‘Dignity, Community and Power’: Paul Hamlyn Foundation visits ‘Make the Road New York’
On our last day in New York City, our hosts gave us all a brown paper bag containing a mug. I looked at it properly today when making my cup of tea (I’ve missed my cups of tea). It is emblazoned with the slogan of Make the Road New York (MRNY) – ‘Dignity, Community and Power’. This pretty much sums up the individuals and organisations we have had the privilege to learn from this week.
Make the Road New York exists to builds the power of immigrant and working class communities to achieve dignity and justice through organising, policy innovation, transformative education, and survival services. It has four vibrant offices in communities throughout New York and Long Island, and has grown to over 19,000 members in a few short years. They work with a wide range of allies in social justice movements, policy organisations, politicians and independent funders and together have achieved amazing changes in this diverse city, where one in three people is an immigrant.
MRNY hosted a learning visit last week of a group of young people, leaders, youth organisations and funders working in England, Scotland and Ireland. They showed us the approaches they have used to achieve victories for individuals and secure wider change of the systems that stop communities from thriving.
Victories are impressive and varied. In 2015, they worked with partners to introduce a municipal ID card, recognised by NYPD officers and all City service providers, meaning regardless of immigration status, all New Yorkers can participate in civic life. In 2012, the City agreed to fund a public defenders programme in immigration courts, meaning no person goes in front of the court without legal representation (leading to a rise in immigration claim success rates from 3% to 70%). And they were a key part of a coalition that secured a commitment from local police to keep public safety and criminal justice at a step removed from immigration enforcement. By not automatically notifying immigration of encounters with police, numbers dropped from 4000 people a month detained and removed from the state to around 20.
It is easy to be dazzled by this city, the scale, the confidence, the pace and the energy. This place is unusually progressive– Donald Trump won’t win here – and our US counterparts of course have levers of state and local power and funding that don’t shape up the same way in the UK. But three things stood out for me from this memorable week that I will carry close to my work from here on, in the hope that I can help strengthen the efforts of young leaders and communities in the UK.
Firstly, survival services are essential to human dignity and are a springboard to social action by communities about issues which affect them. ‘Navigators’ in MRNY’s office in Jackson Heights provide thousands of people each year with advice on safe and fair work, immigration issues, health, schooling and police accountability. Food, housing and personal safety are basic needs for many in this low-income area. But unlike many oversubscribed advice services I am familiar with, this place actively wants people to stay involved beyond resolving their own situation. They are invited to become members, join groups, and understand that the individual struggles they are experiencing are symptoms of wider structural injustices. And to learn that they can organise together to challenge these. Paid staff come largely from the community and there is a professional development ‘pipeline’ to ensure leadership comes from those with lived experience of these issues.
Secondly, this ‘service organising’ model builds a power base which is then mixed with evidence, practical alternatives and solutions to achieve change. MRNY works with allies who bring legal and policy technical knowledge, as well as researchers to provide good data and analysts who can help frame alternative solutions (for example, a Community Safety Act to address police accountability). Alongside has been a robust programme of voter registration to ensure that communities are mobilised to have a voice in the democratic process. As one speaker pointed out “Whether or not someone in power accepts the evidence of a problem and a potential solution is a political decision- we have built a power base that ensures that those at the top share our values.”
Thirdly, building a movement for social change means connecting young people to political education, and being highly organised. Throughout the week, we saw how space is created for political education. Young people run a ‘Youth Power Project’ and talk about and explore their beliefs and the political and social history of struggles for race, gender and class equality, while also doing practical things on issues that affect them, (for example, setting up ‘Copwatch’ to challenge misuse of police powers to ‘stop and search’). Young people are front and centre of the movement for change, and their voices are genuinely part of designing solutions. They told us “Unless you build a power base among those personally affected, you won’t sustain wins or achieve more victories.” Everything is meticulously planned and well organised, particularly the relationships that are needed to build confidence, trust and solidarity.
I have had a few conversations in the UK with people concerned that ‘movement building’ sounds a bit ‘fluffy’ or vague. Perhaps this is because advocates of this approach are asking for money to support a methodology rather than defining a narrow policy goal and seeking investment to pursue it. My visit reminded me that nothing could be further from the reality – this process is highly organised, strategic and purposeful. It also is a labour of love by committed people with integrity and passion who share a long term vision, and recognise that in the struggle for social justice “there is no road, we make the road by walking.”
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