Community Health Aligning Revitalization Resilience & Sustainability

CHARRS in partnership with state and municipal agencies, institute of higher education, private sector industries, other nonprofit organizations, and residents, has worked in Northwest Atlanta on community engagement, education, and activation initiatives related to environmental and climate justice and health impacts. For example, in 2020, Gwen Smith of CHARRS worked with GSU and Spelman college professors Dajun Dai, PhD. and Na’Taki Osborne Jelks, PhD as co-PIs on a 2020 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Interdisciplinary Research Leaders Radon Messaging Grant–REMOVE: A community-based approach to advance environment justice and health. In 2022, CHARRS received a grant from The Halle Foundation to work in collaboration with Post Carbon Cities of Tomorrow (POCACITO) to hold the Transatlantic Youth Summer Academy: ATLANTIS 2022, which brought high school students from Atlanta and Germany together to learn from climate change and biodiversity from experts from Germany and the United States. In 2023, CHARRS and West Atlanta Watershed Alliance partnered with 2B Technology as community partners on their National Institute of Environmental Health Science’s Small Business Innovation Research grant, AQEarth. CHARRS received a sub-award from 2B Technology, as a community partner, to design and help implement our current air monitoring project, AQEarth West Atlanta. Through this project we have built relationships and collaborated with the Atlanta Fire and Rescue Department and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s Air Protection Branch. CHARRS is part of the Greater Atlanta Community Science Collaboratory, comprised of 6 Community-Based Organizations and 6 Higher Education Institutions, fostering meaningful partnerships that address local-to-global challenges through knowledge-sharing, problem identification, scientific collaboration, and public engagement.

CHARRS holds community conversations and events, where the connection between health, pollution, climate change, and environmental justice is discussed with community members. Through this community engagement, residents learn to be an informed participant in advocating for their own health and well-being. CHARRS also started the Atlanta Repair Cafe, the second repair cafe in the State of Georgia. Learn more about CHARRS work at the following social outlets:

www.charrs.org

IG: @charrs.in.the.community

fb: @CHARRS404

in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwendylonsmith-charrs/