Oregon Water Futures Project Report Summary 2020-2021

In 2020, the Oregon Water Futures Project co-conceptualized and facilitated a series of conversations with Native, Latinx, Black, and various migrant communities across the state – including Indigenous Latin American, Caribbean, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, Arab, Pacific Islander, and Somali communities. These conversations lifted up culturally specific ways of interacting with drinking water and bodies of water; concerns around water quality and cost; resiliency in the face of challenges to access water resources essential for physical, emotional, and spiritual health; and a desire for water resource education and to be better equipped to advocate for water resources.

Below, we’ve provided a high-level summary of the learnings and priorities from these conversations. Because we interacted with many different communities around the state, we’ve included this summary in six languages – English, Spanish, Nepali, Burmese, Arabic, and Chinese.