# Climate Justice Week: In Our Backyard ## ![Photo by Natalie Cherie Campbell, “Grass and Buds Laden with Rain Drops on Harvard Divinity School Campus,” September 18, 2023.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8216/files/rpl/files/climate_justice_week_2024_1200_x_800_px.png) An HDS-student initiative, this year's Climate Justice Week will provide opportunities to build our relationship with our local environment and increase our understanding of the local dimensions of the climate crisis and the critical role that religious literacy plays in climate action. ### Theme for Climate Justice Week: In Our Backyard Our relationship to climate is defined by where we are. “In Our Backyard” is a recognition that we are deeply affected by what is local, that we can always act in our immediate environment, and that we are all connected through neighborliness. What is local is also global. It is a call to understand religious literacy in climate action and politics and to imagine our roles in creating better futures. ### Climate Justice Week Garden Party: Planting Seeds of Love and Justice **Wednesday, March 27, 2024, 3:00-5:00pm** **CSWR Common Room, 42 Francis Ave, and the HDS Garden** [Register](https://forms.office.com/r/VKqMw7LAnY) We plant seeds with no guarantee of fruit; gardening is an act of hope, faith, and a promise to attend to life. Today we pause to consider the precarity and beauty of climate justice. What agreements are we promising to uphold and what relationships are we nurturing? What will we do when we break our promises, or when the storms of our time break them for us? Please join us (and prepare to get your hands dirty!) for an interactive pea-planting ceremony in the HDS Garden, in which we will contemplate and discuss what it means to plant the seeds of love and justice “in our backyard.” This event is cosponsored by HDS Office of Ministry Studies. ### Climate Justice Week: Student Showcase **Thursday, March 28, 2024, 4:30-5:30pm** **Braun Room, Swartz Hall** Come engage with students working at the intersections of religion, justice, and climate. The projects in this showcase will think broadly about questions of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and disproportionate impacts. ### How Do We Work in Crisis: Confronting Climate Grief for Climate Professionals Workshop **Thursday, March 28, 2024, 6:00-8:00pm** **James Room East, Swartz Hall** [Register](https://forms.office.com/r/ep3sc0HGE6) This workshop is open to anyone who cares about climate change and wants to explore the impact of climate grief on their work. Registration is required and participation is limited. Individuals who work on and studying issues of climate, social justice, and peace are constantly reminded of the existential threat climate change poses and care deeply about the harm it does to living beings around the world. Time and space to acknowledge the deep grief and anxiety that is present in this work is rarely given. Over time, this can lead to frustration and burnout, preventing climate activists from doing their best work. This workshop aims to open such a space for conversation, experience sharing, and identifying collective resources and coping mechanisms to continue climate justice work. Workshop facilitator: Miriam Silverman Israel, MTS ‘24, and MALD Fletcher School, Tufts University, 2024 **Organizing committee:** Student Committee Chairs: - Eliza Rockefeller, MDiv ‘25 - Miriam Silverman Israel, MTS ‘24, and MALD Fletcher School, Tufts University, 2024 Committee members: - Hussein Rashid, Assistant Dean for Religion and Public Life - Reem Atassi, Administrative Director, Religion and Public Life - Natalie Campbell, Communications Specialist, Religion and Public Life - Tammy Liaw, Academic Programs Coordinator, Religion and Public Life - Rachelle Swe, Religion and Public Life Coordinator, Religion and Public Life ### [Connect with Religion and Public Life](/news-events/newsletter) Subscribe to the RPL Newsletter for announcements about other events like these, as well as the latest RPL research and program news.