2013–2014 Cohort

We Build Com­mu­ni­ty 2013–2014, will focus on and sup­port NCSO mem­bers to more effec­tive­ly deep­en their capac­i­ty and involve­ment in alliances and coali­tions that con­nect South Asian Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties with broad­er move­ments for racial jus­tice, immi­gra­tion jus­tice, gen­der jus­tice, and/or LGBTQ justice.

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Congratulations to the 2013-2014 We Build Community cohort!

  • Chhaya CDC (New York, NY)
    Chhaya CDC is work­ing to devel­op the com­mu­ni­ca­tions strat­e­gy for an afford­able hous­ing cam­paign. The cam­paign advo­cates for the adop­tion of an acces­so­ry dwelling unit (ADU) code that would bring safe base­ment apart­ment units in New York City up to code. The cam­paign aims to address mul­ti­ple chal­lenges faced by low-to-mod­er­ate income New York­ers (in par­tic­u­lar immi­grants) includ­ing ten­ant dis­place­ment, fore­clo­sure, and ris­ing costs of rent, as well as the severe finan­cial penal­ties for home­own­ers with infor­mal base­ment units.The spe­cif­ic capac­i­ty-build­ing need to be addressed here is the campaign’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions strat­e­gy, struc­ture and mechanics.
  • DRUM — South Asian Orga­niz­ing Cen­ter (New York, NY)
    DRUM’s pro­gram project is to bet­ter pub­li­cize DRUM’s mod­el and mes­sag­ing on key racial jus­tice cam­paigns and seed com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing to scale nation­al­ly across Arab, Mid­dle East­ern, Mus­lim, and South Asian (AMEMSA) pop­u­la­tions for racial, eco­nom­ic, and social jus­tice. The out­come DRUM seeks is to build the racial jus­tice move­ment in AMEMSA com­mu­ni­ties and the crit­i­cal mass need­ed to win local and nation­al End Racial Pro­fil­ing cam­paigns, legal­iza­tion with­out more enforce­ment, and end­ing crim­i­nal­iza­tion of youth. Specif­i­cal­ly, they will expand and ampli­fy com­mu­ni­ca­tions of their cam­paigns, and con­tin­ue their assis­tance in the inves­ti­ga­tion of NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk poli­cies through their End Racial Pro­fil­ing Cam­paign CSA Imple­men­ta­tion. DRUM is work­ing to expand its cur­rent capac­i­ty to sus­tain and grow the num­ber oper­a­tional staff so that lead staff can focus on the respon­si­bil­i­ties of run­ning local and nation­al racial jus­tice and immi­grant jus­tice campaigns.
  • South Asian Amer­i­can Pol­i­cy and Research Insti­tute (SAAPRI) (Chica­go, IL)
    SAAPRI will expand its ongo­ing sto­ry col­lec­tion relat­ed to immi­grant reform/integration and health care access to incor­po­rate issues relat­ed to gen­der jus­tice and LGBTQ jus­tice. SAAPRI plans to col­lect sto­ries relat­ed to gen­der jus­tice and LGBTQ jus­tice to be part of broad­er sto­ry col­lec­tion cam­paigns already in progress (relat­ed to immi­gra­tion and health care access), in order to high­light the sim­i­lar­i­ty of all human expe­ri­ences and not por­tray women’s issues or LGBTQ issues as being unre­lat­ed to all of the  community’s sto­ries. The goal of this approach is to help accli­mate the South Asian Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty to LGBTQ and gen­der jus­tice issues and under­score the point that these are not issues that mat­ter only to peo­ple of a par­tic­u­lar gen­er­a­tion or polit­i­cal ideology.SAAPRI hopes to con­tin­ue estab­lish­ing an advi­so­ry board and devel­op­ing that board to bet­ter sup­port and grow the orga­ni­za­tion and its work.
  • Sap­na NYC (New York, NY)
    SAPNA NYC plans to con­duct train­ings that will build South Asian immi­grant par­ent capac­i­ty so that they can suc­cess­ful­ly cam­paign for lan­guage access and cul­tur­al accom­mo­da­tion for immi­grant chil­dren and their fam­i­lies. The goal is to cre­ate a space where new par­ents can come togeth­er, gain access to cru­cial infor­ma­tion and resources that will bet­ter their children’s edu­ca­tion, and cat­alyze local par­ent involve­ment in the Bronx so that they can become lead­ers and advo­cates as New York City parents.Concerning capac­i­ty, SAPNA NYC is seek­ing to pro­vide their Direc­tor of Advo­ca­cy and Out­reach the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op skills and capac­i­ties sur­round­ing immi­gra­tion coali­tion build­ing and lead­er­ship train­ing. This, com­bined with the capac­i­ty to devel­op an intern­ship place­ment will help SAPNA NYC increase its data col­lec­tion and doc­u­men­ta­tion efforts.
  • The Sikh Coali­tion (New York, NY)
    The Sikh Coali­tion is striv­ing to expand the train­ings it pro­vides to stu­dents in order to help stu­dents teach their peers about diver­si­ty, which they would be able to deliv­er in their own schools and to youth groups in their neigh­bor­hoods. The train­ings would include diver­si­ty edu­ca­tion on Sikhs and Sikh prac­tices to non-Sikh youth and build rela­tion­ships with non-Sikh com­mu­ni­ty youth groups and stu­dent clubs in schools. The orga­ni­za­tion would also like to coor­di­nate with youth groups in New York City who are already work­ing on anti-bul­ly­ing ini­tia­tives in order to link each organization’s indi­vid­ual anti-bul­ly­ing efforts. Com­bined, all of the orga­ni­za­tions would like to host a youth-led City Advo­ca­cy Day (CAD) in order to influ­ence NYC elect­ed offi­cials to sup­port our col­lec­tive anti-bul­ly­ing efforts.In order to increase the organization’s over­all capac­i­ty by enabling stu­dents to deliv­er these train­ings in their local com­mu­ni­ties, the Sikh Coali­tion will uti­lize the fol­low­ing resources: pro­gram­mat­ic staff time, exper­tise of third-par­ty con­sul­tants and train­ing mate­ri­als and resources.