Christine Nieves is a Puerto Rican community organizer and

climate change activist Individual action on climate change can include personal choices in many areas, such as diet, travel, household energy use, consumption of goods and services, and family size. Individuals can also engage in local and political advocacy around issu ...

. She is the founder of Emerge Puerto Rico, a community redevelopment non-profit. Nieves focuses on building community resilience before and after environmental disasters, such as

Hurricane Maria Hurricane Maria was a deadly Saffir–Simpson scale#Category 5, Category 5 Tropical cyclone, hurricane that devastated the northeastern Caribbean in September 2017, particularly Dominica, Saint Croix, and Puerto Rico. It is regarded as the wo ...

in 2017 and the series of

earthquakes in Puerto Rico An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fro ...

in 2020. Her organization, formerly called Apoyo Mutuo Mariana, provided free meals for a mountainous community that was heavily impacted by the storm.

Education

Nieves attended the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

for her bachelor's degree. She later earned a master's degree at University of

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Activism

Nieves emphasizes the importance of community and self-sufficiency when preparing for climate change, in part because of the lack of government assistance after Hurricane Maria. Nieves has worked with "anarchist organizers" to accomplish greater community independence. She also speaks about mental health and challenges that come after disasters. Nieves founded Emerge Puerto Rico, a "climate change leadership startup" and non-profit. She gave a talk about her work toward community-based resilience at

TEDMED TEDMED is an annual conference focusing on health and medicine, with a year-round web-based community. TEDMED is an independent event operating under license from the nonprofit TED conference. Background , TEDMED staff operates from Stamfor ...

in 2018. She is a 2020 Echoing Green fellow.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nieves, Christine TED (conference) American climate activists Year of birth missing (living people) People from Ponce, Puerto Rico Activists from London Puerto Rican women activists Puerto Rican environmentalists Puerto Rican women environmentalists 21st-century American writers 21st-century Puerto Rican women writers University of Pennsylvania alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford American nonprofit chief executives Women nonprofit executives Living people 21st-century American women