Tha Carter

Born, raised and still holding it down for the South Bronx, Majora Carter believes that you shouldn’t have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one. Her theory is that change can start in your own backyard, even if that backyard is home to a higher concentration of power plants, sewage treatment facilities, diesel truck fleets and waste-transfer stations than any other section of the city. Out of this philosophy she created Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx), a non-profit environmental justice solutions corporation.

This girl we ♥ has far too many accolades, achievements and awards to mention, but the accomplishment she is most proud of is her B.E.S.T (Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training) program. It is one of the nation’s first urban green-collar job training and placement program.

B.E.S.T was born out of a need for urban horticulture infrastructure and a lack of skilled labor. Upon completion of this 10 week course, students are then certified to perform jobs such as riverbank restoration, green roof installation, stream bank stabilization, amongst other “greening” practices.

The program has been met with much success and many of its graduates were formerly incarcerated and all of them were on some type of public assistance.

Helping the less fortunate who live in your community as well as cleaning up the environment at the same time is definitely our idea of green grown and sexy.