MILWAUKEE WATER COMMONS
ABOUT US
MISSION
Milwaukee Water Commons is a cross-city network that fosters connection, collaboration and broad community leadership on behalf of our common waters.
We promote stewardship of, equitable access to and shared decision-making for our common waters.
VISION
Milwaukee is a model Water City where we all have a stake in the health of our waters and all share in their
stewardship as well as their benefits.
OUR FOUR ORGANIZING FRAMEWORKS
WE ARE ALL MILWAUKEE WATER COMMONS
The Commons
Environmental Justice
Community Engagement
Collective Impact
HOW WE ORGANIZE...
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Community Engagement
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Sustainable community engagement requires trust
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Building trust is a process
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Not transactional, but relational
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The Jemez Principles (see the full document here)
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Be inclusive
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Emphasis on bottom-up organizing
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Let people speak for themselves
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Work together in solidarity and mutuality
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Build just relationships among ourselves
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Commitment to self-transformation
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WE BELIEVE...
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Water is an essential element for all life on Earth.
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Water belongs to no one and cannot be owned.
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We recognize the gift of the Great Lakes; they have nurtured our ancestors and shaped us as a people and as a community. They continue to sustain us.
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We all have a profound responsibility to protect and pass on clean and abundant fresh water to future generations.
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Decisions about the care and use of our waters must involve all of us.
MWC LAND AND WATER
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The offices of Milwaukee Water Commons are located in the Adams Garden Park Building on 1836 W. Fond du Lac Avenue in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee.
We acknowledge that we live and work on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Lake Michigan, one of the five Great Lakes, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes. This is where the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.
The City of Milwaukee sits at the confluence of three rivers. Our rivers remind us that this is a good land (Milwaukee), where abundant wild rice once grew (Menominee), and where mixtures and diversity thrive (Kinnickinnic).
We also acknowledge that this area was once a stop on the Underground Railroad.
In 1842, a 16-year old enslaved woman named Caroline Quarlls became the first to use the Wisconsin Underground Railroad. Her journey to freedom started in St. Louis on a Mississippi River steamboat to Alton, Ill., where she made her way to Milwaukee. She was sheltered by Samuel Brown on his farm, which was then located on land near where our offices are today. With help from abolitionists, Quarlls then traveled through Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, where she crossed the Detroit River into freedom in Canada.
For Quarlls and other enslaved people, water was a pathway to freedom.
Resources:
MILWAUKEE :
THE GOOD LAND
This song and video were produced as part of a land and water acknowledgement for the National Wildlife Federation’s national Wildlife Unite conference hosted virtually in Milwaukee. It was written by past Milwaukee Water Commons Board Member and continued friend, Margaret Noodin.
It is a testament to resilience, urban Indians, Native American students, big drum tradition and the way everything changes while staying the same. Land and water acknowledgements have become more common in recent years as people re-examine their connection to place and the political history of our Nations. This project is an example of creating a way to acknowledge not only the Indigenous stewards of the past, but also their voices as they echo into the present.
Song by Margaret Ann Noodin
Film by Finn Ryan and Trestle
Color by Chris Zuker
Score by S. Carey Singers: Diane Amour, Celeste Lumbee, Lacey Meyer, Marcus Carriaga, Nathon Flambeau
A production of the National Wildlife Federation