Black Philanthropy Month: NYCHA’s recycling entrepreneur Brigitte Charlton-Vicenty
Black Philanthropy Month (BPM) is a global movement centered around funding equity across the Black diaspora. This year’s theme is “Afro-Futures of Giving,” a call for a focus on giving towards afrofuturistic and green initiatives, which NYCHA’s The Inner City Green Team (ICGT) embodies.
After a groundswell of support for racial equity on the heels of the global protest movements of 2020, that fervor – particularly among funders – has waned. However, there are still organizations pre- and post-COVID committed to funding and advancing racial justice.
BPM was founded by Dr. Jackie Bouvier Copeland in 2011. It officially launches on August 1 each year and includes year-round initiatives by its backbone organization, the Women Invested to Save Earth Fund (The WISE Fund). Copeland is a cultural anthropologist, diplomat, impact designer, and creative at Georgetown University and University of Pennsylvania. She has also been a dedicated environmentalist for decades.
“I have always been a steward of the planet since the day my mother took me to upstate New York to see the foliage when I was eight years old,” said Brigitte Charlton-Vicenty, founder of ICGT. “The magnificence of all the beautiful colors and witnessing the power of nature made me want to care for Mother the way She cares for us, which became my first moment of obligation.”
A native New Yorker, Charlton-Vicenty grew up in the South Bronx with her mother and in Harlem with her father and grandmother. She thought she was doing the right thing by placing recyclables in the designated bins at her development as a kid, but realized that all of her individual efforts to help the planet from her building had been fruitless. Although the city did declare residential recycling as law, over 500,000 residents in the city’s public housing communities did not have access to these programs to safely dispose of their recyclable materials, electronics, textiles, or food scraps, she said.
“Until 2006, when I witnessed [recyclables] being thrown in with the garbage, I was flabbergasted to learn that all my neighbors’ and my efforts over many years were in vain because NYCHA was not in compliance with the [city’s] recycling laws,” Charlton-Vicenty said. “I envisioned a perfect opportunity to help establish a viable recycling program in my development when I came across a posting urging residents to get involved with the community’s ‘Green Agenda.’”
Inspired by her mother being a powerhouse for the community as a teen, Charlton-Vicenty dedicated her life to promoting a real recycling program in the city’s various public housing buildings. She entered and won $20,000 in the NYCx Co-Lab Challenge: Zero Waste in Shared Space contest in 2017, allowing her to pilot her recycling idea. The international competition sought solutions to improve recycling capture rates, increase resident engagement in a meaningful way, mitigate litter, and reduce the amount of time employees spend dealing with waste. Her program launched at a NYCHA development in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood.
ICGT now employs Black and Brown residents in green and recycling jobs. Charlton-Vicenty explained that NYCHA residents have some of the highest unemployment rates in the city and are in critical need of jobs. “Our workforce development model focuses on scaling the service to provide green-collar jobs, environmental leadership, and skill-building for NYCHA residents. We train and hire residents to engage fellow residents,” Charlton-Vicenty said.
She added that NYCHA developments were considered impossible to recycle because of their density and limited space, and haphazard attempts were made to start programs in the past. ICGT filed a lawsuit against NYCHA, forcing the entity to roll out NYCHA Recycles! at all of its 338 developments in 2016.
“I call my work my ‘green ministry’ and I have been privileged to learn my purpose on this planet,” Charlton-Vicenty said. “It is to serve and deliver the message that everything that impacts our environment impacts us all. In my work, Afrofuturism expands the consciousness of our connectedness in marginalized communities to our planet and each other.”
Charlton-Vicenty became an Echoing Green (EG) fellow in 2020. EG is a diverse investment company that supports entrepreneurs that was founded in 1987. In honor of BPM this August, the company is highlighting Charlton-Vicenty.
“The Echoing Green Fellowship was the first organization to support my environmental activist vision. Becoming part of the EG family is incredibly validating and is a social entrepreneur’s dream,” she said. “The global nonprofit provides funding and resources to social innovators with the brightest ideas and talent to make great changes in their communities. We are a tribe of leaders who started at the grassroots level and are committed to solving social issues on every platform.”
ICGT hopes to continue addressing the city’s environmental issues, green leadership, youth development, and the creation of approximately 1,200 sustainable green-collar jobs for NYCHA residents.
“My idea was visualized out of frustration to find an easy and convenient way for my neighbors and me to recycle. My literal soul was ignited to uncover the truth, and I was compelled to think of a better solution,” Charlton-Vicenty said. “Getting to the bottom of this injustice was deep-rooted because I come from a disenfranchised group that no one in the mainstream environmental community wanted to help. I am determined to pick up the mantle to lead the charge and disprove the stereotype that POC in marginalized communities are not interested in issues like recycling, climate change, and environmental justice.”
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