SHAPE OUR WATER: SHELAGH BROWN, RECONNECTING COMMUNITIES WITH NATURE

By Ben Adlin, South Seattle Emerald
Shape Our Water is a community-centered project from Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and KVRU 105.7 to plan the next 50 years of Seattle’s drainage and wastewater systems. Funded by SPU, the project spotlights members of local community-based organizations and asks them to share how water shapes their lives. Our latest conversation is with Shelagh Brown, a member of the Alphabet Alliance of Color.
The link will take readers to the full article about Shelagh Brown & the Shape Our Water project
https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/02/19/shape-our-water-shelagh-brown-reconnecting-communities-with-nature/?amp=1

Parts of the article are excerpted below:

Brown, an herbalist and writer who swims in her free time, has lived in Seattle for the past decade. She earned a bachelor’s degree in herbal science and a master’s in traditional Chinese medicine and is now studying for a second master’s degree in social justice and community organizing. She’s a member of the Alphabet Alliance of Color, a community organizing nonprofit that centers queer people and People of Color “who are healers, caretakers, dreamers, organizers, and community leaders.”

Brown has also taught a youth water science class (on www.iurbanteen.online, the eLearning platform) for the nonprofit iUrban Teen, emphasizing the importance of clean water in supporting healthy, self-supporting communities. “I teach them about water systems, like the basics of water science, the hydrologic cycle,” she said. “And then we go through all the different water systems, from marine to the rivers and the wetlands and the oceans.”

Environmental justice is a core principle of Brown’s class. She notes that the health effects of human-caused pollution and climate change have disproportionately impacted Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.