Environmental Justice Practitioner-in-Residence Program
The Repair Lab supports activists and community leaders for year-long residencies to develop their own policies, programs, or tools for environmental justice. The residency program is grounded in the Repair Lab’s belief that practitioners are creators of knowledge and democracy is strengthened when practitioners are deeply, equally, and systematically involved in making the policies that affect their communities. Practitioners-in-residence are engaged in community-based environmental justice work and/or are community members who have identified a problem or opportunity to be addressed through new environmental justice-related policies, programs, or tools. Practitioners develop environmental justice-focused policies that can be aimed at any level of government.
Like an artist-in-residence program, the program provides Practitioners a sanctuary from the everyday responsibilities that can impede breakthrough thinking, as well as leverage the resources of the Repair Lab and the University of Virginia in support of their work. Practitioners are supported by a dedicated policy researcher for the duration of the appointed term and provided with any other required personnel, logistical, financial, technical, and network-building resources. Practitioners’ work becomes the focus of multi-episode podcasts, with the Practitioner shaping the content and direction of the podcast and having final approval on its release.