Climate Crisis is not Neutral
Reclaiming Land, Cultures & Futures
A Decolonial Climate Justice Community Training & Gathering 2026
📅 Saturday, August 1, 2026
🕤 9:30 AM – 6:00 PM
📍 Taller Puertorriqueño
2600 N 5th Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19133
🔗 Registration Required | Free Admission
Overview
Share This Event:
Join us for a powerful day of Indigenous-led panels, workshops, storytelling, ceremony, and collective visioning. Together, we will gather in community to share knowledge, build relationships, and explore how our histories, cultures, and lived experiences can guide us toward a more just and sustainable future.
The climate crisis affects us all, but not equally. Indigenous and frontline communities often bear the greatest impacts while also carrying generations of knowledge about caring for land, water, and community. This gathering creates space to learn from one another, uplift Indigenous and Latine leadership, strengthen community connections, and co-create solutions rooted in reciprocity, resilience, and collective care.
Throughout the day, participants will explore three guiding themes:
WELCOMING RECEPTION – 9:30 AM
Registration & Community Breakfast
Welcoming Remarks & Event Overview
PART 1: WHAT WE VALUE – 10:30 AM
Session 1: Indigenous Worldviews & Relational Systems
Session 2: Land Relationships & Treaty Context in Lenapehoking
Session 3: Indigenous Knowledge & Cultural Practices
COMMUNITY LUNCH – 1:00 PM
PART 2: WHAT BLOCKS US – 1:30 PM
Session 4: Climate Crisis Is Not Neutral
Session 5: Challenges & Opportunities in the City
PART 3: WHAT WE BUILD – 3 PM
Session 6: Community Building / Lenape Bean Dance
Session 7: Indigenous & Latine Community Solutions
Session 8: From Vision to Action
CLOSING CIRCLE – 5:30 PM
Closing Circle & Community Dinner
🥑 Breakfast, lunch, and a light dinner will be provided.
👉🏽 To guarantee meals, please register no later than July 15, 2026.
♿ Wheelchair Accessible
🅿️ Free Parking On Site
Community organizations, grassroots groups, agencies, and institutions are encouraged to attend. You may register up to three representatives, with each participant completing an individual registration.
Whether you are new to climate justice work or have been organizing for years, we invite you to join us in building relationships, sharing knowledge, and imagining a future rooted in community, resilience, and Indigenous leadership.
- Indigenous community members
- Latine community members
- Climate and environmental justice advocates
- Educators and students
- Community organizers
- Nonprofit and grassroots organizations
- Public sector representatives
- Allies committed to climate justice and Indigenous sovereignty
This free event is organized by:
- IPD Philly’s Decolonial Climate Justice Team.
Sponsored by community partners:
- Farm Philly
- Taller Puertorriqueño
In addition, this event is made possible by the generous support of individual donors and the Climate Justice Organizing Grant 2025 from the Bread and Roses Community Fund.
register
Register BY 7/15 to secure your MEALS for Aug 1st. Otherwise registration is open until 7/27.
Welcoming
Reception | AUG 1st | 9:30 - 10:00 A
Begin the day by sharing food, meeting fellow participants, and connecting with community members, organizers, elders, youth, and allies. This informal gathering creates space to build relationships and set intentions for the day ahead.
Opening remarks will ground us in the purpose of the gathering, honor the Lenape (Delaware) and their territory Lenapehoking, and introduce the shared goals of learning, relationship-building, and collective action.
Part 1
What we Value | 10:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Before we can build solutions, we must understand what we are protecting and nurturing. This section centers Indigenous relationships with land, water, culture, community, and future generations. Together, we will explore the values, teachings, and traditions that sustain us and help us imagine climate justice rooted in care and responsibility.
Through storytelling, insights, poetry, and reflections, presenters will share how their Indigenous & Latine communities understand their relationships with land, water, air, spirit, and the living world. Participants will gain insight on how these relationships can guide community-centered responses to climate change and environmental harm.
This session explores the history, sovereignty, and resilience of the Lenape (Delaware) people, as well as the lasting impacts of colonization on Lenapehoking, their ancestral homeland. Together, we will reflect on our responsibilities to the land, the importance of Indigenous self-determination, and how communities can build respectful relationships with Indigenous peoples, histories, and places.
Attendees will engage in hands-on, community-led activities that demonstrate how culture, ceremony, creativity, food, and storytelling strengthen our connection to one another and the environment. Rather than simply learning about Indigenous knowledge, participants will experience it through shared practice and reflection.
Locations: Theater, Room A, Room B, & Atrium
Lunch
Community Lunch | 1:00 - 1:30 PM
Share a meal and continue conversations with fellow participants. This is an opportunity to deepen relationships, exchange ideas, and build connections across communities and generations.
Part 2
WHAT BLOCKS US | 1:30 - 3:00 PM
Building a climate-just future requires us to understand the systems and conditions that create barriers to environmental justice. In this section, we will explore some of the ongoing forces that impact Indigenous and frontline communities while identifying opportunities for solidarity and collective action.
Community leaders and organizers will share how colonialism, land dispossession, displacement, migration, exploitation, environmental racism, and the erasure of Indigenous voices continue to affect Indigenous and frontline communities today. Together, we will learn some of the challenges and opportunities for collective action and community resilience.
Moderator: Heather Lear (Cherokee Nation)
Featuring: TBA
This interactive session brings together community perspectives and local government efforts to address climate challenges in Philadelphia. Attendees will have the opportunity to share concerns, ask questions, and explore how residents, organizations, Indigenous communities, and public institutions can work together to create healthier, more resilient neighborhoods.
Featuring: Philadelphia Office of Sustainability
Facilitator: IPD Philly
Part 3
WHAT WE BUILD | 3:00 - 5:30 PM
The final section focuses on hope, action, and collective responsibility. Drawing from the knowledge, stories, and relationships built throughout the day, participants will explore what climate justice can look like in practice and how we can support one another in creating lasting change.
This participatory activity offers a chance to connect through movement, culture, and shared experience. Led by Lenape youth and elders, the Bean Dance reminds us that community-building, joy, and cultural continuity are essential parts of climate justice work.
This session highlights inspiring examples of Indigenous and Latine-led projects that are creating change through land stewardship, food sovereignty, community gardens, cultural revitalization, and environmental education. Participants will learn how communities are already building the future they want to see.
Featuring:
Lenape Arboretum Project by Dr. John Thomas (Delaware Tribe of Indians)
Los Gardines at Norris Square Neighborhood Project by Iris Brown (Boricua)
Our closing workshop will focus on turning ideas into action. Participants will work together to identify priorities for an Indigenous-Led Land Stewardship Committee and explore opportunities for ongoing collaboration beyond the gathering. Through facilitated discussion and planning, attendees will leave with one short-term action and one long-term climate justice strategy they can implement in their communities.
Facilitators: IPD Philly
Closing
Circle | 5:30 - 6:00 PM
We will close the day by sharing reflections, honoring what we have learned together, and celebrating the relationships formed throughout the gathering. Participants are invited to stay for a light dinner, continue conversations, and help carry this work forward into our communities.
Volunteer
Give us a hand!
We need enthusiastic volunteers to help us with the event on August 1st!
If you are interest in volunteering please send an email to the Project Coordinator, Sari Richards via this form.
SPACE Set up & Clean Up
- 04:00 PM – 06:00 PM – SETUP on FRIDAY 7/31
- 08:00 AM – 09:30 AM – SETUP on AUG 8/1
- 06:00 PM – 07:00 PM – CLEAN UP on AUG 8/1
BOOTH-Tables SECTION – Set up / Facilitate / Clean up
- 08:00 AM – 03:00 PM
HOST RECEPTION & IPD PHILLY TABLE – Set up / Facilitate
- Shift: 09:00 AM – 11:00 AM
- Shift: 11:00 AM – 01:00 PM
- Shift: 01:00 PM – 03:00 PM
- Shift: 03:00 AM – 06:00 PM
FOOD & REFRESHMENTS – Set up & Clean up
- Shift: 09:00 AM – 11:00 AM – Breakfast
- Shift: 12:00 PM – 04:00 PM – Lunch & Snacks
- Shift: 04:00 PM – 06:30 PM – Dinner
PRESENTATION SECTIONS to Assist with Tech + Workshops
- Shift: 09:30 AM – 01:00 AM – Opening + PART 1
- Shift: 01:30 PM – 03:00 PM – PART 2
- Shift: 03:00 PM – 06:30 PM – PART 3