Presentation from Park Pride's 2015 Parks and Greenspace Conference. The presenter is Alexie Torres-Fleming. Alexie Torres-Fleming believes that empowering communities with the skills and tools needed to engender change is as important as the physical results. In 1994, she founded Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice (YMPJ) to prepare young people to become voices for peace and justice. Under her leadership, YMPJ developed riverside parks, restored the Bronx River and improved access to it, and cleaned up brownfields. Ms. Torres-Fleming will share her experience working for positive change in her community and along the Bronx River.

1. 2015 Park Pride Conference
Bronx River Case Study
AlexieTorres-Fleming – Executive Director, Access Strategies Fund
Harvard Loeb Fellow 2014

2. The Bronx River Public Housing Projects, South Bronx, New York

3. The Burning of the South Bronx…
The Legacy of Planned Shrinkage and Benign Neglect

5. “When the people lead, the leaders
will follow”
Community
We Belong to One Another

6. What is Power
Rebuilding
Community

8.  One of the little-known marvels of the New
York City landscape, the 23-mile Bronx River
winds down through southernWestchester
and the Bronx to define a peaceful corridor of
greenery for fishing, strolling, biking, boating
and nature study amid the noise and bustle of
urban life. It is the only major watercourse
within the city limits that is not entirely tidal.

9. Affirming Leadership and the Voice of the Most
Impacted…

10.  Ecological Restoration
 Build a Greenway
 Replant the Concrete
Plant
 Starlight Park
 Decommission the
Sheridan

16. Starlight Park

19. Trusting OUR
Wisdom and
Expertise…

20. Demystifying the Systems and Language
of Planning…

21. Fearlessly Speaking
Truth to Power…

22. Our Voice, Our Way…
Art, Theater, Music, Play…

25. Seeing What Others
Do Not See…

27. Transformational VS Transactional Relationships

31. “Go to the people. Live with them.
Learn from them. Love them. Start
with what they know. Build with what
they have. But with the best
leaders, when the work is done, the
task accomplished, the people will say
'We have done this ourselves.”
― Lao Tzu