Opening Green Careers to People of Color
Michele Knox, Brooklyn Program Director, The HOPE Program
Sustainability isn’t just about the environment. It’s also about social equity and economic opportunity. Michele Knox is a leader in the area of workforce development and job-readiness and shares how the HOPE Program and Sustainable South Bronx are meeting the challenges of their constituents and opening doors to advancement in environmental careers. Michele joined The HOPE Program as a Work Readiness Instructor in 2012. In 2015 she was promoted to Director of Employment and Graduate Services where she oversaw the team responsible for internship and job development, job placement, and retention and advancement services for all students, graduates and alumni of HOPE’s FOODworks and HOPEworks programs in Brooklyn as well as our Sustainable South Bronx, Intervine and NYC CoolRoofs programs in the Bronx.
In 2019 Michele became The HOPE Program’s Brooklyn Program Director, overseeing active student engagement in all Brooklyn-based programming. One of her early successes in this role was collaborating on the development and implementation of HOPE’s new best-in-class essential skills curriculum. During the current coronavirus pandemic, Michele was instrumental in retooling HOPE’s curriculum which enabled the organization to quickly pivot to 100% remote programming in order to further HOPE’s mission of empowering New Yorkers to build sustainable futures through comprehensive training, jobs, advancement and lifelong career support.
Michele has had diverse work experience, having held positions in human resources, financial literacy education, and financial services. Michele has an MBA in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and a BBA in Human Resources Management, both from Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York.
Since 1984, The HOPE Program has empowered New Yorkers to build sustainable futures through comprehensive training, jobs, advancement and lifelong career support. Specifically, we provide full-time job readiness training, industry-recognized certifications, digital literacy training, basic adult education, work wellness and mindfulness classes, financial literacy training, mental health access, employment counseling, and career services. Our model yields outstanding outcomes year after year, including 74% job placement and 82% one-year job retention.
Connect:
https://www.thehopeprogram.org/
Musical Interlude for this episode: Slow Groove
Donna Gataletto - Guitar
Julie Harris - Djembe/Percussion
Alina Plourde - English Horn
Todd Rogers - Viola, Violin, Percussion
full track - https://soundcloud.com/user-263084810/slow-groove
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