Thanks to Beljus help, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice will be awarded a $13 million grant to do capacity building work with smaller EJ community-based organizations in the several southern states. The proposal was reportedly the highest scoring in the country and the organization will receive $3 million more than originally requested.
With short notice, Beljus wrote a winning capacity-building grant proposal for the Deep South Center of Environmental Justice (Deep South), resulting in a $2 million grant from one of the country’s largest private foundations. The Gulf Water Justice and Climate Policy Project will bring together communities in the Gulf Coast Region to expand their capacities for climate policy action that tackles a significant, but overlooked, public health concern: community-exposure to hazardous industrial releases that occur during major flood events and storms. Deep South designed this project in recognition of the fact that the impacts of climate change are not felt equally. In the five states of the Gulf Coast Region (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas), the unjust concentration of industrial facilities in and near Black communities exposes residents to toxic pollution and other environmental hazards.
Beljus and his team played a critical role in helping the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (Deep South) to win a $500,000 grant from the EPA to implement a community-based air quality monitoring project. The 2-year grant will aid residents of St. John the Baptist Parish [pop. ~21,000], located about 20 miles from the heart of New Orleans and situated along the Mississippi River. The neighborhoods in this Parish share several commonalities.
Contacted with just a few weeks before the deadline, Beljus led an effort to create a winning grant application to the California Department of Health Care Access and Information. The funding request of the Alvarado Parkway Institute was awarded in full – $2.5 million – providing this community-based psychiatry practices to initiate a much needed residency program in San Diego, which has been faced with an endemic shortage of psychiatrists. New residents will work, and learn, in community-based settings including federally qualified health centers, helping to increase access to this important facet of healthcare to some of the most vulnerable residents in the region.
With the help of Beljus and Kathryn, the International Council for Refugees and Immigrants (ICRI, located in Omaha, Nebraska) succeeded in their second attempt to win a $250,000 micro-enterprise grant through the Department of Health and Human Services (Office of Administration of Children and Families/ Office Refugee Resettlement).
Beljus helped to ensure that Maui’s most impactful domestic violence organization could keep it’s doors open. This $500,000 from the Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women will support the organization’s transitional housing program, which supports women and helps them in very tangible ways as they work to improve their lives and move-on from abusive relationships.
With Beljus assistance, the Lymphatic Education & Research Network was recently awarded a second grant to continue their important work in education the public, and health care providers, about Lymphedema. Keep an eye-out for public service announcements on your local TV and radio stations in the coming months!
With Beljus help and guidance, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) received a $500,000 grant from Google to establish a Environmental Justice (EJ) Data Hub that will leverage an extensive array of existing organizational partnerships, and deep institutional knowledge and competencies in the EJ sector. On a daily basis, DSCEJ analyzes air quality (and other) data sets and arms concerned citizen activists in environmentally-affected regions with the ammunition they needed to catalyze change among local decision-making bodies and the polluter(s). This grant will help DSCEJ to systematize this type of data-informed EJ work by establishing a more robust and comprehensive platform for compiling, synthesizing and providing access to this data to local groups and individuals fighting for environmental justice.
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