Rural Climate Justice Organizing

Lydia D. Avila is a program officer for the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund. She is from a working-class suburb of Los Angeles County, first generation Mexican-American, and an organizer first and foremost. Lydia has spent her career immersed in the US climate movement and most recently served as the Executive Director of the Power Shift Network. Lydia attended UCLA as an undergraduate where she was involved with student-initiated, student-run social justice service organizations and was a student activist. After college, she was a community organizer for the Sierra Club in Texas where she led two major Beyond Coal campaigns. Lydia then earned a Master of Public Administration degree at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, specializing in nonprofit management. She currently serves on the board of two organizations: the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice and Greenpeace Fund. 

Janie Scott is a lifelong resident of Waynesboro, Burke County Georgia. She received a Bachelor’s of Business Administration with an emphasis on Marketing from Augusta State University in Augusta, Georgia. She was employed in the medical field for many years early in her career and went on to become an intake paralegal for many years; ultimately working as a court reporter in the Augusta-Aiken area. She prides herself on being dedicated to community service.  

She has been a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. since 2012 and served as the historian and chair of Public Relations and Communications for her chapter. Most recently she has served as the Social Action Advocate. In addition, she served in community organizations such as BRIDGE (Building Responsible Individuals Developing Greater Examples) in the Waynesboro, Georgia area. This group works with youth and young adults in various capacities in the Burke County area. She also served in the Augusta area in the Huismann Sickle Cell Foundation and Ladies of Action. 

Janie has worked with Georgia WAND as a Burke County Community Organizer from Spring of 2017 till fall of 2019 when she was promoted to be the Nuclear Harm Reduction and Climate Justice Coordinator and Program Manager for the Burke County Organizing Project (BCOP). The BCOP is a year-long leadership development program that is being piloted in Burke County with a cohort of local community members.  The cohort is being supported by a Community Leadership Circle (CLC), Georgia WAND staff from the Burke County community, and other local community leaders.  In May 2020 she was promoted to Nuclear Harm Reduction and Climate Justice Manager.

To date, Janie has been a part of the 2018 cohort of Leadership Burke County leadership development program. She has also been sharing her voice and lived experiences as an active member of working groups of the Southeast Climate and Energy Network (SCEN), US Climate Action Network (USCAN), the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, and the Southern Movement Assembly. In 2019, she completed Climate Reality Corps training in Atlanta, Georgia . 

Janie believes self-determination is key for communities and facilitating community members empowering themselves with community-led solutions. Community members must be in the rooms where discussions are being had about their futures to speak for themselves in their own words.  

Johana Bencomo is the Executive Director of NM Comunidades en Acción y de Fe (CAFe), the largest faith-based grassroots, power building movement in Southern NM. She has been with NM CAFe for 6 years, having powerfully organized around immigrant and border rights, economic dignity, and rural infrastructure. Johana earned her BA of Government and Masters of Social Work from New Mexico State University. Johana is proud to lead an organization that is working towards building power for and with historically marginalized and directly impacted people in the beautiful Borderlands.

Veronica Coptis is the executive director of the Center for Coalfield Justice and has been organizing since 2009. She grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania adjacent to the largest underground coal mine in the country and currently lives surrounded by fracking operations. Veronica has organized in rural PA for 15 years and deeply values the knowledge of her neighbors and moving their voices into spaces where decisions are made. She is a mother of two and enjoys spending as much time outdoors as possible.