Locals and leaders attend Environmental Summit
Karina Bazarte attended the first day of the event and shares why this is so important
EL CENTRO, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) - The 12th annual Environmental Health Leadership Summit officially kicked off Thursday.
Locals and leaders at the Environmental Health Leadership Summit learned about future projects coming to the Imperial Valley.
The non-profit organization, Comite Civico del Valle, hosted the two-day annual summit at the Eucalyptus Schoolhouse in El Centro.
The summit brought many locals and leaders together under the same topic, changing the Valley.
“The third year now we have been able to bring the binational conversation, so we have representation of Mexicali or I'll rather say Baja California and Baja California Sur. So there is a lot of dialogue at the local micro level and the macro level today. We are talking about environment, about health, about Lithium Valley which is a conversation that has everyone excited,” stated Luis Olmedo, Comite Civico Executive Director.
During the summit, Comite Civico presented locals with the first 40 initiative campaign.
The campaign will bring the first 40 publicly available electric vehicle chargers to the Valley.
Comite Civico’s Executive Director said the summit also helps the community get access to environmental experts.
“This is a free conference for everybody and anybody and so we are really excited of the years of support of high-level officials leaders and elders who have been in the movement for many decades… Youth are playing a major role in our conference this year where they are joining the cameras, the technology, or being in our panels they are really the future,” stated Olmedo.
The youngest attendee and panelist is only 16 years old and she says caring about the future is her first priority.
“It’s kind of crazy being the youngest in the building being up on stage like that… But I think that really having the courage to speak about things that you feeling like adults are better educated about or they don’t have more experience in really inspires other youth to also do the same thing,” said Ashley Havens, a speaker.
The event will continue tomorrow.
Comite Civico said Assemblymember Eduardo Gracia will also be speaking at the event.
