Eva Blake, YouthBuild USA Green Initiative:
Advocating for clean energy jobs and opportunities
Eva Blake launched YouthBuild USA Green Initiative in 2005 to help students and graduates build green and healthy homes, pursue green careers, and develop environmental leadership. YouthBuild members and graduates in six rural, tribal, and urban communities weatherized 863 units of low- to very-low income housing empowered by a $1.3 million Department of Energy Weatherization Innovation Pilot Program grant. Eva has also worked for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Native American Renewable Energy Education Project and the Rising Sun Energy Center. She serves her Wampanoag community as Secretary and Chair of the Wopanâak Language Reclamation Project and is an active Advisory Committee member of the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness.
President Obama's Clean Power Plan will advance opportunities for all people to help build a viable American economy fueled by clean energy. It will set the precedent for environmental protection for future generations. A clean power future should ensure the health and well-being of all people regardless of race, income, physical ability, or gender. It should demonstrate inclusion, diversity, equal economic opportunity, and equal protection from natural disasters and toxic contamination. It should open access to healthy food and green spaces. It should honor and do right by the treaties in place with the indigenous peoples of this land, and ensure healthy human life on this planet for generations to come.