Working Towards Racial Equity: Systems Change through Individual Transformation

In 2019, the Lawrence Hall of Science, Justice Outside, and Informing Change received funding from the National Science Foundation to develop a capacity-building model that would support environmental learning organizations to center racial equity and justice in the work environment. This project was in response to long-standing racial inequities that have disproportionately impacted Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color within the environmental field. Working Towards Racial Equity (WTRE) was guided by the Water of Systems Change (Kania, et al., 2018) framework that suggested that, to advance racial equity, organizations must attend to the structural aspects (policies, practices, plus resource flows), the relational aspects (relationships and connections, along with power dynamics), and the mental model aspects (such as guiding beliefs and ideologies) of an organization. Central to this framework was a prioritization of people-centered change—one that grounds change in historical understandings of racism in the environmental field and society, applies understandings to change at both individual and organization levels, and sustains change through trust building, community, self-care, and reflection.

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