You're invited to visit the Mile Wine Company on Tuesday, November 24, 5pm to close and a portion of the proceeds will go to make sure Stockton and the San Joaquin Delta College is represented at the International level at the United Nations Climate Negotiations. Paul Marsh will DJ'ing tunes all night.
Read more about what Ryan Camero will do to represent the city of Stockton
and San Joaquin Delta College.
The Story
INTRODUCTION
My name is Ryan Camero. Born and raised in Stockton, California, I am a community organizer and arts activist. Wearing multiple hats as the Outreach Coordinator of the California Student Sustainability Coalition, Delta Artivist for Restore the Delta, and a California-based “Bee” storyteller and educator for the Beehive Design Collective, I have dedicated my life to social and environmental justice, because the need for change is more greater than ever before.
MY WORK
The major focus of my work originates and is rooted in the concepts of inter-sectional organizing (being a systems-thinker in how to solve larger causes beyond its symptoms) and anti-oppression (mediation between the many identities and roles we hold that exist in our society). I am a deep lover of characters and story arcs, and these themes inform my mindset about life. I’ve spent the last five years organizing on the local and national level, and while sometimes emotionally disheartening, I feel the experience has given me resilience and perspective in dealing with our era’s most complex monsters of social issues.
This has led me to my latest endeavor, in which the stakes have become international- I am representing Stockton, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the Central Valley of California at the international climate talks in Paris from November to December. The COP21 (Conference of Parties) is a United Nations-led series of negotiations that hope to reach global consensus about the response to climate change. It is my hope that my presence there will elevate California's story of drought and water privatization as one of many across the world of ecological disasters, and uplift the urgency for the necessary positive social change that protects our natural resources, beautiful ecosystems, and thriving ways of living harmoniously for generations ahead.
My organizing initially sprouted from arts-based projects; Stockton struggles with deep pockets of poverty, gang culture, drug abuse and violence, and I believe wholeheartedly in the transformative power of expression to achieve cross-cultural and intergenerational solidarity. In being active in this work, I began to learn more about my community, its dysfunctions, and its solutions through being active in many groups. The lived understanding of both internal and external oppression in my community reinforces my view that organizing approaches must be holistic.
There are many ways in which I have been involved throughout the years, locally and beyond. I was a core member of an arts and culture festival in 2011 called DeltaFusion, and a promotions team member of TEDxSan Joaquin in 2012. I also participated in the organizing committee as one of its youngest members three years in a row (2012-2014) with the Stockton Earth Day Festival. I have represented Restore the Delta and California at a national arts activist conference in Maine called the Gabfestry in 2013, as well as at the 400,000-people strong People’s Climate March in New York City in 2014. Being involved with the art-as-research based Beehive Collective that same year, I led and helped coordinate a statewide, three-week long educational tour comparing drought and water privatization issues between regions (Mesoamerica to California), across a total of eighteen CA cities north and south. This year, 2015, has seen me as a trainer for one of the Sierra Student Coalition's summer grassroots training programs, West Sprog, and additionally chosen as one of six activists from across the country to be an awardee of the 16th Annual Brower Youth Awards.
THE ASK
As a student that has found passion in fighting for a better world, my goal is to raise $2500 to continue to do this work, and I humbly ask for your help. Funds gathered will go directly to travel expenses throughout the trip, housing and food, and research and preparation to participate as a delegate in the negotiations representing the voices of the Delta; a water resource for 2/3 of Californians, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas, and a vital lifeline of a majority of the nation's food supply. Any funds thereafter will be channeled directly into community-centered projects and work I am pouring myself into- including community building in Stockton via Placeholder Magazine, a non-profit publication I helped found, statewide student organizing campaigns via the California Student Sustainability Coalition, strengthening the youth movement to protect our state's waterways via Restore the Delta, and amplifying efforts to create one of the newest graphics projects the Beehive Design Collective is working on about the multitude of issues here in California.
Any donation is welcomed and appreciated in this endeavor. An infinity of love and gratitude!
Warmly,
Ryan Camero
You can donate by visiting www.youcaring.com