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The Healthy Children Project aims to raise public awareness of
the risks that environmental toxins present to us and our children.
Informed consumers can then make healthy changes in their personal
lives and encourage their public officials to make good policy decisions.
The Healthy Children Project targets women of child-bearing age,
their partners and families, their health care providers, and the
agencies and institutions that serve them. The project provides
information about the environmental health impacts that untested
chemicals in our food, water, and the products we use every day
are having.
The Healthy Children Project is a special undertaking of the Learning
Disabilities Association of America which has tens of thousands
of members organized into hundreds of local and state chapters in
43 states. The Project benefits from an already existing basic infrastructure.
Four active and highly effective affiliates were selected as the
pilot sites for Year I. They have been amazingly successful. LDA
of California, LDA of Maine, LDA of New York, and LDA of Washington
took a strong lead, advancing the goals of the Healthy Children
Project.
- LDA of California has become an important element in statewide
environmental coalition legislative efforts, securing the successful
passage of the nation’s first legal ban on PBDEs (Polybrominate
Diphenyl Ethers). PBDEs are used as flame retardants in computer
plastics, polyurethane foam products, and commercial textiles.
- LDA of Maine is working in collaboration with seven other organizations
in the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine. Representing a
collective membership of 25,000 citizens, the Alliance was responsible
for passage of no fewer than five new state legislative bills
in 2003 aimed at reducing environmental toxins.
- LDA of New York is working collaboratively on legislation regulating
pesticides and holding the proper entities responsible for continued
financing of the state’s Superfund. A statewide research
project is correlating the incidence of disability with known
industrial pollution sites.
- LDA of Washington is working with the public school system.
Students are creating science projects and posters about environmental
toxins and what can be done to reduce their risks, and then taking
that message to the wider community.
Each of these four sites has placed its unique fingerprint on the
methods by which the goals of the Healthy Children Project are met.
An additional fifteen LDA affiliates have indicated a desire to
participate in Year II activities. Nine of the fifteen have already
made their formal commitment to the Healthy Children Project.
They are:
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Alabama |
Iowa |
New Jersey |
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Arkansas |
Michigan |
Oregon |
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Georgia |
Missouri |
Texas |
Plans include the following activities:
- Identify local community stakeholders to build coalitions and
work collaboratively to improve environmental health
- Present “train-the-trainer” training programs using
In Harm’s Way as their core resource
- Distribute Healthy Children Project display boards and printed
materials for use at stakeholders conferences,
- Create specific sections of their State Affiliate web sites
relating to environmental health and prevention
- Send out monthly outreach emails to members
- Publish articles in State newsletter,
- Develop videos which can be shown at State Conferences as well
as at various public meetings on various environmental health
issues including the effects of maternal hypothyroidism
- Support state health policy & legislative efforts and dissemination
of legislative/bill information and generate letters of support
and consensus statements
- Testify at legislative hearings,
- Participate in press events.
The Healthy Children Project continues to pursue the objectives
of environmental awareness, personal action, and institutional change
that will make our world a healthier place, especially for the planet’s
greatest resource, its children. |
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