About Marisol
Marisol at Brower youth Awards (Drew Alitzer Photography)
Marisol Becerra is a 20-year-old Chicana from Chicago and 3rd year public policy, geography, and community service studies student at DePaul University where she co-coordinates the campus Environmental Concerns Organization (ECO). In 2003, Marisol volunteered with Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) to map and inventory the toxins found within 150 blocks of her predominantly Mexican-American community, Little Village in Chicago. Marisol was enraged to discover that in Little Village more than 60,000 youth in a two-mile radius of the Fisk and Crawford Coal Power Plants are forced to breathe air that violates EPA standards. She was inspired to act, she said, “in order to shut down these coal power plants, build more parks, and clean up the toxics. We must organize more people to stand up and fight.” Her first step was launching the youth branch of LVEJO — Youth Activists Organizing as Today’s Leaders, YAOTL. Based on the data Marisol collected, YAOTL collaborated with Chicago-based Open Youth Networks to devise OurMap of Environmental Justice, an interactive online map that includes 12 youth-created videos, descriptions of toxic sites, and gang territory delineations. With this map, Marisol educated her community about local environmental injustice and motivated them to become involved in campaigns. The map uses poignant facts and videos to educate about the different pollutants and contaminants in Little Village that cause 41 premature deaths and 550 emergency room visits annually. In 2008, Marisol was awarded a Brower Youth Award for her commitment and work.
During the summer of 2009, Marisol interned at the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence. Marisol aspires to obtain a Ph.D. in Environmental Policy and research the socioeconomic disparities existent in communities exposed to environmental hazards as well as the impacts of air pollution on human health. Most recently, Marisol was elected as North American youth representative to the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (UNEP) Tunza Youth Advisory Council (TYAC). Her dream job is to work as the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA).
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