New Energy Economy

New Energy Economy’s 2009 Summer Internship Program

by Sydney Weydemeyer and Noah Gapsis

NEE and New Mexico Youth: Collective Action in the Fight Against Climate Change

Over the past year New Energy Economy developed and refined an internship to build a new generation of effective leaders working both to solve climate change and create opportunities for their communities.  The goal was to help young people from diverse backgrounds develop the vision, skills, and knowledge to become effective leaders in creating a clean – and just – economy.

Thus far we have trained twenty-two interns from areas including the Navajo Nation, Taos Pueblo, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Clayton, Las Cruces, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The interns learn practical, hands on skills: interns have written and helped pass state legislation, obtained funding for community groups, helped influence federal policy, published Op-Eds, articles, and letters, and now are convening town halls across the state. Areas of training and experience include:

Environmental Justice

Protecting Low Income Families:

Past interns have worked with communities on the Navajo Nation adversely affected by uranium mining to help them develop a Green Jobs Initiative. They also have participated in workshops with the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project and Community Action New Mexico to learn how to develop policies and programs that protect low-income families.

Creating Opportunities for Rural Communities and Communities of Color:

Interns have traveled throughout the state and advocated for local initiatives that support rural, tribal, and low-income communities; they have worked with Pueblos to promote green building and energy efficiency; and they have successfully written grants to obtain funding for Dooda Desert Rock, a Navajo organization working to stop the Desert Rock Coal Plant. Interns have supported organizations involved with the Navajo Green Jobs Coalition, which works to create environmental justice through clean technology.

Skills

Campaign Strategy:

Interns received trainings from New Energy Economy, New Mexico Youth Organized and the Center for Civic Policy on how to develop and implement effective issue campaigns.

Communications:

Interns received several trainings in messaging, framing, and public speaking.  Interns have learned to develop their message for policy makers, individuals in rural and urban communities, media, businesses, children, communities of color, and their peers.

Media:

Interns worked with marketing and public relations experts to learn how to write Op-Eds, letters to the editors and press releases.  They researched and wrote pieces on an issue of their choice and our consultants help them place the pieces in publications throughout New Mexico.

Click here to read Noah Gapsis’ Op-Ed in the New Mexican

Click here to read Grace Martinez’s letter to the editor in the New Mexican

Film and Alternative Mediums of Organizing:

New Energy Economy has worked with the Center for Contemporary Arts to help interns develop cutting-edge advocacy skills. Interns have helped create a documentary film highlighting the green jobs movement in New Mexico and on Navajo Nation. The film will premiere at the Native American Film Festival at the Indian Market in August 2009 and then will be shown at various venues in the state to encourage youth to get involved in the clean energy movement.
Internet Advocacy:

Interns worked with new web-based tools to learn how to effectively use the internet to activate communities throughout New Mexico. Interns have learned to send email blasts, create online petitions, and organize supporters with programs such as Democracy in Action and Salsa. Interns have been trained on Plone, a user-friendly web design program. Interns have learned to use the Voter Activation Network and Catalist database to identify and activate “socially responsible voters” in traditionally conservative areas of the state. Past interns have used these databases to advocate for and help pass bills in the state legislature.

Grant Writing:

Interns have gone through trainings with professional grant writers to develop proposals and understand reporting requirements.  As mentioned above, previous interns have written successful grants to support the work being done in Navajo communities.

Experience:

Learning about Clean Technologies:

Interns have had hands-on experience with the latest renewable technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, and biomass boilers. Interns have visited sites such as Positive Energy, a New Mexico based solar installer, the Santa Fe Community College, and the North American Wind Resource and Training Center at Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari. In addition, interns have spent time working with at-risk youth community organizations such as Youthworks to build a home for Habitat for Humanity using the latest sustainable building techniques.

Researching and Developing Legislation and Regulations:

Interns have had the opportunity to turn ideas into a reality by writing legislation and regulations. Past interns have assisted in researching, developing, and writing legislation and regulations, including the Green Jobs Act (HB622) and the Development Training Funds for Green Jobs (SB318). Interns have also helped to prepare a legal petition before the Environmental Improvement Board of New Mexico that will set a state cap on global warming emissions.

Biographies of the Santa Fe Interns

Daisy Bond grew up in Santa Fe and graduated from Monte del Sol
Charter School. She is currently studying photography.

Noah Gapsis was born and raised in Santa Fe. He attends Wesleyan
University in Connecticut and will graduate with a B.A. in American
Studies next year. Noah has big plans for the future.

Grace Martinez is a recent graduate from Santa Fe High School at age 17. Throughout her high school career she has been involved in multiple environmental organizations including Youth Allies, Earthcare International, and the Commission for Environmental Sustainability of Santa Fe. She will be attending UNM in the fall and plans to study environmental studies.

Sydney Weydemeyer was born and raised in Santa Fe.  She graduated from Santa Fe High in 2007 and is now a junior at Carleton College in Minnesota where she is studying environmental studies.  She plans on becoming a professional gymnastics choreographer.

Comments from Interns

I joined the New Energy Economy internship because they were the only ones out there promoting green energy in rural communities. I have now begun to get my town to be enthusiastic about being a town on the leading edge of green technology. All of the industry that has sustained my community for generations has been shut down. Three major feedlots, a pig farm, and a big cheese plant were the only employers in town. I have now been talking with my city manager using the messaging that I learned from New Energy Economy and telling him that the only way to save Clayton is with green energy.
– Art Grine, 2009 intern in Clayton, NM

Before the internship with NEE, I was not well versed in topics of politics or the environment, but I knew something had to change. What has driven my excitement with this internship is the chance to benefit my area as well as the state. This internship allows me to understand our environmental concerns… and to have the opportunity to emerge as a leader in a movement that has been long coming. The issues of our planet’s health don’t just go away, they need to be dealt with and I think that this helps me to do that.
– Alexandro Paz, 2009 intern in Las Cruces, NM