UMA Joins Regional Effort to Improve Heat Resilience Communications Across Lower Mystic Communities

Urban Media Arts (UMA) is proud to partner with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) as part of the Lower Mystic Cool Communications initiative, a two-year regional project running from September 2024 to June 2026. UMA is one of several community-based partners from Malden, Everett, Revere, Chelsea, and Winthrop working to improve how communities communicate about — and prepare for — the dangers of extreme heat.

The project responds to the growing threat of urban heat islands, where densely built neighborhoods can be up to 10 degrees hotter than surrounding areas. With 2024 marking Massachusetts’ third hottest year on record, extreme heat continues to pose serious health risks — especially for vulnerable populations with limited access to cooling.

Lower Mystic Cool Communications seeks to transform outdated or inaccessible emergency messaging systems by building inclusive, multilingual communications that truly resonate with local residents. The initiative has four main goals:

Use local heat and health data to determine heat alert thresholds that make sense locally.
Partner with cities, community groups, and health care providers to identify communication gaps and needs.
Create communication materials that motivate action before, during, and after extreme heat events — in multiple languages and cultural formats.
Strengthen municipal capacity to address climate-driven heat challenges now and into the future.

UMA’s role, led by Aliyah Dominguez, includes co-developing local outreach strategies, producing culturally relevant media, and engaging trusted community voices to ensure messages reach across language, age, and digital-access divides. We are also working on a template for Malden to use as a template for leveraging media to share important information that benefits our community.

The project includes a growing library of flyers and social graphics — available in English, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese — as well as editable templates for local use. These resources support cities and organizations in sharing timely, actionable information about heat safety and available cooling resources.

To reach even deeper into the community, the initiative also includes a Call for Artists, inviting creative approaches to community storytelling and public messaging around heat risk.

Funded through the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program, the project is coordinated by MAPC in partnership with the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA) and the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), building on the momentum of the Resilient Mystic Collaborative, North Suffolk Public Health Collaborative, and the Metro Mayors Climate Taskforce.

For more information or to explore communication tools, visit:
mapc.org/resource-library/lower-mystic-cool-communications

If you are interested in participating in this project in some way, contact Aliyah Dominguez at aliyah@umaverse.org.