On a sunny Saturday morning in July, we took 21 eager passengers on our BarrioLive! Tijuana Tour.

During the course of the day, we made numerous stops to highlight environmental justice in our cross-border communities.

• Alamar River channelization project: The binational Alamar River and the invaluable ecosystem it contains were being paved. Now, we’re working to preserve it. We showed our progress first-hand saving this precious natural resource.
• Metales y Derivados: Many years ago, we helped lead the cleanup of 45,000 tons of toxic waste and establish a structure for cross-border collaboration on toxic-site cleanups. We visited the site that symbolizes environmental justice achieved and a monumental neighborhood victory.
• Maquiladoras viewpoint: Maquiladora assembly plants in Colonia Chilpancingo have contaminated the neighborhood and its resources for many years. Our tour allowed guests to see and understand them from a new point of view.

For several hours, our guests learned about critical community victories that have come from a 20-year-old campaign that has helped relieve numerous communities of pollution and displacement. The tour included personal struggles shared first-hand by the local community members, as well as their motivation to form the Colonia Chilpancingo.

Our youth group (Grupo de Jovenes) joined us to share stories from their experiences. 22-year-old Fernando and his family have been EHC activists for close to eight years. He told the group he, “is motivated to know he has and will continue to make a difference.” His conviction and determination inspired and touched everyone.

To conclude the tour, we enjoyed a mixer with community members and had the opportunity to meet the people who have brought environmental justice to Tijuana for more than 25 years.

Here is some of the feedback we received:

• “I liked the Alamar River because we really got to see an area in use and its effects on the community.”
• “The tour had good detail on the history of the toxicity and remediation; good presentation of existing problems; excellent company; excellent lunch”
• “Can't thank EHC enough. It is an incredible organization that I wish everyone advocated for.”

We look forward to the next BarrioLive! Tour, in San Diego this fall – October 19^, 2017.

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