Action-Education: Tools to Address Environmental Injustice in a Coastal Community

Abstract

This article aims to implement a process of citizen awareness, empowerment and commitment. The case is identified: a coastal area of the city of Comodoro-Rivadavia (Argentina) affected by a problem of pollution in which a university volunteer program is involved. A case study through an action-research strategy is used; the sample is constituted by university volunteers, neighbours and institutional leaders; the instruments of obtaining data are essentially qualitative. The results show that the educational action carried out can mobilize the neighbourhood community, making them aware of the problems and generating in it an empowerment that leads to different actions ranging from denunciation and confrontation to the recreation of community ties. In the program, social justice and environmental justice have bridges that allow us to think about the future from the citizen's awareness of the pollution conditions of its territory, the causes and consequences linked to aspects in which the political intersects with economic interests and survival in extreme conditions of exploitation of natural resources.

Keywords

• justicia social
• voluntariado
• contaminación
• sensibilización ambiental
• autonomización.