2.12 On Planning For Community-Centered Resilience with Jordana Vasquez

Trained as an architect, Jordana is passionate about socially-driven multidisciplinary projects that advance climate resilience and social justice. Currently, she is the Manager for Climate Resilience & Equity at Resilient Cities Network (R-Cities). At R-Cities, she focuses on supporting cities in developing actions and implementation projects with climate resilience and equity lens.

Prior to her work at R-Cities, she worked at Building Energy Exchange (BE-Ex), developing BE-Ex's industry resources in response to climate change. Before BE-Ex, she worked as a sustainability consultant and community development officer providing high-performance technical assistance and development aid for Hurricane Sandy's multifamily recovery and resiliency efforts.

She graduated from Pratt Institute with a Bachelors in Architecture, and is a LEED Green Associate. She holds certifications from the Environmental Leadership Program and the Global Leadership Human Impacts Institute.

Lastly, in 2019 she launched and co-founded Women of Color Collective in Sustainability (WOC/CS) - the only global digital collective and community that is 100% dedicated to advancing women of color working across the sustainability industry. Since then the community has brought together over 5,000 women of color through virtual and in-person events, social media channels, a digital community, and online publication.

Referenced episode Episode 2.03 On Intentionality & Intersections in Energy with Melanie Santiago-Mosier

Quotables

“What does resilience actually mean?” – Amy Simpkins

“The way I would define resiliency would be threefold: the ability to survive, the ability to adapt, and the ability to grow/thrive, no matter what kind of shocks and stresses.” – Jordana Vasquez

“The best thing you can do as an ally is listen. Don’t make assumptions.” – Jordana Vasquez

“Our reliance on fossil fuels for power and transportation needs to change.” – Jordana Vasquez

Jordana mentioned a quote by JFK: “Fix the roof while the sun is shining.”

“As communities, as cities, as a country, we are in a really unique position as a society to demand how we want to live in cities, how we want to power our cities, and how we want to prepare the next generation.” – Jordana Vasquez

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