Advancing Equity & Sustainability in Puerto Rico: Community Based Strategies for Resilience and Renewal

Environmental Grantmakers Association and Neighborhood Funders Group invite you to embark on a learning tour in Puerto Rico, November 13-15. Over the first two days, participants will travel from San Juan to the heart of the Island’s Central Mountain Range and along environmentally sensitive waterways, meeting with community leaders charting a new path for sustainable development across the island. Funders and advocates will ask:

• How are community-based organizations from multiple sectors organizing to address the challenge of inequality on the island?
• What strategies are Puerto Rico-based community organizations using to advance inclusive and sustainable development?
• How can grantmakers foster and promote increased philanthropic, public and private sector collaboration and accountability to accelerate inclusive planning and more equitable economic development policies and practices?

And we’re excited to confirm that this tour will be capped off with a newly announced third-day biodiversity tour in Vieques. For those who may not have been to the Isla de Vieques, it is an island-municipality and National Wildlife Refuge about eight miles east of the Puerto Rican mainland. With a current population of around 14,000, it has a challenging past as a former U.S. Navy bombing and testing ground. From sea turtle nesting grounds to Mosquito Bay’s famed bioluminescence (now experiencing a prolonged blackout), Vieques is an important and fascinating conservation frontier.

Join EGA and NFG, and local community members and advocates, on a funder tour that will examine local biodiversity and conservation corridors, island restoration, sustainable tourism and community resilience. 

To Register

Questions?

Early bird registration rate: $150. Registration cost covers food and ground transportation during the tour. Participants are expected to cover their own airfare and lodging expenses; hotel information is on the tour registration page. For a more detailed agenda overview, please see below. Please note that this tour is for funders only.

Agenda Overview

November 12^th: Evening Welcome Reception 
at Paseo de la Princesa, Old San Juan 

Please join the Neighborhood Funders Group, the Environmental Grantmakers Association, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico for a reception to welcome you to San Juan. 

We will begin the tour bright and early the following morning.

Day One – November 13^th

Breakfast and the opening panel discussion will be hosted by Banco Popular Foundation.

Opening Panel Discussion: Puerto Rico at a Crossroads: Reflections on Inequality and Development in Puerto Rico

The opening plenary discussion will engage a diverse panel of leading public sector, academic and non-profit stakeholders in an interactive discussion of some of the major macroeconomic, environmental and development challenges facing Puerto Rico.  How are diverse sectors addressing the twin challenges of sustainability and inequality in Puerto Rico?  What are the prospects for advancing more inclusive development in Puerto Rico?

Morning Learning Tour: Caguas, Puerto Rico
From Displacement to Inclusion: Reimagining Public Housing and Community Development in Puerto Rico 
Tour and Panel Discussion, Gautier Benítez Public Housing Project, Caguas, Puerto Rico

Over the past thirty years, residents of both the Gautier Benítez and the Las Gladiolas Public Housing Projects have battled displacement by developers seeking lower density projects and higher profits.  Residents across the island have used diverse legal advocacy and community organizing tactics to claim their right to participate in the redevelopment of their communities.  Traveling from San Juan to Caguas, this tour will engage residents, advocates, and local small business leaders from both communities in a discussion of the link between public housing reform, economic development and place based change in these two communities.

Afternoon Learning Tour: Adjuntas, Puerto Rico 
Balancing Justice, Development, and the Environment: Lessons from Puerto Rico’s Environmental Justice Movements

Traveling to the heart of the island’s Central Mountain Range,  this tour will visit the Bosque del Pueblo (People’s Forest), and include a conversation with leaders of Vieques and of Casa Pueblo, Adjuntas - the heart of social movements in Puerto Rico for several decades.  In Adjuntas, the environmental movement against the threat of copper mining in the 1960s eventually led to the creation of Casa Pueblo and the Bosque del Pueblo, the first community-managed forest in Puerto Rico.  Casa Pueblo has since developed successful economic development and educational projects, and organized in opposition of a gas pipeline that would have caused irreparable damage to ecosystems and rural settlements alike.  Today, they lead the proposal to create a model forest covering several municipalities.  The successful closure of the US military base in Vieques was one of the most important social movements in recent Puerto Rican history, bringing together multiple sectors of civil society. Vieques now faces gentrification, while still struggling for the clean-up of the former military practice range, just economic development, and access to basic services.  

We will return to San Juan for dinner. 

Day Two: November 14 

Morning Learning Tour: Pinones, Puerto Rico 

From Contamination to Resilience: A Guided Tour of the ENLACE Caño Martín Peña Project
Featuring Introductory Remarks from Judith A. Enck, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 2 Office, and an overview by ENLACE’s executive director. 

This half day workshop will include a boat tour through lagoons and channels of the eastern Estuary, and a walking tour through streets and allies to Martín Peña, and will join community leaders and some of their partners. 

The Caño Martín Peña is a 3.75 mile natural tidal channel in the San Juan Bay Estuary, heavily contaminated and clogged with sediment and debris.  Frequent flooding of untreated sewage water threatens the livelihood and health of over 25,000 residents living in eight low-income informal settlements along the waterway, located next to San Juan’s financial district.  The Martín Peña communities are the first community land trust in Puerto Rico, created to avoid gentrification, address the lack of land titling through collective ownership, secure affordable housing, and overcome poverty. The ENLACE Project is a comprehensive endeavor that seeks environmental and social justice through Strong community organizing, unprecedented participatory planning, and effective partnerships. 

Afternoon Closing Discussion:

Funding Community Engagement to Advance Equity: Lessons Learned from Philanthropic Leaders in Puerto Rico and the United States

Friday, a smaller group will leave for Vieques  exploring the bio bay Friday night and touring Vieques, on Saturday, November 15th. If you are interested in joining that tour, please write to both NFG (nfg@nfg.org) and EGA (aharms@ega.org), or include a note in your electronic registration form.