On Wednesday March 27th, nearly 100 New Yorkers joined us at the Essex Crossing Community Center to hear from 4 community leaders and activists about the future of a just NYC. A special thank you to Jagpreet Singh of Chhaya Community Development Corporation, Millie Franco of Brooklyn Center for the Independence of the Disabled, Aneth Naranjo of IntegrateNYC and Ivan Garcia of Make the Road NY for sharing their experiences, ideas and passion for their communities with us.
After the public premiere of our short film on the history of segregation in NYC (check it out here), panelists discussed the impacts of segregation and discrimination in their communities across the five boroughs. Ivan discussed ways communities can work together to overcome them. Millie and Aneth reminded us that those most impacted by policy decisions – especially young people, people of color and disabled populations – must be driving the decisions that shape our housing and schools. Jagpreet spoke of alternative models of land and property ownership for increased community control of assets and resources.
Thank you to all the different people who joined us for an inspirational night. For those who couldn’t make it, please stay tuned for future events.
And thank you for all you do for New York – as Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, our discussion moderator, said, “Transformative policies are the ones that are the hardest to imagine, the hardest to wrap our heads around, the ones that are the most difficult to win. They seem impossible. So, as history has shown, if it seems impossible, it’s probably what we need to be working on.”
