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Community Advocacy & Organizing | Youth/After School | Job Training/Adult Education
Domestic Violence | Support for Incarcerated People and their Families | Health
Services for Immigrants | Technical Assistance
Community Advocacy & Organizing
Child Welfare Organizing Project
Michael Arsham, Executive Director
80 East 110th Street, #1E, New York, NY 10029
www.cwop.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2000
The great majority of New York City parents whose children have been removed from the home by child welfare authorities are not the monsters portrayed by the media but ordinary people struggling with drug addition or poverty. The Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) helps such parents with their immediate needs for legal referrals and information about navigating the system. More importantly, CWOP works to reform the system in the long run by ensuring the voices of parents are heard in policy discussions. To prepare ACS-involved parents to speak in public hearings, conferences, and forums, CWOP runs a peer-led Parent Leadership Curriculum. Over 50 percent of the curriculum’s graduates have secured employment in peer outreach, advocacy, or organizing. Since its creation in 1994, CWOP’s vast experience in the field has led staff to the inevitable conclusion that in spite of the attention surrounding a handful of tragic, high-profile cases, a system that minimizes involuntary removals and provides ample supportive services to parents is the best way to strengthen families and care for our city’s children.
Community Voices Heard
Sondra Youdelman, Executive Director
170 East 116th Street, New York, NY 10029
www.cvhaction.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2000
Community Voices Heard (CVH) was created in 1996 by New York City women on public assistance who wanted to make sure the national welfare debate took into account the views and experiences of welfare recipients. Since then, CVH’s focus has expanded to encompass job creation and other aspects of economic justice, but it continues to be run by, and informed by the perspective of, poor women of color. New concerns include expanding educational opportunities for women on welfare and fighting for childcare and healthcare options that increase the ability of low-income people to maintain employment. Through an array of tactics including public forums and direct action, CVH’s tenacious activism has recently resulted in significant gains, such as convincing city officials to create thousands of non-dead-end jobs in the parks department for welfare recipients.
Information for Families, Inc.
Joan McAllister, Executive Director
71 Charles Street, New York, NY 10014
www.informationforfamilies.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $5,000
Funded since: 2005
Information for Families, Inc., publishes “How…When…Where”, a newsletter for homeless families that contains information on job opportunities, apartment hunting, food pantries, food stamps, domestic violence, and other subjects relevant to surviving and overcoming homelessness. The newsletter is distributed free in family shelters in New York City. The newsletter is also useful for formerly homeless families and families in danger of becoming homeless. It is supplemented by an online resource center.
Make the Road New York
Oona Chatterjee, Co-Executive Director
Andrew Friedman, Co-Executive Director
Ana Maria Archila, Co-Executive Director
301 Grove Street, Brooklyn, NY 11237
www.maketheroad.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 1999
Make the Road by Walking is a community activist group composed primarily of low-income Latino and African-American residents of Bushwick, Brooklyn. Guided by staff but drawing true power from its hundreds of members, Make the Road uses collective action to pursue a variety of organizing projects—such as working to improve conditions and establish unions in local industry; improving the local environment by seeking reduced rat populations and lead paint levels in local housing; and agitating for expanded translation services at hospitals and government offices. Down the block from a community garden established by members, Make the Road’s headquarters is a lively, supportive place where members attending meetings can also use a computer center and join adult education classes.
Mothers on the Move
Wanda Salaman, Executive Director
928 Intervale Avenue, Bronx, NY 10459
www.mothersonthemove.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 1998
Mothers on the Move is a community based organization initially formed to organize parents to address the failure of the public school system to adequately educate the children of the South Bronx. The group’s scope has since broadened to include a variety of compelling issues beyond educational injustice. Decent housing, traffic safety, and environmental justice campaigns have led to changes in the neighborhood such as renovated buildings, safer streets, and new parks. These new issues have been chosen in democratic fashion by the hundreds of community residents who make up the group’s membership.
Welfare Rights Initiative
Dillonna Lewis, Co-Executive Director
Maureen Lane, Co-Executive Director
Hunter College, 695 Park Ave., Rm.E.1030, New York, NY 10021
www.wri-ny.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 1999
When the Guiliani administration set up workfare in the 1990s, thousands of welfare recipients attending CUNY were forced to drop out—which made little sense because studies show 88% of welfare recipients who graduate from college permanently leave welfare. Combating such irrational welfare policies is part of the mission of Welfare Rights Initiative (WRI), an educational and advocacy organization headquartered at Hunter College. Since 1995, WRI has offered a special year-long class at Hunter that teaches undergraduates on welfare about legal and historical aspects of social welfare policy and trains them to become advocates on these issues. WRI also helps CUNY students obtain internships and workstudy, runs an information hotline, offers legal assistance, and conducts public advocacy campaigns.
Women for Afghan Women
Mahshad Mohit, Program Director
32-17 College Point Blvd. Room 206, Flushing, NY 11354
www.womenforafghanwomen.org
Type of Support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2004
Women for Afghan Women (WAW) is a Queens-based group that helps female immigrants from Afghanistan deal with the cultural and economic challenges of their new homeland. Since many of its clients are undereducated, WAW not only offers English classes but instruction in their native tongues of Dari and Pashto. These classes—as well as one-on-one help with immigration issues and government services—are provided in a safe environment of mutual support, especially important for those affected by domestic violence. For clients’ children, WAW conducts homework help sessions four times a week and assists in college applications. An international arm of WAW raises humanitarian aid for rebuilding Afghanistan, targeting the money at programs that serve women, especially vocational training.
Youth/After School
The DOME Project
Jay Lewis, Interim Executive Director
486 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10024
www.domeproject.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 1998
The Dome began in 1973 as an alternative education program for at-risk youth, whose first major project was building a geodesic dome after which the group is named. Since then, the group has helped more than 15,000 New York City teens, focusing on the most troubled and dispirited: those who have been skipping school, gotten involved with drugs, or been arrested. The Dome currently runs three programs. Its Juvenile Justice Program provides young offenders with such services as court advocacy, counseling, substance abuse placement, and educational help, enabling 90 percent to avoid re-arrest. The Academic Tutoring Program pairs struggling students with volunteer tutors. The College Prep Program helps at-risk students earn placement at independent schools in the northeast.
Fresh Youth Initiatives
Andrew Rubinson, Executive Director
505 West 171st Street, New York, NY 10032
www.freshyouth.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 1997
Fresh Youth Initiatives (FYI) was launched in 1993 to create safe, structured, and engaging ways for young people in Washington Heights to spend time in the non-school hours of the day. As a community-based youth development organization, FYI helps young people in the neighborhood to design and carry out community service projects. FYI participants—most of them Latino and African-American teens from low-income families—clean parks, paint murals, volunteer in community gardens, make and distribute homemade sleeping bags for the homeless, and volunteer in FYI’s own food pantry, The Helping Hands Food Bank.
The POINT Community Development Corporation
Maria Torres, President & Chief Operating Officer
940 Garrison Avenue, Bronx, NY 10474
www.thepoint.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2000
The Point is a vibrant hub of cultural, educational, and economic activity in the once burnt-out Hunts Point section of the Bronx. In an abandoned industrial building remade by the group’s founders into a light-filled, high-ceilinged community center, the Point operates a rigorous and rich after-school program. The program supplements academic work with photographic instruction provided by the International Center of Photography, circus classes taught by Cirque de Soleil members, and computer experience monitoring weather for the National Weather Service. The Point also presents frequent music concerts, dance performances, and theater works; helps incubate, and rents space to, local entrepreneurs, including legendary graffiti artists Tats Cru; fights to restore the local environment and expand green space; and speaks out on other local issues like deconstruction of the Sheridan Expressway and reducing air pollution from heavy truck traffic through the neighborhood. The group’s dynamism has helped start a revival of the neighborhood reputed to be the birthplace of salsa and break dancing.
Voices of Youth
Giselle John, Program Director
199 Lincoln Avenue, Suite 311, Bronx, NY 10454
www.swkey.org/Voices_of_Youth
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2001
Voices of Youth (VOY) seeks to make New York’s child welfare system more responsive to the needs and perspectives of youths in foster care (and youths who have aged out of foster care). It does this by giving youths in the system the support and skills they need to speak and write about their experiences. Graduates of VOY’s training programs in turn train new participants. And, in exchange for fees that help support VOY’s work, they conduct educational workshops for adults who are involved with child welfare policy or interact with foster care youth in group homes or other venues.
Job Training/Adult Education
Maura Clarke and Ita Ford Center
Ruth Ford, Executive Director
138 Bleecker Street, Brooklyn, NY 11221
www.mauraclarke-itafordcenter.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 1998
The Maura Clarke and Ita Ford Center (MCIF) is named for two Maryknoll sisters from New York City, Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, who were killed in El Salvador in 1980 while working to empower poor people. Established by Sister Mary Burns in 1993, MCIF seeks to honor the honor the martyred nuns by equipping immigrant women in Bushwick with the skills needed to live and work in their new country. Programs are offered at two sites. The Educational Program, housed in a former parish church, concentrates on language, leadership, and literacy. At MCIF Works, the focus is job training and micro-enterprise. In an industrial kitchen, women bake cookies sold to schools and other organizations, and in a sewing center with advanced machines, women fill contract orders for corrections officer uniforms, nurse outfits, and other garments—in the process acquiring valuable training and supplemental income. In all these activities, women are encouraged to organize themselves and become neighborhood leaders.
Mercy Center, Inc.
Mary Galeone and Joseph Dirr, Co-Executive Directors
377 East 145th Street, Bronx, NY 10454
www.mercycenterbronx.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 1999
Located in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx, within the poorest congressional district in the nation, Mercy Center is a brick and glass oasis for low-income women and children. In a modern building completed in 2002, the center offers a wide selection of classes to help women, most of them immigrants, become agents of change in their families and communities. Toward the goal of economic empowerment, there are ESL, keyboarding, job preparation, parenting, anger management, and citizenship classes. Such “serious” work is complemented by sewing and nutritional courses, yoga and spirituality sessions, and even salsa and meringue lessons. For children, there are after-school activities and Saturday reading enrichment.
Domestic Violence
Battered Women’s Resource Center Voices of Women Organizing Project (V.O.W.)
Susan Lob, Executive Director
328 Flatbush Avenue, Suite 342, Brooklyn, NY 11238
www.vowbwrc.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2002
The Battered Women’s Resource Center is the only organization in New York City (and one of only a handful in the country) that supports the organizing efforts of survivors of domestic violence. Through the Voices of Women Organizing Project (V.O.W.), it trains survivors to advocate for improvements in the systems that battered women and their children turn to for safety, assistance, and justice. V.O.W. members work to change the system by: testifying at hearings; holding community speak outs and press conferences; staging rallies and demonstrations; training court personnel including judges, Assistant DA’s, lawyers and social workers; and developing position papers and recommendations for change. Among its members are African American, Latina, Asian, white, immigrant, lesbian, and disabled women.
Korean American Family Service Center
Seon Ah Ahn, Executive Director
P O Box 541429, Flushing, NY 11354
www.kafsc.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2000
Korean American Family Service Center (KAFSC) supports and empowers individuals and families in the Korean-American community affected by domestic violence. The Center operates a wide range of bilingual programs and services that include a 24-hour hotline, counseling, advocacy, survivors’ support group, and a children and youth program. The Center’s staff understands the distinctive cultural background and norms of its Korean-American clients, many of whom are recent immigrants. By providing a safe refuge that is culturally familiar, the Center better serves this constituency than larger, generic programs. The Center augments its services with outreach and public education.
Sakhi for South Asian Women
Purvi Shah, Executive Director
PO Box 20208, Greeley Square Station, New York, NY 10001
www.sakhi.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 1998
Sakhi for South Asian Women is a community-based organization in New York committed to ending violence against women of South Asian origin. It helps survivors of domestic violence rebuild their lives with an array of services: support groups, court accompaniment, computer training, health education, communication skills classes, and academic scholarships. All these services are tailored to meet the particular cultural needs of Sakhi’s primarily Indian, Bagladeshi, and Pakistani clientele. Through vigorous community outreach, Sakhi has drawn increasing demand for its services—in 2004, it fielded 581 new calls for assistance, up from 200 in 2001. Beyond immediate services, Sakhi sees itself creating—through advocacy, leadership development, and organizing—a voice and safe environment for all South Asian women.
Support for Incarcerated People and their Families
Abraham House
Sister Simone Ponnet, Executive Director
PO Box 305, Mott Haven Station, Bronx, NY 10454
www.abrahamhouse.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2002
Abraham House offers the incarcerated and their relatives a place of hope and community, where lives can be rebuilt, families mended, lessons learned, and men, women, and children deeply marked by crime receive the spiritual, social, and practical tools to become productive citizens. Through its residential program, it gives up to 12 men at a time the chance to serve their terms outside prison walls, demanding that in return the men complete high school, obtain counseling, and find a job and keep it. Only one of its more than 100 graduates has returned to prison. Through its Family Center, ex-offenders and their relatives (more than 4800 individuals a year) come to Abraham House to obtain food, clothes, emergency services, counseling--and above all a sense of community. An intensive After School/Summer Program provides children of inmates and ex-inmates with academic assistance, one-on-one tutoring, arts instruction, sports, and field trips.
Correctional Association of New York, Inc. — Women in Prison Project
Tamar Kraft-Stolar, Project Director
135 E.15th Street, New York, NY 10016
www.correctionalassociation.org
Type of support: Project Support
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2000
The Women in Prison Project is dedicated to creating a criminal justice system that responds more fairly and humanely to women. The project’s multi-pronged efforts combine prison monitoring, legislative advocacy, coalition building, policy analysis, and public education. In addition to pushing for better conditions for women in New York state prisons, and for reform of laws that land them there in the first place, the Project assists female former prisoners by conducting leadership training (through the Reconnect Program), and coordinating an advocacy group of ex-offenders (the Coalition for Women Prisoners). As part of the long-established Correctional Association (founded in 1844), the Project also pursues the larger goal of reducing society’s over-reliance on prison as a response to social ills.
Hour Children
Sister Teresa Fitzgerald, Executive Director
36-11A 12th Street, Long Island City, NY 11106
www.hourchildren.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2000
Hour Children was founded in 1995 as a residential program in Queens for children whose mothers were in prison. Since then it has expanded considerably, adding several programs at state prisons for incarcerated mothers—such as prerelease job training and parent education, in-prison nurseries, and assistance obtaining lawyers and communicating with family. It also now operates four residences in Queens where ex-offenders and their children receive supportive housing. Among the panoply of current programs are a pre-school for children of working mothers and three thrift shops, where women with few marketable skills obtain useful job experience.
Health
Amethyst Women’s Project
Aida Leon, Executive Director
1907 Mermaid Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11224
www.awp-ci.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2001
In Coney Island, only blocks from the beach and boardwalk, there are rundown streets rife with drugs and crime. Since its creation in 1999, Amethyst has reached out to the neighborhood’s sex workers, offering prophylactics, information about sexually transmitted diseases, and testing for HIV/AIDS. Recognizing that, to get off the streets, its clients need help with a complex web of problems, including domestic violence and substance abuse, Amethyst gradually expanded its range of services. Now housed in a welcoming white house on Mermaid Avenue, Amethyst offers support groups and 12-Step gatherings, detox and rehab referrals, HIV/AIDS testing and counseling, domestic violence intervention, and legal assistance. Its next goal for women and children affected by the diseases of addiction and HIV/AIDS is securing more affordable housing.
Family Health Project
Suki Terada Ports, Executive Director
42 Broadway, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $5,000
Funded since: 1998
Family Health Project (FHP) provides public education about HIV/AIDS and advocates for improvements in government policy toward the epidemic. It supplies information to national policymakers and local public officials; conducts workshops for medical personnel, academics, and funders; and organizes conferences among service providers to share resources. It engages in direct outreach to low-income women of color and their families in parenting centers, schools, and the streets. And it partners extensively with community-based groups and groups focusing on immigrants, women, Asians, and Pacific Islanders.
Services for Immigrants
Arab American Family Support Center
Lena Alhusseini, Executive Director
150 Court Street, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201
www.aafscny.org
Type of Support: General Operating
Grant Amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2005
Founded in 1993, The Arab American Family Support Center (AAFSC) was the first social service agency in New York to target the marginalized and underserved community of Arab immigrants. Located in Brooklyn, where the majority of the city’s Arab immigrants reside, AAFSC seeks to strengthen Arab-American families and help them adapt to life in the United States. Sensitive to the religious, cultural, and language needs of Arab immigrants, AAFSC provides counseling and family support services, legal and immigration services, youth and education programs, and English language classes.
Diaspora Community Services (formerly Haitian Women's Program)
Carine Jocelyn, Executive Director
183 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217
www.diapsoracs.org
Type of support: General Operating
Grant amount: $30,000
Funded since: 2004
Diaspora Community Services (DCS) eases the adjustment to America for Haitian and other Caribbean immigrants living in Central Brooklyn—through culturally sensitive health programs and social services. To improve health care in its community, DCS offers assistance obtaining health insurance, conducts door-to-door peer education, and connects HIV positive individuals to services they are unaware of. The organization’s diverse, multi-lingual staff provides social services that include case management, help with housing and legal problems, and support groups. For the children of clients, there is an after-school/mentorship program.
Technical Assistance
Taproot Foundation
Aaron Hurst, President & Founder
Michelle Pullaro, Managing Director, New York
150 Court Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY
www.taprootfoundation.org
Type of support: Service Grants
Grant amount: $15,000
Funded since: 2005
The Taproot Foundation’s mission is to strengthen nonprofit organizations by engaging business professionals in service. Launched in 2001, the Taproot Foundation delivers critical infrastructure-building support to local organizations through a highly structured volunteer management process. Through its “Service Grant” award program, nonprofit organizations receive new naming, branding, brochures, websites, donor databases, and HR systems created by corporate volunteers.
| "The Daphne Foundation is a key partner in our work to strengthen the capacity of New York City nonprofits through the informed use of technology. Their investment allows us develop the tools and resources we need to help nonprofits increase their effectiveness in serving their
communities."
—Barbara Chang, Executive
Director
NPower NY |
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