About
TEJED
Rooting Our Connection
Texas is an ancestral territory for thousands of years of cultural legacies that have developed incredible cultural diversity and territorial beauty. Include this as a starting place for how we frame out work. This group is represented by communities across Texas with a diversity of connections across the land and each other. We are people who envision a thriving future for our people and the planet.
Who we are
Texas stands as the nation’s highest domestic producer of oil and gas, with profound repercussions on our communities and environments. New frameworks and organizing strategies are necessary to achieve the equity and justice that our communities warrant for a just transition. Because the state and energy industry mutually support one another, it is incumbent upon us to fight the corruption, lobbying, disinformation, involuntary displacement, environmental racism, and degradation of the natural world by these primary actors.
To do this, we established a coalition of 22 partner organizations across Texas from various sectors to co-develop a plan to improve energy access, curb carbon emissions, protect natural resources, and establish measures for transparency within local governments and corporations.
Our
Goals:
Structure / Organization
Establish a collaborative framework for multiple organizations and groups to engage in concerted efforts. All participating organizations are invited to partake in semi-monthly strategy meetings and semi-annual in-person convenings to foster stronger relationships between organization partners.
Local fights connected to statewide strategies (national and global)
Align grassroots campaigns addressing specific impact sites with statewide strategic messaging, communication arcs, and overarching strategies.
Statewide campaigns (PUC / RRC / TCEQ)
Support, develop, and execute statewide campaigns cohesively as a collective entity, targeting bodies such as the Railroad Commission, Public Utility Commission, and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Statewide Climate Equity Plan (adopted by cities, counties, and orgs)
Draft and disseminate a comprehensive statewide climate equity plan, ensuring alignment with the core values of participating organizations, including Equity, Inclusiveness, Justice, and Healing.
Relationships with powerful decision makers
Cultivate relationships with influential decision makers in governmental and civic positions, presenting a unified front representing environmental concerns.
Relationship building (mentors / mentees)
Develop a model facilitating positive and meaningful relationships within the movement through supportive mentorship and strategic partnerships within the coalition.
Long-term strategy / Values Framework / Movement Building
Formulate a Movement Building framework tailored to address the unique needs of Texas, considering the diversity and scale of our state, and in alignment with our long-term vision for society.
Web tools
Establish and maintain website tools for participating members to utilize an interactive map showcasing partner organizations and their campaigns, vulnerable communities and ecosystems we are defending, and offering info on major pollution facilities.
Our Subteams
Organizing Subteam
Within the movement of equity and justice advocacy, various communities develop messaging and goals that are specific to their unique contexts. In our commitment to formulating an all-encompassing plan that empowers community organizers to effectively mobilize their constituencies, we are actively engaged in creating a statewide curriculum training program accessible to all organizers throughout Texas. The outcome of this curriculum, devised by and for the community, is to impart the necessary skills and knowledge to cultivate the next generation of leaders advancing this critical message.
Policy Subteam
Organizations spanning the state exhibit unique policy priorities and timelines, yet a common thread binds them—they share a profound affection for this state and its residents. Our current goal involves crafting a cohesive policy program that will concisely define objectives and proposed changes across 4 policy areas: environmental governance, energy democracy, waste management, and industrial policies. This outlined policy framework will serve as our guiding beacon to be shared with policy officials, leaders of frontline organizations, and engaged community members to encourage collective engagement towards the shared goals of justice.
Tane Ward, PhD
For over 20 years, Tane Ward, PhD has worked across the movement for social justice, bringing together the themes of equity and culture.
As an organizer, manager and director, he has been a part of hundreds of campaigns across multiple countries and states. Primarily he has worked against industrial megaprojects and in defense of culture. Ward has developed organizing curriculums, given presentations and trainings to staff, boards and commissions and numerous other organizations across the Southern US.
Ward studied social movements at the University of Texas, where he earned a Doctorate and Masters degrees in social anthropology. He has developed curriculums on race, class, gender, intersectionality as well as culture and ecology. He has worked at the intersection of Environmental Justice and Racial Equity as an organizer, manager, trainer and educator.
Within the last few years, Ward has facilitated the Texas Environmental Justice Equity and Democracy Coalition. He brings the values of culture and healing to the movement through managing this exciting work.
Dr. Vanessa Quezada
(she/her/ella)
Dr. Vanessa Quezada is a member of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, Xarame clan.
Vanessa is an engaging facilitator, culture bearer and weaver of communities with a profound ability to inspire people to activate their best and collaborate for the highest good of all. She knows how to read a room and gracefully incorporates moments of centering movement, play, and small-group work to draw on participants' multiple ways of knowing.
Her work spans the intersections of culture, food sovereignty, environmental justice and healing. As a founding member of SanArte Healing and Cultura Clinic and Sana Roots Co, she continues to learn from and connect with the land, family and interfaith community in Yanaguana (San Antonio, TX).
Gerardo Marin
(he/him/el)
Gerardo Omar Marín “GeRa”, raised in the Chihuahua desert border of El Paso, TX is Indigenous/ MeXicano/ Latino of mixed Guachichil Chichimecatl, Ashkenazi, & Spanish descent.
He is a passionate Facilitator, Thriving Teams Consultant, Traditional Mexican Healing Arts Practitioner and Deep Fulfillment Coach rooted in interfaith values of love, compassion, determination, and service. He is based in San Antonio, TX (Yanaguana/Somi-Sek) where he serves community-led organizations, youth empowerment networks, leaders, and mission-driven businesses to achieve success on their highest terms.
Over the last 15 years he has dedicated his energy to draw out the inherent wisdom, resilience, and creative imagination of young leaders and adults. Gera knows that the answers are already in our brilliant communities and is driven to create interactive experiences that engage multiple learning styles where all participants are teachers, learners, planners, and change-makers.
Gera is guided by a healing & transformation centered human development approach inspired by the pedagogy of the National Compadres Network and his Mama Alma’s core teachings. He has extensive experience guiding a reconditioning of the mind and body to perform at its highest potential through a combination of cognitive behavioral alignment exercises, mindfulness cultivation (beHereNowness), ritual, creative expression, music, and holistic fitness training.
Victor-Andres Cruz
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Mark-Joseph (MJ) León
Mark-Joseph (MJ) León was born in Long Beach, CA and raised in San Antonio, TX.
He is of mixed Mexican Indigenous, Basque, and Catalan ancestry. He deeply values equity, empathy, and honesty, and does his best to share these values with the world. He is a lifelong learner and has received his BA in Global Affairs. He intends to obtain a Ph.D. and J.D. with the hopes of practicing law to support Indigenous community organizing efforts in Latin America to develop a global just transition away from fossil fuels and mineral extraction.
He has a strong love for cooking and cherishes doing so alongside others. MJ is also interested in learning about restoring connections to traditional foods through land-based practices. He loves to visit his tía’s ranch to care for the animals and hopes to one day work in relation to the land to provide a safe, accessible point for the community to restore themselves in land-based work.
