demonstration sites, and hands-on experiments this program continues to build community leaders, increase the community's understanding of climate change and sustainability, and increases the resilience of the community by reducing heat vulnerability. SERI adopted the program into its ongoing programs and at the completion of the Haury award received funding from Tucson Water for neighborhood projects building on the Haury Program award.