About us

LJI helped form the Environmental Justice Health Alliance (EJHA), a national alliance of EJ grassroots organizations affiliated with Coming Clean. These organizations work to reform the chemical and energy industries so that they are no longer a source of harm. 

• With EJHA  LJI is working on a national Dollar Store Campaign. The Campaign for Healthier Solutions which works to bring attention to the high levels of toxicity in Dollar Store products. Particularly those marketed to children.

• Valle de Oro National Widlife Refuge  & Los Jardines Institute Collaboration.  LJI  working in collaboration with the refuge, the Friends of the VDO and the Mountain View Neighborhood Association developed an Environmental and Economic Justice Strategic Plan  in 2014 for the Refuge. This is the first such plan for any public site in the nation.  The Trump administration has paused this work of  the Refuge. However we continue our 

• LJI partners with local  and national organizations to support EJ policy and organizing including, the former White House Environmental justice Advisory Council which is now the grassroots, Peoples Environmental Justice Advisory Council.  the Equitable and Just Climate Platform   and the   Just Transition  Alliance.

• Our local policy work is focused on addressing cumulative impacts, alternative energy and false solutions  we partner with the No False Solutions Coalition and the Justice 40  Coalition  in New Mexico.

• LJI offers support and consultation to grassroots organizations on a variety of Environmental and  Economic Justice Issues. 

• We are members of a local Wealth Building Cohort that seeks to address issues with philanthropy. 

LJI’s Agriculture work seeks to support food justice in our communities by providing an outdoor agricultural classroom. The program provides a  farm apprentice  project, a safe space for service learning, community gatherings, and educational activities. Volunteers at LJI enjoy organic vegetables for their families and learn about gardening..

 The Agricultural programs seek to support traditional gardening/farming  practices, small farmers, and provide good organic vegetables to our communities.

•   LJI is a member of the Agricultura  Farm Network Cooperative (ACN). The Coop aggregates, markets and distributes produce from small South Valley and New Mexican farmers and ranchers.  The Coop partners on a varety of  farm advocacy and  policy bodies and supports training for farmers.

• We also partner with El Jardín de Wagon Mound, a project of the Concerned Citizens of Wagon Mound and Mora County (CCWMMC). LJI  provides technical support,  training, and produce to support the CCWMMC's Farm to Table Project with the  Wagon Mound Public Schools.

• Nationally we are an anchor groups with ACN, Coming Clean and EJHA in  the  Local Food Solutions Project, that works to support organic food solutions.

• Our produce goes to schools, senior centers, day care centers, and some restaurants. Surpus produce is given to mutual aid groups and organizational events. 

• Los Jardines Institute was the first Librotraficantes Underground Library in New Mexico: a project of Tu Voz Latina, a literary radio program out of Austin Texas. The Librotraficantes Library campaign honors Tucson High School students and teachers whose Mexican American Studies class was terminated by the Tucson Public School Board of Education. The city and state have fought ethnic studies in the schools and universities. Many titles that are considered classic literature, such as Pedagogy of the Oppressed  were banned. Also, censored, 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth "Betita" Martinez (RIP),  a grassroots publication coming out of struggle in New Mexico and the US.  The assault on Critical Race Theory is just one more effort of censorship.

• We remember Salt of the Earth, produced here at the height of the MacArthy Era. The film was produced by blacklisted Hollywood producers and directors, New Mexican strikers as the actors, New Mexico as the authentic stage, Rosauro Revueltas the Mexican Star deported in the middle of filming, and the only US movie banned for ten years before being widely shown in the US.  

• Los Jardines Institute hosts a variety of educational programs which have included a  monthly Banned Book Reading  Club,  a  Youth  Book and Garden Camp and a variety of workshops on : gentrification,  soap -making,  herbal  remedies, mud plastering, adobe construction, horno  (outdoor oven) cooking, and more.