Climate Disaster Resilience Initiative (CDRI)
CAAEJ’s Climate Disaster Relief Initiative is a collective of community members exploring disaster preparedness, relief, and resilience in service of demanding Chicago move toward equitable climate resilience that keeps all communities safe.
About
With the climate crisis already in progress, Chicago –like everywhere else–will see an increase of disasters, which will impact most severely those who are already marginalized. Asians in Asia, as well as working class Asian American communities in Chicago, are likely to be more impacted than average. And yet, Chicago does not have a comprehensive climate disaster response planned.
CAAEJ began to explore the issue of climate disasters in 2022, as our members were experiencing concern, anxiety, and grief around various climate disasters that were already happening. We decided that we want to put our collective effort into action, and began learning more about climate disasters together in an effort to find a way to make the changes we would like to see. We now have a strong working group that meets monthly to continue to push us toward a more resilient and equitable Chicago.