[00:00:15] Jon M: Hi, I’m Jon Moscow.
[00:00:17] Amy H-L: And I’m Amy Halpern-Laff. Today, we have another recording from our collaborative project, Educating for the World We Want. This episode features speakers from the second salon in our series on Learning to Citizen: Tales of Youth Voice, Agency, and Care, and our fifth salon overall. The speakers were Nando Rodriguez, senior manager for environmental programming at the Brotherhood/Sister Sol, Bro/Sis, and two Bro/Sis members, Camila Saucedo, 16, a high school sophomore at Thurgood Marshall Academy, and Elias DeLeon, 17, a junior at KIPP Charter School, both of whom have been part of the Bro/Sis community for several years. The first voice you’ll hear will be that of Juan Mora.
[00:01:09] Juan M: Friends, I’m just gonna do a little recap of what we’ve been doing in these salons. In our first series, we kept coming back to a question: What does it mean to learn in relationship with place, with nature, and with each other? We heard stories from Argentina, from India, and Bali, and from the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota, from Canada, New York, and New Jersey.
All these stories showed us what shifts when education grows from context and trust instead of just content delivery. We learned that education stops being something we transmit and it becomes something we live. And this new series builds on that foundation and takes up a vital invocation from educator Deb Morrison, “Meet agency where it lives. Begin with what people care about and the places they inhabit.” And that’s why we call this series Learning to Citizen: Tales of Youth Voices, Agency and Care. We had our first salon of this series on May 9th with inspiring students and teachers from the Green School in Bali. And today, on May 30th, we are here to honor another set of learners and teachers who are already doing the work of practicing care, enacting citizenship, and learning how to regenerate their worlds outside of the walls of institutional learning.
[00:02:38] Jon M: And so now we’re so grateful to have Nando Rodriguez, who’s the senior manager for environmental programming at Bro/Sis, a former member and graduate of Bro/Sis in 1997, and two students, members of Bro/Sis, Camila Salcedo and Elias DeLeon, here with us today. The format will be a conversation among Nando, Camila, and Elias. And with that, I’ll turn the mic over to Nando. Nando, we’d love to hear about Bro/Sis and how you came to the organization, and also about your environmental work. Perhaps you could start with telling us about what Bro/Sis does.
[00:03:17] Nando R: Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me and having us here. First, I want to say good morning.I’m very humbled to be heard all across the world, in Uganda, Argentina, and Spain. The Brotherhood/Sister Sol is an organization, nonprofit organization in West Harlem working to develop theories of change for our young people, providing them love, guidance, support, and resources through the different various programming that we have, and basically helping our young people to be critical thinkers in our communities and to be leaders of our communities.
We’ve been around since 1995. I joined in 1995, graduated from the program in ’98, actually went off to college, came back in 2005, and now I am a full-time employee and a senior manager 20 years later. I want to quickly begin with these four images.
I’m born and raised in the Lower East Side, and I want to share this bebecause this is the Lower East Side in the ’80s and then the ’90s. And this was what I remember as a kid in the Lower East Side of New York City. Vacant lots, a lot of activities, people running around, walking through it, people living, a lot of entrepreneurship, you know, it’s people selling out of the stoop, a lot of graffiti and trains, and tag was almost on every corner in the hot summer weather. And I share this only bebecause I want to give a quick perspective of what I was growing up in, in the Lower East Side. In the ’90s,
I joined two organizations, Open Road of New York and the Brotherhood/Sister Sol. Open Road of New York, I joined at 15, and what I learned through Open Road of New York was environmental awareness, problem-solving practices, and then skills and practices on environmental solution. With the Brotherhood/Sister Sol, I learned a lot about leadership, history and culture, social awareness, and what it means to be a man, leader, and brother. And the reason I share this quick slide is bebecause both of these organizations together have created a very pivotal development for me in allowing myself to put these together to create the program that exists now at the Brotherhood/Sister Sol, which is the environmental program. But these were two specific scenarios or specific organization that really gave me the inspiration and education and experience and knowledge to create what we have today
A little bit about the environmental, my environmental justice upbringing. What it came to me at a young age was a lot of hands-on activities, a lot of hands-on practices, a lot of hands-on projects that I feel helped me become the environmentalist I believe that I’m developing into more and more bebecause we never really are fully environmentalists. We’re always growing and becoming more and more environmentalists as we get older. And I think that hands-on activity was very important for me bebecause it wasn’t through my passion or will to do environmental work. It was through experiences, access, and opportunity that developed my love for the environment and my passion to take care of it.
And some of it was through having access to green spaces. You know, I showed you a picture of the Lower East Side back in the day. In the ’90s, there was a lot of community gardens coming around and being developed, and they were all in my community, but I never went into them because I just didn’t know I had the access to go. Nobody really kind of opened the door for me except to when I joined Open Road of New York. And Open Road had a lot of access to green spaces and allowed me to go into these green spaces and to basically experience a love for nature in my own community. And that’s what I wanted to develop here. So, you know, some of our young people will mention these things from their experience being here and me allowing in our program, giving them the access to these green spaces in the city.
And they share these two different quotes that has changed them. And I want to bring in Elias and Camila to talk about what does it mean to have access in today’s world. What have we created for them to give them these access to green spaces?
[00:08:14] Elias D: Yeah. I’m going to say that over here at Bro/Sis, we have access to, like, a community garden. It is called Frank White Memorial Garden at 143rd Street. It’s between Hamilton Heights and Harlem. It’s the garden that Bro/Sis owns, and basically you could just visit any time. Me personally, it’s a place I could call home. I could just walk in freely by decision, walk around the garden, be in the hammocks, just relax, hang out with my friends. And having access to that green space makes me fully reset and be grateful because a lot of people don’t have access to the environment sometimes here in New York. And Bro/Sis is a great example of the privilege of having access to green spaces that we’re trying to make citywide,
[00:09:07] Nando R: So I go back to my time as a teenager and having these green spaces access. You know, some of the projects, the hands-on projects, was planting our gardens, planting our farms. And that was something that I started to learn as a teenager, but I started to kind of feel very connected to the land by planting some of the vegetables and fruits and stuff that the community will come in to, to take a harvest from. And it wasn’t like we were creating plots for different people. We were just planting for everyone, and people would come into our garden in the Lower East Side and kind of take from that. So I wanted to create that here as well. So as Elias said, in Frank White Memorial Garden, we have a lot of raised beds where we have our young people plant all of the raised beds and plant all of the garden in the season of April, and then it’s open for the community.
So I’ll open it up again back to both Elias and Camila to talk about that experience of planting our farms
[00:10:13] Elias D: Over here in the garden at Bro/Sis, we planted a bunch of vegetables, from what I remember. Remember, we planted bok choy last year? It was a bunch of lettuce, cabbages, even fruits like green apples, peaches, nectarines. A wide variety of fruits year-round that we plant at Bro/Sis. And then while I’m planting these plants, I’m over here being educated about the reasoning on why we’re doing this and how it’s benefiting me too. The amount of skills I’m gaining from, you know, interacting with the soil and having access to the raised beds, that, that gives me the drive to, to keep on planting, just not at Bro/Sis, but I could just do it anywhere, just volunteer and become a real asset.
[00:10:59] Jon M: I just want to interject, if I can, a question that David put in the chat, which was
[00:11:04] Elias D: – Oh, yeah, I saw …
[00:11:05] Jon M: for Elias. What was your relationship to nature prior to Bro/Sis?
[00:11:12] Elias D: I’m going to start with since I first came to Bro/Sis, I did not expect Bro/Sis to be so environmental based. Mm-hmm. And that really taught me that I should be more aware and appreciate nature in the city and even outside of the city. Just really, like, take in the… I don’t really know how to explain it, but I just use nature to my advantage most of the time because it could be very limited, and we don’t know what will happen to it. So at Bro/Sis, it just really taught me to, like, take in what nature gives back to me and what- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm … and it, how beneficial it is.
[00:11:50] Juan M: Eli, let me jump in because I think what you’re saying is actually very powerful and deep. I live in the other end of the world, down south in Argentina, and there are actually in the city, actually there are, curiously enough, laws and regulations against having this kind of urban garden. And I… We’ve been trying to explain to the city folk how useful it is and how important it is for young people, and actually for all citizens to have contact with this.
If you had to speak to people your age that had not had this kind of experience, what language would you use? Like, if you were to tell two or three friends that hadn’t come into Bro/Sis or hadn’t had this experience in nature, what would you actually say to them in terms of why this is worth their while?
[00:12:34] Elias D: First, I think it depends on the person. Like, if I really want to get them interested and hooked on to Bro/Sis, I’ve got to know what their, you know, their likes their desires. So if I were to tell them about Bro/Sis, I would just say it’s all about community and finding your identity and purpose, which really helped me find a great direction in life.
And when I say community, I say like, oh, you could just always come to Bro/Sis, come visit, and people are so overly nice here to the point that you, you’ll just be saying hi to people you don’t know sometimes, and that’s great because you’re making these small connections are really impactful, could be very impactful for someone, and just gives you a sense of belonging in a way that which I think most people at New York really need just to become a bit more social and get out of your comfort zone.
[00:13:32] Nando R: Yeah, Juan, I’ll also add too is like maybe 70 to 80% of the time when teenagers are alone, their interactions with other adults in many cases and in places is so harsh, toxic sometimes, and negative. And growing up having to need a facilitator to kind of put me into spaces that will bring down the guards of other people because of my age or presence, you know, that, that is a piece of the connecting of what we do at Bro/Sis and how the environment and green spaces can come together. Because green spaces are super valuable in community, and it’s the center of, in many places, where organic engagement of community can come together.
And I’m always pushing the young people to be the forefront of these spaces so that negative or like standoffish interaction that they are used to having when they go to parks, to stores, even on their block, like, you know, people talk about wearing the mask of survival and in order for you to survive in your community, you’ve got to be tough and have this mask of, you know- of a tough person. And I want them to bring those guards down. I want people to have their guards down. So having young people in green spaces and having them be the ones doing the work and interacting, what was for me, this was a door opening. This was a window that we can talk because we’re in a natural, positive environment.
If we saw each other at the same time on the street, we look at each other differently. But when we see each other in the garden, on a community farm, we’re already in a space where our guards should be down and we should now have this conversation. Mm. And, and that for me growing up, that’s what that was.
And I feel like many of the places that I try to interact and have our young people be a part of is to recreate those guards to come down and open these opportunities of conversations and dialogue.
[00:15:45] Elias D: Wait, I’m just seeing some questions in the chat. David asked, does the experience that me and Camila have at Bro/Sis with nature and the community and their peers been anything like their experience in school?
I’d say not at all. It’s very different, especially the interactions, I’d say. That’s a great example. The way I interact with people at school is particularly very different at Bro/Sis. For example, I could be talking to a teacher. My teachers are just there to support me academically. Bro/Sis staff and the members are there to support you on anything else. It could be prior to your dreams, your education, your, culture, and the diversity it brings. Mm-hmm. They’re very supportive, in a way. But overall, it’s very different from school.
[00:16:37] David P: Can I just throw in for either of you, Camila and Elias, has your behavior in school shifted or changed as a result of your experience at Bro/Sis?
[00:16:50] Elias D: I’d say in a way, yeah. I think I’m being a bit more mature than I was, and I’m seeing a bunch of growth that Bro/Sis has gave me that I’m taking outside of Bro/Sis too into my life. Mm-hmm. So I’m just really using that to help me out as I’m going through life. Mm-hmm. Like, also in school, you know, I think I have a better drive to be more academic, I’d say, and- be more disciplined
[00:17:17] David P: Thank you.
[00:17:18] Juan M: I want to jump in. In a few minutes we’ll have an opportunity to talk about action, but I’m feeling so inspired by what you’re all doing and the stories you guys are both telling. I wonder if you can share a little bit. I’m sure, Nando, I’m sure you have, and perhaps with your students and the young people that you work with, reflected on what is needed to grow these experiences in the city and also just in general so that more young people have this kind of experience. And I was wondering if you could share some of these reflections, like what needs to happen? ‘because this is clearly the right way for- I mean, just hearing Elias speak right now, I can’t help but think how many young people I know who should be out in a garden this afternoon and next week and the week after that. What do we all need to do to help create more such experiences?
[00:18:07] Elias D: Yeah. I think some of the presentation kind of helps to guide that thing, so we’ve only went through one bullet, and I don’t know if I should keep going on that can help- Go for that … answer that question for you. Yeah. Yeah, please.
[00:18:19] Nando R: Yeah, bebecause your question drives immediate question for me is that not every young person is very interested in the environment, and pushing environmental education and environmental activism onto them is probably gonna push them away.
So what we do is that we just interact with them. We meet them where they are, and we just do hands-on activities with them. So when it’s come to planting the farm and gardens, we’re doing it together, but we’re not telling them, “This is what we gotta do.” No, let’s just do one bed at a time. Let’s do one plant at a time, one tree at a time.
Construction experiences. This, I think, feel, I feel like is an icebreaker ‘because every young person, when they see the power drill or some type of project, they’re, like, curious. How do you use that tool? How do you get that screw to go in so perfectly? I want to give it a try. And then they start messing up, and it’s like, “Ah, I can’t do this.”
No, but here’s the technique. Now you’ve entered a place where they’re accepting your knowledge. They’re accepting your teaching bebecause they have asked the question. Instead of pushing- the answers on them, they are now asking. They are now asking for your support and guidance, and this to me has always been a way to get people to talk, to get involved. And once they get into it, they don’t stop, you know? Here’s an example of Camila. Very quiet, you know, timid young woman. But when she’s open, she’s doing all the work, and it’s not like you can stop her. Here she’s doing a construction project at a different garden. And, you know, you can see her excitement, her happiness, and she’s learning how to use the power tools.
And from that project we go to another project, and we go onto another project. And I think once we have them building and creating, then they start to influence their own projects, and they start to get involved more, and more, and more. And it doesn’t become like you calling them, it’s more of like, “Okay, we gotta close. You guys gotta go home.” They don’t want to go home sometimes. Some of the projects we start to… Once they are with us and they want to be a part of us, we start showing them the importance of what can we do in the community, and we start caring for the street trees. And this is Elias caring for one of the street trees, and this is Camila beautifying that street tree with one of her, friends that she brought in. You know, so then they start bringing their own friends into the mix.
You know, here is a partnership in, with a community partner. So at a young age, I learned a lot about who were owners of different places, and I quickly understood that what I was doing as a teenager could be a career. So as creating this environmental program for Bro/Sis, I wanted to continue partnerships and continue to build partnerships so that the young people could see that there’s so many different careers in this activity, in this project, in this world.
And this year alone, we partnered with over 25 different groups in New York City so that the young people can learn about all these different groups, but also feel empowered that there is a future in these activities if they wanted to keep going with it. Elias, you want to talk a little bit about what you was doing here?
[00:21:40] Elias D: Yeah. Well, I would like to elaborate more on the street tree care first. I remember me and Camila, we were in a core group called Horticultural Sciences, where we mainly spent our time last summer just in the garden, and helping other community gardens, and cleaning up just green spaces locally. And over here in this photo, I was plucking out weeds to help out the tree, ‘because the weeds are called suckers, which, you know, just taking all the tree’s nutrients that it’s essential. And we replaced those weeds with plants and flowers just to decorate, as you can see here with Camila just digging out the soil, planting the plants just to, you know, revive the tree in a way.
[00:22:28] Nando R: How did that make you feel to actually beautify that one tree for you?
[00:22:33] Elias D: It made me feel good about myself in a way, because actually doing a positive impact for my community. It might be something small, but it’s something very big for me, and it could be big for someone else, too. The small details is what made me realize that, that the small things I do, it could really help out the community and just give back.
[00:22:55] Nando R: Then here you was giving back. What were you doing here?
[00:22:58] Elias D: This was this year, I believe, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Most of my friends came to this event. You know, we could have just taken the day off, relaxed at home, but we just all decided to help. We were giving back to the community for those who in need. I’m over here packing lunches for a certain place that we travel to. I remember it was very freezing that day. Most of us could have just went back home, but we did what we had to do, because, like, I think nobody else was willing to do this. So the fact that I’m over here putting the effort into my community, it just made me feel a positive sense of myself. Just giving somebody else a smile in their day. They probably had a bad day. I’m over here to make it better for them. And yeah.
[00:23:47] Jon M: So I have a question for you, Elias, and also for Camila, if you feel like answering it and talking about it. It’s from Amanda about how, whether contact with the garden changes your relationship with screens, and are there different feelings and emotions that come from being in contact with the soil and with the community at Bro/Sis rather than scrolling on your phone or watching your friends or stories on Instagram or TikTok?
[00:24:14] Elias D: Yeah, I think, I think my screen time at Bro/Sis has really changed. I just realized how less I spend my time on my phone, especially during the experience and trips we get to go to. I remember there was this… We went to a bunch of camping trips where we had no service, no chargers. We just had us. We had to, like, entertain ourselves in a way, and I think that really changed how I see nature because at the end of the day, I’m living in planet Earth, and I shouldn’t just waste my time on a screen, and really make memories with the community at Bro/Sis and my friends, my coworkers, and the staff around here. So I became more appreciative of nature. Mm-hmm.
[00:25:05] Nando R: So I’ll continue. Keep coming with the questions. I know I’ve… We got a small time. The other thing is community composting. I started off by doing community composting, and I’m always gonna be a believer, and I always push it on my young people, so all of the young people in our program partake in composting. That composting is a major tool and skill to create a lot of environmental solutions to a lot of the environmental issues that we face in urban cities. So when it comes to composting, it’s always a key part of all of our curriculum. But also the action of it is not always popular in young people, and you have to do it so that it becomes normal, so that icky feeling and that smelly part can go away, and they can start actually appreciating- Mm-hmm … the task and the work that they’re doing.
Mm-hmm. So this is an event where we have volunteers come in, and our young people was helping them to learn how we process compost in our site. This is a vacant land, so that is in the Lower East Side. I want to share this point because this is the changing point of me, and this is why I do what I do with my young people. This is an acre large land in the Lower East Side on 12th Street between Avenue A and 1st Avenue. Open Road of New York transferred this land to Border Bed, and it just so happened that my high school was right next door to this land. My high school has a mandatory service learning component where in every grade you have to do service learning, community service, and it’s once a week for the whole year. I joined Open Road of New York to be my service learning site, and the task that Open Road had was to convert this land to a green space. And we only were given a small portion of it, and for seven years of me being a part of that environmental learning component, I stayed with them all throughout my middle school and high school time. You know, seven years later, this is what we created. Mm.
So as a teenager, having the, a site in New York City that I can say I helped design and helped create with my own hands is a very strong, prideful moment for myself, and I wanted to recreate this experience for young people at Bro/Sis. So this moment, this experience that I had, was something that changed me, and I’m recreating that experience as best as I can in a new community, but I’m hoping that I can touch all of the New York City boroughs with this process, with community composting at the forefront, but to have them design their spaces
So right now, this is the curriculum that I use with my young people. We have four core groups where we focus all of our projects, all of our experiences, all of our skill training, and all of our thoughts. And both Elias and Camila have been a part of three of these components. Each of them are to be a part of this core group for a whole year, and then they get to choose another one and another one. So once they complete high school, they’ll be able to complete all four of these core groups, and they’ll have so much experience, skills, knowledge, and hopefully they’ll have the passion and the love that I built, that I got when I was a teenager to consider themselves environmentalists. I don’t want them to be…
I mean, in my heart, I want them to be environmentalists. I want them to be environmentally aware when they leave this program. But for some, they choose to be environmentalists, and that is the ultimate goal for me for them to achieve. To be a person who may eventually take my shoes and my position so that they can continue to pass on what I’ve done for them. So I don’t know if Elias and Camila want to share some experiences in these core groups, because I think it’d be valuable for you guys there.
[00:29:20] Elias D: Yeah, for sure. Here at Bro/Sis, they’ve run several core group programs that I think they’re all designed to support young adults, even the youth from their childhood through their adulthood. And they focus on a bunch of topics such as leadership, identity, and social justice.
When I first came to Bro/Sis, the first core group I picked on summer 2024 was food empowerment, which just focused on food justice. They gave me culinary skills. Food empowerment taught me to be more aware of what I eat. They taught me that my body is a temple, and I was supposed to build that temple just by feeding food that nature gives.
And the next summer, which was last summer, I chose horticultural sciences that me and Camila are in right now currently, where we work most of our time at the garden. And they mainly educate us on the structure of nature. And it circles around composting too. I remember my first couple of days composting. It was honestly kind of terrible for me, mainly because of the smell. But over time when I started doing it more, I became more immune to the smell. because, like, the experience and what I learned from composting just taught me why people do it in the first place and why Bro/Sis is driven to keep composting local.
[00:30:52] Jon M: So I wanted to interject bebecause we’re trying to follow our schedule and we’re a couple minutes over. But on the other hand, I think the composting is really exciting. Yeah. So I’m wondering if you could all just talk maybe for two more minutes specifically about what the compost and compost outreach program is, and then that’ll give us time to set up the breakout rooms, and then we can all switch to that and continue the conversations there.
[00:31:16] Nando R: Absolutely. I’ll jump really quickly then. This is the garden now. Mm-hmm. This is what it looks like now. And then this campaign is what we’re pushing, having 1,000 composting systems in all of New York City. And our goal is obviously to influence, develop, and install 1,000 composting systems in every borough of New York City. The goal is to increase environmental education and activism. Remember what Elias is saying. Once you’re actively doing it, you become more active, more into it. Activism becomes great. The green spaces is where you’re educating environmentalism and bringing in people together.
The number two goal, obviously composting is going to help reduce greenhouse gases. And if we can do it all of New York City as an example, every city in the United States of America can become this community compost aware that hopefully, you know, we can do a major, the change and difference.
Goal number three is to supply healthy environments. By having compost to help remediate our soil, we’re helping to grow more organic and fresh and healthier food.
And then the young people being engaged in the soil, they’re becoming more immune. Their immunity system is growing. It’s stronger bebecause they’re outside. They’re incorporating, they’re touching their hands in the dirt and building that chemical reaction that will give their immune system stronger.
And number four, which is very important, and people always tend to push away economic equity and environmentalism, we are hoping that this will create more jobs. And always talk about where does young people find work. Where do they find work? This could be it. Having community compost in all of our neighborhoods could encourage more youth employment.
These map here is basically all the different places that we have placed a hot box, a system. So we are now at 92. Two years ago, there was only 17 hot boxes out there, which is a design that I created in high school as well. Now there’s 92 as of yesterday. And that is just in two years. 92 sites where it could be each site could have hopefully employed two or three young people in the community. It’ll divert tons of food waste going into our waste stream, and it’s going to give us thousands of pounds of finished compost in our community, rather than waiting for it to be brought into our community and having m- more carbon footprint of trucks coming in. It’s gonna be there, walking distance for everyone to have. And…
[00:33:52] Jon M: What is the HOT Box? I’m sorry for interrupting, but I’m just looking at the picture.
[00:33:56] Nando R: The HOT Box is not new. It was a design that we created in the ’90s with Open Road of New York, and Open Road was gracious enough to put my name on the patent. It’s a system where it’s a passive aeration, where you basically do composting, but at a more natural process. Instead of the tendings of, like, turning it and the human interaction of turning it, the pipes that are in the design allows for natural flow of air, natural passive flow. So as the HOT Box gets hotter, it, heat goes up, and it pulls air through the pipes. So by us not moving the soil, moving the process, we’re not disturbing the ecosystem and the habitat that the microbials are creating in the box. Every time humans turn it, we’re disturbing them. By us not turning it in this system, those microbials are thriving at a faster rate, more happy, more mentally stable, and they’re creating a habitat for two months that they enjoy and love.
And the final product has been tested in Brooklyn College and Cornell University, and it’s been closer to humus than a lot of many other compost systems that you find that where humans have to constantly turn it. And humus, as we all know, it’s like a tree falling down in the forest and decomposing on its own natural ways.
So- Hmm … Juan, I hope I answered your question that you had before. How do we en- engage our young people into doing this, and how can other people do it? I think it starts with the hands-on activities at a organic way. Let them ask the questions, and you go from there to…
[00:36:12] Jon M: We co-sponsor Educating for the World We Want, a series of Saturday salons with three partners: Agastya International Foundation in India, The Center for Artistry and Scholarship in Argentina and the US, and Thinking With You in Spain and globally. Check out the website edfortheworldwewant.net for more information and ways you can get involved.
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