Yuri Beckelman organizes coalition of community leaders

Yuri Beckelman organizes coalition of community leaders to raise environmental awareness

by Katie Xiao, Americans for Informed Democracy
Outstanding Student Leaders Digest (published by AIDemocracy.org)
June 20, 2006

Yuri Beckelman: college graduate, global studies major, student government president, activist extraordinaire, political junkie and soon-to-be intern on Capitol Hill. The list of epithets that could describe Beckelman is endless. Protecting the environment for the next generation of Americans, however, is the issue that this jack-of-all-trades cares most about.

“There are many areas in California where people can’t drink the water because there are pesticides,” said Beckelman who must drink bottled water on the military base where he lives in Monterey Bay. “Access to clean drinking water is a basic human right, but even in the U.S., it’s not something that everybody has.”

When asked to talk about his activism though, he is surprisingly humble.

Although he has done more in four years than most college students might do in their entire lifetimes, the Calstate University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) graduate credits CSUMB for instilling in him the desire to champion social causes.

“Our university encourages us to go into the community,” said Beckelman. “It taught us that we have a role in society that’s bigger than ourselves and that we should learn about society and contribute how we can.”

Beckelman said that one of his professors played a great role in allowing him to understand that one could champion workers’ rights and a living wage while still advancing environmental objectives. Beckelman is certainly not somebody to embroil himself in local politics before being able to clearly articulate where he stands on divisive issues.

“My professor framed the discussion in a way that allowed me to see that it was not one or the other,” said Beckelman who had felt pressured in the past to side with labor advocates over environmentalists. After acquiring this viewpoint on environmental justice, he began following news about the United Nations-endorsed initiative to solicit signatures from mayors all over the world for the Urban Environmental Accords, an ambitious yet flexible document drafted by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsome that lists action steps for participating cities to promote a sustainable future for their citizens.

Once mayors sign onto the Accords, it is up to them and their communities to abide by the Accords and strive to enact all 21 goals of the document in a period of 7 years, in various areas such as energy, waste reduction and transportation. An institute responsible for monitoring the performance of all participating cities will release the results of how they performed at a 2012 conference.

Beckelman, who was involved with his college’s United Nations Association, saw the Accords as a great example of a United Nations program that directly impacted local communities. With global cooperation and environmental sustainability as the primary objectives of the Accords, the project seemed like the perfect outlet for his interests and energies. Even though his schedule at the time barely left him enough time for sleep, Beckelman applied to be a regional director for Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), an individual who would be responsible for assembling a coalition of local business and non-profit leaders on June 5, 2005—UN Environment Day—to persuade local mayors to sign the Accords.

Beckelman had never worked for AID previously, but he fell in love with the project right away because AID stood for the ideals he valued: reconciliation over divisiveness, the achievement of concrete, achievable goals through collaboration rather than partisanship, and the mobilization of ordinary citizens in the effort to influence policy.

“I liked the vision that AID was offering and how AID was trying to overcome the feeling of us versus them,” said Beckelman, who said he has always been concerned by U.S. politicians who use black-and-white rhetoric. “AID tries to bring back the idea that we’re all people with differences but not to the extent that we can’t benefit from each other.”

An event of this magnitude may have deterred some and been a learning experience for others, but for Beckelman, the process was a testament to his determination and resourcefulness in the face of obstacles. Because the conference coincided with Earth Day, one major obstacle for Beckelman was convincing overcommitted community leaders to attend the conference. The conference occurring in the middle of an election season was another obstacle; many people involved in politics were reluctant to attract media attention for anything other than the political agenda they had already set for themselves, Beckelman pointed out.

Nonetheless, Beckelman relied on his network of existing contacts and persistent follow-up calls to pull together the conference. He succeeded in bringing together representatives from about 30 groups in the Monterey Bay region and successfully obtained Capitola Mayor Dennis Norton’s signature at the conclusion of the event.

“I think he was really successful because he was persistent and has extensive experience with local politics,” observed AID conference director Kira Christie about working with Beckelman. He is currently campaigning for signatures from mayors in neighboring towns.

Beckelman will move to Washington D.C. in the Fall to start an internship for Senator Russ Feingold from Wisconsin. He plans to work in D.C. until the 2008 election, during which he hopes to work the Iowa caucuses. He will be involved with primarily American politics in D.C., although he said he hopes he will get the chance to sit-in occasionally on Feingold’s Committee on Foreign Relations meetings. A global studies student at heart, he wants to ultimately pull back from the D.C. political scene and do nongovernmental work abroad at some point.

“After being so involved with American politics, I will want to step back and get an international view of what’s going on,” said Beckelman, who is also considering getting a law degree or master’s degree in international studies in the near future.