By Anastasia Merkulova
Members from the Urban Equity Collaborative held a workshop Tuesday at Preinkert Hall to explain the importance of resilience hubs and the origins of Washington D.C.’s Resilience Hub Community Coalition.
The workshop titled “Preventing Climate Displacement With Community Resilience Hubs” had an open-ended discussion and guest speakers from the Ward 7 Resilience Hub Community Coalition in D.C.
A community resilience hub is a facility that prepares residents for disruptions such as chronic stressors and acute emergencies, according to D.C.’s Department of Energy and Environment.
Ansley Jacobs, a climate and sustainability program assistant at UMD’s environmental finance center, came to the workshop to familiarize herself with resilience hubs. Jacobs said that it is important for students to learn about resilience hubs because they are starting to become a more needed conversation regarding climate adaptation.
John Wesley Wiggins, a graduate assistant with the Urban Equity Collaborative who helps run their workshops, said that their goal is to provide a different forum other than seminars on campus by bringing in people from the community.
“Our goal is to bring in community members to talk about the work they’re doing [in order to] facilitate dialog about community-based issues and hear community members’ perspectives,” said Wesley Wiggins, who is also a second-year doctoral student in the department of Global, Environmental and Occupational Health.
Wesley Wiggins noted that encouraging conversations between academic researchers and communities is essential because, ultimately, the community is who they aim to support.
Daniel Chestnut, board chair of the Ward 7 Resilience Hub Community Coalition, spoke at the workshop. He said that he grew up in D.C. and witnessed how the building of the Route 295 highway divided his community and exacerbated flooding issues when he was a child.
“Now, I have three submersible pumps in my basement, but there are a number of the homes in our community that don’t have that kind of infrastructure to help,” Chestnut said.
According to Chestnut, the Equity Advisory Group found a community building where people can gather and prepare for emergencies by participating in activities such as first aid training and flooding workshops. The center will support the community in the case of a climate crisis or disruption.
“The resilience hub is not necessarily a building,” Chestnut said. “The resilience hub is actually a process.”
According to the presentation, resilience hubs build community through programming like environmental literacy and resilience training,
The Resilience Hub Community Coalition became a nonprofit organization in 2023, and they are collaborating with neighboring communities so they can replicate their efforts.
“Resilience hubs are like snowflakes,” Chestnut said. “There’s no two of them alike, and it is customized to the characteristics in the community where it is located.”
Wesley Wiggins said that he hopes attendees understand the importance of community in combating and adapting to mitigating climate change.
“Resilience hubs are such an important organization for providing communities with the space, the time, the resources and the services to help protect themselves,” Wesley Wiggins said.
Featured Image: Presentation at Urban Equity Collaborative “Preventing Climate Displacement With Community Resilience Hubs” Workshop On Tuesday, Oct. 29. Photo by Anastasia Merkulova.