What are the main issues that you’re working on with Water Defense?
Though we have access to taps and toilets here in the United States we are not exempt from [the contaminated water] problem. Our water is becoming increasingly polluted and we are getting sicker for it. The main issue we’re tackling is fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, which is a dangerous form of drilling for natural gas. We’re trying to keep fracking out of our watersheds and our communities as well as debunk the myth that natural gas is a cleaner form of energy than coal.

Can you explain fracking? It seems like a complicated issue.
Fracking is a process of natural gas drilling. It requires blasting water, toxic chemicals and sand underground into rock formations to crack them apart and release the gas. It contaminates the water wells of homes and communities, such that people can light their tap water on fire; and it also produces billions of gallons of wastewater, water that is not treatable, that ends up getting dumped into rivers and streams. On top of that, the process of fracking actually causes earthquakes! The pressure of all that water and drilling horizontally has caused unnatural, man-made earthquakes.

Until the laws to protect our water are reinstated, we have to ban the process of fracking. Ban it now, before it destroys more homes and families.

Can you tell us a bit about [what else] is important to you now?
I just want people to know their rights and their power. Often I get people registered [through Voto Latino] just by pointing out that if taxes have been taken from their paychecks or when they were buying those new sneakers they’re wearing, that they’re already engaged in the political system. Why not take it to the next step and participate in the process that allows you to vote where that tax money goes!? Our government and representatives work for us! We’re their boss.

What advice or message would you send to young people who are interested in taking action or getting involved?
Follow your passion and get informed, get mad, inspired, then get involved! Go to www.waterdefense.org to get involved. We can ban fracking and save our water if we come together right now. Please, too, register at www.VotoLatino.org and VOTE!

The award-winning actress — who noted that she was discovered while sitting on a stoop outside her East Village home — joined a host of elected officials clad in pink hard hats to celebrate the construction of the community center.

“We are cementing not just a building here — we are cementing young girls’ futures,” said Dawson, who posed for pictures with Girls Club members and signed autographs for local residents at the event. “This space is a celebration of a neighborhood. Thanks you so much for honoring these girls with this space.”

The 12-story building, which is expected to be completed in 2012, will feature 30,000 square feet of space dedicated exclusively to the club, as well as 78 rental units and ground-floor retail space between East 7th and 8th streets.

Some of the features of the new headquarters include a planetarium, library, multimedia center, dance and yoga studios, laboratory space, kitchen, and an environmentally friendly green roof where members will grow their herbs and flowers.

“This is one of those days you dream about for years,” said LES Girls Club co-founder and director Lyn Pentecost, who has operated the club without a dedicated home for 15 years.

“When we dream, we dream all the way,” she added, in regard to all the building’s features.

Elected officials at the event, including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Borough President Scott Stringer, all hailed the project a successful marriage of community and government interests.

“They say it takes a village to raise a child,” said Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez. “This is what it’s all about my friends.”

The new headquarters will allow the Girls Club to triple its membership — from 400 currently to 1,200 when the building is completed.

Funds for the project, which sits on formerly city-owned property conveyed to the Girls Club by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development, came from $25 million in bonds issued by the city Housing Development Corporation.

The building’s nine upper floors will contain a mix of affordable and market-rate apartments, ranging in rent from about $500 to $2,000 per month, said HDC president Marc Jahr.

But more than providing much-needed affordable housing for the community, the new center will birth the next generation of female leaders, officials said.

“We’re going to see these young girls grow into bigger, stronger, more powerful girls than we could ever imagine,” Quinn said. “Girl power!”

Local Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, one of the most instrumental backers of the project, noted that the new headquarters will serve as the first dedicated home for female youth in Lower East Side history.

“We did it!” she said.

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“I haven’t made it a secret that I’m strongly opposed to the Arizona law and I’ve been pretty vocal about it,” Longoria-Parker, 35, says in the PSA for Voto Latinos & Mun2′s ‘United We Win’ campaign. “It’s unfortunate that this immigration issue has been on the national agenda for the past three administrations.”

Dawson — who co-founded Voto Latino in 2004 — tells UsMagazine.com that she brought the stars together to encourage young people to get involved in fighting for Arizona citizens’ civil rights by visiting the polls on November 2.

“We recognize that this isn’t just a Mexican issue or a Latino issue… There are people blogging and Tweeting for everything, from the BP spill to education and healthcare,” Dawson, 31, tells Us. “We’re all buzzing about these things, but unless we’re actually marching to the polls, nothing is going to actually change.”

The Seven Pounds actress compares the goals of Voto Latino’s initiative to those of Martin Luther King, Jr., who encouraged young people to actively make an impact in their communities.

“When you look back at Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, he got arrested and asked everyone else to get arrested….and people were afraid to step forward,” she says. “Who was going to be the people who stepped up? The people who did were high schoolers because they weren’t afraid of being arrested. We’re all underage, and that was really crucial in getting the civil rights movement going — getting young people’s participation.”

Under the current Arizona law, Longoria-Parker says she worries that racial profiling will lead to discriminatory pursuits of legal citizens.

“I think the biggest misconception is that everybody who is dark or of color is from somewhere else. I’m ninth-generation American. I’m more American than a lot of my Anglo friends,” she says. “If my father got pulled over because of the color of his skin, I could guarantee you I would be outraged.”

That’s exactly why Valderrama says it’s so important to spread the word and take action now.

“We’re really trying to inspire our younger community, of any demographic or culture,” the actor, 30, tells Us. “If we don’t inspire them to understand the platform they have today, we’re going to have two or three more presidencies and we’re going to be playing catch-up to other mistakes. It’s now or never.”

Other celebrities contributing to the campaign — which will debut in September — include Jessica Alba, hip-hop star Common, Amy Smart and Entourage actress Carla Gugino.

From US Magazine