PROJECT PARTNERS

University of Illinois at Chicago - Great Lakes Centers for Global Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health

The Great Lakes Centers for Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health exists to improve, promote, and maintain the health of workers and communities by:

• preparing professionals to be leaders in occupational and environmental safety and health who will direct and manage occupational and environmental safety and health programs, teach other occupational and environmental health professionals, and research issues pertinent to occupational and environmental safety and health;
• providing continuing education to occupational and environmental health and safety professionals and outreach to workers and communities to improve their knowledge, skills, and awareness of key issues in occupational and environmental safety and health;
• contributing to the knowledge base in occupational and environmental safety and health by preparing doctoral students, performing faculty and student research on problems of regional, national, and global significance, and disseminating the results of their research;
• providing technical assistance and consultation to labor, management, health care institutions, government agencies, and local communities;
• serving as a regional information resource.

While the Great Lakes Centers takes a universal approach to improving, promoting, and maintaining the health of workers and communities, we devote special attention to the problems and needs of minority and disadvantaged workers and communities, the specific occupational and environmental safety and health needs of our region, and to the development of innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to addressing these needs.

As a partner on this PCB research project, increased attention on a problem of regional significance will occur and the results will be available to a wide audience, including non-governmental organizations.

Canadian Environmental Law Association

The Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) is a non-profit, public interest organization established in 1970 to use existing laws to protect the environment and to advocate environmental law reforms. It is also a free legal advisory clinic for the public, and will act at hearings and in courts on behalf of citizens or citizens' groups who are otherwise unable to afford legal assistance. Funded by Legal Aid Ontario, CELA is one of 72 community legal clinics located across Ontario, 15 of which offer services in specialized areas of the law. CELA has four main programme areas: water, land use planning and environmental assessment, toxics and children's health, and international trade and environment.

CELA's general objectives are as follows:

• To increase public participation in environmental decision-making,
• To provide the public with information, research, advice and educational materials to assist them in addressing environmental problems, and
• To work with communities, neighbourhoods, individuals and public interest groups to foster long-term sustainable solutions to environmental concerns and resource use.

Through the Great Lakes PCB Project, CELA will enhance its work on toxics and children's health. The findings from the PCB project will contribute to CELA's regulatory and policy reform activities that aim to eliminate the use, release, disposal and generation of PCBs. PCBs is a group of substances known to be a persistent toxic substance that have been found to be harmful to human health. PCBs are targeted in various regulations and policies such as the Canada-Ontario Agreement respecting the Great Lakes Basin, the Great Lakes Binational Toxic Substances Strategy and the Stockholm Convention on POPs, to name a few.

Joyce Foundation

Based in Chicago, Illinois, the Joyce Foundation supports efforts to protect the natural environment of the Great Lakes, to reduce poverty and violence in the region, and to ensure that its people have access to good schools, decent jobs, and a diverse and thriving culture. We are especially interested in improving public policies, because public systems such as education and welfare directly affect the lives of so many people, and because public policies help shape private sector decisions about jobs, the environment, and the health of our communities. To ensure that public policies truly reflect public rather than private interests, we support efforts to reform the system of financing election campaigns.