People’s Climate Movement New York is proud to announce an impressive roster of Special Guests for this Sunday’sSummer Supper Party!  

Join them this Sunday to get up close and personal with some of NYC’s top climate justice leaders working locally, nationally, and internationally with Frontline Communities, Organized Labor, and Arts, building a movement together for a better climate future.

Special Guests Include:

Sean Sweeney.  Sean is the Director of the International Program for Labor, Climate and Environment at the Murphy Center of the City University of New York. He also coordinates Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, a global network of 33 unions from 15 countries who are fighting for social ownership and democratic control of energy resources, generation, infrastructure and options.  He has coordinated global union efforts to challenge climate change.

Rachel Schragis.  Rachel is an artist, cultural organizer and native New Yorker who came to social movement work through involvement in the Domestic Worker Justice movement and Occupy Wall Street. She is deeply committed to lifting up creative leadership around the climate crisis, most recently as the arts coordinator for the People’s Climate March and a founding member of People’s Climate Arts.

Ray Figueroa.  Ray is the President of the NYC Community Garden Coalition which represents over 800 community gardens, has a long community organizing history.  His woth with Friends of Brook Park, in the South Bronx, includes community alternatives to incarceration, creating gardening programs engaging formerly incarcerated people in productive community work. Climate activism is a logical extension of challenging the system to make it work for people not profits.

Elisabeth Peredo Beltran.  Ely is the Executive Director of Fundacion Solon in La Paz, Bolivia, and has led in climate justice efforts in Bolivia and beyond.  Through socially conscious art and natural and social science research Ely has brought attention to the dangers of fracking and the importance of Bolivia to lead in renewable energy.   Ely, a social psychologist, has worked with domestic workers and on gender and race issues and serves on the board of Food and Water Watch. 

We’re excited to see you there!

What: Summer Supper Party in Support of People’s Climate Movement NY

When: This Sunday, June 14th at 7pm

Where:  The home of Nancy Romer and Lew Friedman- 445 6th Street in Brooklyn

– People’s Climate Movement NY

Arts and Crafts, Music, Fun!  Saturday May 16th 10am to 12 Noon. All ages.

Check out the awesome work of Ray from our team in partnership with Community Connections for Youth towards keeping youth out of the juvenile justice system and positively connected to community!  Timely.

Click the photo to see the video.

Ray Figueroa has lived in Harlem for most of his adult life, but he says the Mott Haven neighborhood of the South Bronx is “where his life is.”

Figueroa works with a grassroots nonprofit called Community Connections for Youth (CCFY), running an urban garden in Brook Park. It’s one of the organization’s so-called diversion programs for youth involved in the corrections system, providing “productive activities for young people to engage in, in order to avoid criminal activity.

On a recent Saturday in the park, Figueroa commented that many of the community’s young residents around Brook Park “have been touched by the criminal justice system in at some point in their lives.”

“The CCFY initiative here … was responsible for really bringing this vision to bear, of– let’s look at community based resources that can help address this issue [of youth incarceration] and provide community-based alternatives to incarceration of young people,” said Figueroa.

Juvenile justice reform and diverting youth from incarceration has gained momentum among the state’s policymakers. Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently launched a campaign to raise the age of criminal responsibility in the state – from 16 to 18 – while also stressing the importance of community programs to complement this kind of legislative reform.

“Over the course of three years, in excess of 100 youth that were involved in the program were successfully redirected firm being incarcerated,” said Figueroa, referencing a three-year pilot program implemented by CCFY and certified by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The program found participants were significantly less likely to be rearrested, and the youth they served remained involved in community support networks beyond the duration of their court mandates.

“Working in the garden – it was the best thing in my life,” said 18-year-old Mott Haven resident Junior Leiva, who has known Figueroa for almost three years. “Ray’s like a big brother to me.”

Leiva was arrested last year and spent a few nights in jail in Brooklyn.

“I was with my friends, hanging out, and one of them had a gun. … We was playing on the roof of a building, so they charged us with trespassing too,” he said.

“I remember Ray came into court and gave the judge a letter. I don’t know what the letter said, but they let me go,” he said, smiling sheepishly. Leiva is in his final year of high school and says he would like to go to the University of California, Berkeley.

Groups like CCFY work with the Department of Probation in neighborhoods with high incarceration rates. Mott Haven has many so-called “million dollar blocks” – blocks full of people who end up in the criminal justice system, costing the state millions.

‘We are responsible for supervising and monitoring young people in the community,” said Bronx Juvenile Borough Director Stacye Spear. “And I think that’s an important service and role we play, because we want the children to stay in the community.”

“Probation has taken a different approach, basically,” said William Coachman, who has been a probation officer for more than 25 years. He currently works out of the Probation Department’s South Bronx NeOn building, across the street from Bronx Family Court.

The South Bronx NeOn building offers classes for children, after-school and community activities, and a communal space for visitors.

“People aren’t running away from probation, they’re coming to probation,” said Coachman. “If you’re supposed to see a kid once every two weeks, they wanna see you every week.”

New York’s five Family Courts, which have jurisdiction over juvenile cases, refer about 4,500 youth to the Department of Probation every year. Currently, 16- and 17-year-olds who commit a crime are treated as adults and not juveniles and these cases go through adult criminal court. A bill is currently pending that would raise the age of criminal responsibility and transfer 86 percent of cases involving 16- and 17-year-olds to family court. Many of these would end up with the Department of Probation.

“We’re looking forward to it [the bill], we’re open to it,” said Spear. “It’s gonna be a big lift and a lot of stakeholders understand that, but I think it’s gonna work out.”

“It’s going to be better for everyone.”

Register and RSVP online here.Studio REV- & Friends of Brook Park present:

THE TIME MACHINE GARDEN AT BROOK PARK

A living, growing, teeming time machine that takes visitors back in history to learn how humans shaped the Bronx — and envision what role we can play in shaping an ecologically-sustainable future. 

Join us for a creative workshop at the Bronx Museum where you’ll brainstorm and co-create signage and the garden’s broader vision.

Saturday, May 30th

11am-1pm

For youth 11 yrs +

Free lunch! 

Register and RSVP online here.

Location:

Bronx Museum of the Arts

1040 Grand Concourse

Bronx, New York 10456

T: 718-681-6000

D or B trains to 167 St. Stop

Register and RSVP online here.

With Support and funding from our excellent partners:

AND:

Let’s Barter Around the Block!

The first gathering will be on Saturday, April 25th, at 2pm.  

(This will happen just before an event happening at the garden, “Acto de Apoyo al 1 de Mayo,” which starts at 3pm on April 25th, and which Victor, an organizer of the event, invites everyone to come!–flyer for that is attached.)

Location will be Brook Park Community Garden (between Willis Ave. and Brook Ave., on the north side of the garden facing 141st Street).  Look for a group of people gathered in a circle.

There will be barley tea.  Feel free to just bring yourself and your friendship.  

Please write back to mention if you will be joining!

(786-246-6029)

***

Hola de su vecino,

Ahora que el clima se está poniendo bonito afuera …

Algunas personas han estado discutiendo una nueva idea …

Para que la gente se reuna en el Brook Park cada various meses, como vecinos y / o miembros de la comunidad que organizan aqui, para reunirse, para saludarse, para tener un intercambio de amistad, habilidades y energías .. .

Vamos a Trueques Alrededor del Bloque!

La primera reunión será el sábado, 25 de abril a las 2 pm.

(Esto ocurrirá justo antes de que ocurra un evento en el jardín, “Acto de Apoyo al 1 de Mayo”, que comienza a las 3pm del 25 de abril, y que Víctor, uno de los organizadores del evento, esta invitaneo a todos a venir – se adjunta volante.)

Lugar será Brook Park Community Garden (entre Willis Ave. y Brook Avenue, en el lado norte del jardín frente a la Calle 141). Busque un grupo de personas se reunieron en un círculo.

Habrá té de cebada. Siéntase libre de simplemente llevar a si mismo y su amistad.

Por favor dejeme saboer si se unirá!

(786-246-6029)