While some people look at Detroit and see problems, we see there is no better place to start building a new economy than in Detroit.

In 2010, Global Exchange’s Michigan team had an idea: create a training program in Detroit to rebuild a resilient community and economy by teaching skills of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and urban agriculture.

What started out as a 5 participant experiment, turned into a full fledged annual project called Green Economy Leadership Training (GELT).

The GELT house in Highland Park, Michigan

The project, based just outside of Detroit in Highland Park, trains youth and community members in practical skills to empower them to improve their communities through energy conservation, renewable energy, green building technology, water conservation, waste diversion (recycling and composting), urban agriculture and food security and urban forestry. The project does all of this through an environmental justice lens.

We are putting out an open invitation to the whole country to join us for the third Green Economy Leadership Training from June 11-August 18.

You, or anyone you know, can apply.

Inside the GELT greenhouse

Want to participate in community-led projects focused on developing local green economy resources? Interested in learning to organize social entrepreneurship ventures? Between the ages of 18 and 99? Want to spend the summer in Highland Park, MI and meet like-minded people from across the country working for social justice while working with the local community? Then apply to GELT today.

To learn more about the GELT project or to apply for GELT 2012, click here.

If you cannot attend, you can still support the GELT project and sponsor a GELT summer fellow. Make a special gift today.

The time to join is now.

Detroit: Green Economy Leadership Training in action

Signs of hope continue to sprout in Detroit. For many of us working on the revitalization of Detroit, 2012 may prove to be the year when the tide finally shifts towards a rebirth of our great city.  Some consider this a bottoming out after over a decade of massive manufacturing job losses to the tune of 200,000 jobs lost since the year 2000 and eye-opening population loss.

For many in Detroit, it doesn’t seem like the situation can get much worse.  We are far removed from Detroit’s heyday when it was considered a bustling leader in organized labor and fair wages for workers.

Those of us still in Detroit have become a battle-tested and resilient bunch, and the skills that we have acquired through so much chaos and uncertainty could prove useful to the rest of the country, a country entrenched in a long-term recession and high unemployment rates.

Consciousness of large scale economic and environmental problems came to national attention last year as the Occupy Wall Street movement swept the nation. Time magazine even named The Protestor the 2011 Person of the Year.

Those same problems are under a microscope here in Detroit, where we started feeling the financial fallout many years before other parts of the country.  In Detroit, it has been the norm to have corporations turn their backs on the people and the government ill-equipped and unwilling to respond to the massive problems plaguing the area.

2012 shouldn’t just be the year of large protests. We need a system change. As we’ve been saying here at Global Exchange, “Our 2012 resolution is global revolution!” We need new rules, skills and frameworks to take our movement to the next level.  Together, 2012 can be the year that we truly change the rules to create a world that champions people power not corporate power.  What better place to put these words into action than in Detroit?  This is where the economic fallout started, and this will be the place where the strategies for a new world can be tested.

Detroit: Green Economy Leadership Training activities. Photo courtesy of Samantha Frick

At Global Exchange we’re helping to transition Detroit into a beacon of community organizing power. Over the past two years our summer Green Economy Leadership Training program has been working in the Highland Park community and has trained over 50 people in intensive skills trainings and projects that are helping move a new vision of Detroit’s economy forward.

We have worked side by side with community members to assemble urban farms and 4-seasons greenhouses, weatherize homes and develop community solar projects and create K-12 education programs that are transitioning Detroit to a self-reliant, post-industrial future.  In 2012, we are continuing to build a new economy in Detroit, reaching one person at a time and working deeply within our community.

As we develop the skills for the new economy we also need to look towards putting the political power truly back in the hands of the people.  Detroit has been the victim of corporate greed for too long.  Communities like Detroit can benefit in a huge way by establishing community rights of their own. Our Community Rights Program is organizing across the country and around the world to pass revolutionary laws that strip corporate protections and assert the rights of communities to decide for themselves what happens where they live, and at the same time to recognize the rights of nature.

TAKE ACTION!

Apply to Green Economy Leadership Training: Be on the look out for an announcement to apply to our Green Economy Leadership Training in the next month. The application will be online, along with program information;

Attend Speaking Event: If you are in Michigan, I’ll be speaking this Thursday, 1/19, at Michigan State University in the Erikson Kiva @ 7:30 p.m.  The topic is “Urban Green Strategies – How Detroit is Leading the 21st Century Sustainability Revolution?” Rsvp here.

In 2 weeks, the Global Exchange Michigan team will embark on our second Green Economy Leadership Training (GELT) program.  GELT is a 9 week training program that brings together residents from the community of Detroit & Highland Park together with youth from communities throughout Michigan and the U.S. for technical trainings in the green economy and community organizing.

Since last summer’s bootstrapped project with 5 participants and no funding, our dream has grown from a start-up concept project to a full-fledged program.  Now we are anticipating the arrival of 25 young entrepreneurs from all over the country who will descend upon Detroit in 2 and half weeks to kick off the program on June 6th.   

When we started out, our concept was simple: create a training program in Detroit  on renewable energy, energy efficiency and urban agriculture and directly apply the training to the community in Detroit.

We worked with our long-time ally, Pastor David Bullock, of Greater St. Matthews Church in Highland Park to find vacant property to use as our training grounds.  As a majority of Detroit’s once vibrant infrastructure is abandoned and in decay, the decision for where to start was mainly based on how we could most effectively deploy our energy and resources for a deep impact in the green economy. From there a localized training program, combined with direct application of what is taught, became the most logical move.

While most people may look at Detroit and see problems, when you look at the resources needed to build a clean economy, there really is no better place to start than Detroit.

After developing the initial concept and building foundational partnerships we then partnered with Energy Action Coalition and Grand Aspirations to recruit people to come be part of our training program.  Low and behold, 10 people showed up to participate when we launched the training.  We were ecstatic, but not everyone was able to stay with the program.  A few people took jobs for economic needs, and a few others had to move on to other opportunities.  But at the end of the summer 5 GELTers stuck it out for the entire program and over 20 people participated in some aspect of the training program.

GELTers received permaculture design certificates, weatherized over 50 homes in Highland Park, built community gardens, and mentored the neighborhood kids.  GELT was recognized as a cutting edge organizing strategy that was featured on the Huffington Post and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 (watch the segment below!) We felt like we were on to something.

Coming out of last summer we knew we were ready to take the program to the next level.  In January we bought an apartment building in Highland Park within walking distance of last year’s project and started recruiting people to come to Highland Park to start working with us.  Former organizers with the D.C. Project, the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition and the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network moved into the house.  We turned one apartment into an office and we started working full time on pulling together the best green economy training program the world has ever seen.

This summer we are adding trainings on installing solar panels, building economical greenhouses for 4 season urban agriculture, social justice classes and entrepreneurship.  Students in GELT will lead projects in the community that apply the technical skills they learn toward tangible business ideas relevant to Detroit, which will start to create economic opportunities and eventually jobs.  Students will also be mentored as they start their own project or business during and after the 9 weeks and will be plugged into a long-term support system to push their ideas into reality.

As with any program that is attempting something new and to break down the barriers of traditional activism, we are relying on supporters of all walks of life to lend us a hand as we get our program off the ground this year; this is where you come in.

We are reaching out to our community and network to help us build this program.  Right now we are looking to build a full-scale kitchen to cook and feed 40 people this summer for 9 weeks.  We put together this wish list to see if you may have resources you can contribute to help us build GELT from the ground up. This list is not comprehensive, if you have items you think would be useful to our program, or would like to arrange an in-kind donation, please contact Sarah Murphy:  gelt.sarah@gmail.com or 716-562-8211

GREEN ECONOMY LEADERSHIP TRAINING WISH LIST

Kitchen Equipment:

  • Refrigerators
  • Ovens
  • Shelves for food storage
  • Clothes washing machine
  • Toasters, Microwaves, Blender / food processor(s)
  • Large cooking pots & pans
  • Large plastic storage containers (approx 18 gallon capacity)
  • Knives for chopping
  • Colanders, large mixing bowls, cutting boards, etc.
  • Large stirring spoons, tongs, ladles, veggie peelers, can openers
  • Plates, bowls, mugs, cups, flatware
  • First Aid Kit
  • Ice cube trays
  • Stereo
  • Very large coffee maker

Food & Consumables:

  • Toilet paper
  • Fresh produce
  • Dry food, specifically:
    • rice
    • flour, white & whole wheat
    • sugar, honey
    • dried beans, lentils
    • spices, baking powder AND soda
    • pasta, lots of pasta
    • nuts, all kinds
    • cooking oil (veggie, canola, olive)
    • coffee and teas
    • canned vegetables and beans
  • Bleach
  • Hand-dishwashing soap
  • Sponges, scrubbies, Dish towels, rags
  • Rubber gloves for kitchen food prep

Other Equipment:

  • Bed frames – bunkbeds are ideal
  • General cleaning supplies (mops, brooms, soap, bleach, sponges, etc)
  • Dressers / drawers / shelves for clothing storage
  • Tables for dining
  • Chairs
  • Soil for raised bed gardens
  • Gardening supplies

CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 GELT Segment: