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Ashley Erickson is a an educator, facilitator and co-founder of a BIPoC led and centered climate justice collective called Colectivx Raíces Negras. It’s an education and community-based grass roots organization located in Madrid, Spain where she obtained her Masters in International Education. She started the collective alongside fellow climate justice advocates who saw the need to create a bottom- up community and affinity space with BIPoC members to deconstruct, educate and center the most marginalized in the climate crisis. She’s from Texas where she received her Bachelors of Science in Applied Sociology. She began to understand how the climate crisis doesn’t impact us equally by volunteering alongside the AmeriCorps natural disaster unit after a flood impacted the residents and professors in San Marcos, Texas - a majority low socio-economic and Latinx city. Ashley has been an educator for six plus years: a Social Studies tutor, English Language Teacher and Tutor, Facilitator for Community Health Workers, Fair Housing Tester, Crisis Intervention Advocate, and a lifelong learner and participant of social movements.
She has recently joined GPCC as an intern through the Solar Leaders in Community (SLIC) program with People’s Solar Energy Fund (PSEF) which looks for BIPoC leaders to assist in bringing community solar projects from a bottom-up approach. Her objective is to learn and assist in the development of community solar through the organizing legacy of Garfield Park Community Council and to create educational materials that will encourage more residents of Garfield Park to receive the financial and health benefits of a just energy transition. Ashley is excited to take on this opportunity to contribute to and learn from the extensive organizing history of Chicago.