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Jacqueline Patterson, national director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Environmental and Climate Justice Program, will speak at a brown bag lunch at ��ɫֱ�� at East Liverpool on Wednesday, April 9, at noon, in the Blair Memorial Library, located in the main classroom building. The event is free and the public is encouraged to attend.

Patterson will present “Another Way is Possible: Transforming a Profit Driven Society to a People Centered Sustainable Planet.”  

Patterson will also meet at 3 p.m. that day with officers and members of the East Liverpool-Wellsville NAACP to present the national organization’s agenda on climate change and human rights. In the evening, she will spearhead the creation of a local action plan during a meeting with local chapter members.

Not only is Patterson the national director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, since 2007, she has served as the coordinator and co-founder of Women of Color United. She worked as a researcher, program manager, coordinator, advocate and activist for women‘s rights; and led efforts to address violence against women, HIV and AIDS, racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice.

Patterson served as a senior women’s rights policy analyst for ActionAid, where she integrated a women’s rights lens for the issues of food rights, macroeconomics and climate change, as well as the intersection of violence against women and HIV and AIDS.  She served as assistant vice-president of HIV/AIDS programs for IMA World Health, providing management and technical assistance to medical facilities and programs in 23 countries throughout Africa and the Caribbean.

Patterson also served as the outreach project associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; a research coordinator for Johns Hopkins University; and as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica.  

Her publications/articles include: “Jobs vs Health: An Unnecessary Dilemma;” “Climate Change is a Civil Rights Issue;” “Gulf Oil Drilling Disaster: Gendered Layers of Impact;” “Disasters, Climate Change Uproot Women of Color;” and a chapter, “Equity in Disasters: Civil and Human Rights Challenges in the Context of Emergency Events” in the upcoming book Building Community Resilience Post-Disaster.

Patterson holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves on the Gender Justice Working Group of the US Social Forum; the advisory committee for The Grandmothers’ Project; the steering committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate Change; as well as on the board of directors for the Institute of the Black World and US Climate Action Network.

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Media Contact:
Bethany Zirillo, 330-382-7430, bgadd@kent.edu