Marisol Becerra

Marisol Becerra, an activist with Chicago's Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), launched its youth branch, YAOTL (Youth Activists Organizing as Today's Leaders) to map and inventory the toxins in a two-mile radius of the Fisk and Crawford coal power plants and produce OurMap of Environmental Justice, an interactive online map that includes youth-created videos, toxic sites and gang territory delineations with which to educate her community about environmental injustices.

Marisol recently received the Earth Island Institute's 2008 New Leader Initiate Award in recognition of her work mapping and making an inventory of the more than 150 toxins located in her Chicago neighborhood.