Children of Flint water crisis make change as environmental activists
Newsy
Dozens of the children of Flint, Michigan’s lead-contaminated water crisis have turned their trauma into advocacy 10 years after it began.
Their childhood memories are vivid: warnings against drinking or cooking with tap water, enduring long lines for cases of water, washing from buckets filled with heated, bottled water.
But the children of the Flint water crisis — set in motion April 25, 2014, when the city began drawing water from the Flint River — have turned their trauma into advocacy.
They know Flint still struggles: Its population has fallen by about 20,000 in the past decade, leaving abandoned houses frequently targeted by arsonists. More than two-thirds of children live in poverty, and many struggle in school.
But young activists say they want to help make a difference, change how their city is perceived by outsiders — and defy expectations.
“One of the biggest issues about growing up in Flint is that people had already decided and predetermined who we were,” said 22-year-old Cruz Duhart, a member of the Flint Public Health Youth Academy.
