Rooted in Bridgeport, Rising for Climate Justice
EmpowerEd is a resident-centered initiative from the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs (CRCJ) in collaboration with PT Partners and the City of Bridgeport, designed to inform, inspire, and ignite action among Bridgeport’s frontline environmental justice communities.
With support from the Partners for Places grant, EmpowerEd is advancing local climate justice by shifting power, building trust, and fostering community relationships.
What Is EmpowerEd?
Climate Education Rooted in Lived Experience
Residents participate in accessible and culturally relevant workshops designed to demystify climate science and connect it to real-world, day-to-day life in Bridgeport. For example, we’ve explored the climate impacts of the holiday season—from wrapping paper waste to the emissions from decorative lighting.
Informed Decision-Making Tools
Through every session, residents are given the language and tools to understand the systems that impact their lives—especially the environmental burdens placed on public housing neighborhoods near incinerators, water treatment facilities, and traffic corridors.
Developing Community Leadership
EmpowerEd is not a top-down education model. Residents help co-create the curriculum, guide the topics, and even help interview and select our educators. One resident said she keeps coming back not for the gift cards, but because she “feels connected, valued, and a part of the team.”
Partnership in Action
EmpowerEd is co-led by:
PT Partners, represents Bridgeport’s public housing residents and communities
The City of Bridgeport, with municipal support from Sustainability Coordinator Chadwick Schroeder
The Connecticut Roundtable On Climate And Jobs
Together, we’re building a model that prioritizes frontline leadership in climate solutions and city planning.
EmpowerEd is rooted in the lived experiences and leadership of Bridgeport residents. Through shared learning, climate education, and storytelling, we’re creating space for community members to shape solutions, shift power, and build a more just future—starting with their own voices.
Why It Matters
Bridgeport’s public housing residents live at the frontlines of environmental injustice, surrounded by pollution sources like the state’s largest trash incinerator and the city’s water treatment facility. These residents are experts in survival—navigating environmental hazards, systemic disinvestment, and economic challenges every day. EmpowerEd honors their lived wisdom by creating a trusted space for collective learning, storytelling, healing, and leadership development.
Through this partnership with PT Partners and the City of Bridgeport, the program centers resident voices in shaping climate education and action that directly addresses their priorities and experiences.
Residents are already taking meaningful steps to lead change through:
Monthly community conversations where residents share experiences, identify climate justice concerns, and co-create solutions
Advocacy efforts informed by these conversations, helping residents to build confidence and leadership in environmental justice issues
EmpowerEd is building more than just awareness, it is cultivating community power and solutions from the ground up, rooted in the real lives of Bridgeport residents.
Our long-term goal is to develop a sustainable model of community-driven climate justice that can be replicated in other frontline environmental justice communities.
