Earlier in the year, our group interviewed Talmage the CEO of the Center to Prevent Youth Violence. He is one of the most important advocates for Gun Control. He told us about a current project called the “Give a Hug Project” which is where you send a card with drawings or decorations to show something good or happy…
2015-2016
Lower East Side Ecology Center, Interview
by Ruby
We went to the Lower East Side Ecology Center and met with Kaitlyn Parkins. We interviewed her on what she knew about water pollution and what she does. She works as the educational director and helps children learn more about recycling and composting and why they need to do it. We learned that a lot of…
1/9/17 Interview with Jaqueline Patterson Head of Environmental Justice at NAACP
by Cole
On January 9, 2017, my other group members Spencer, Jack A, Willem, and I were fortunate enough to get an interview with Jaqueline Patterson Head of Environmental Justice at NAACP. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as a bi-racial organization to…
field work number one
by Jack A
Our group went to the Urban Communities climate Resilience Conference. The conference was located uptown near Columbia. When we arrived, we were greeted by David Chang, the Environmental Health Coordinator. We helped hand out information pamphlets about different ways you can stay healthy and use non-toxic products to the guests coming in. I learned that…
Albany Climate Change Protest – 1/13/16
by Ciro
We heard about a climate change and oil pipeline rally in Albany and we of course wanted to go. We joined together with the environment group in the other class and we worked to set up a way for us to go. We ended up getting on a bus to Albany at 6:45 in the…
Gowanus Canal Conservancy – Compost and Gardening
by Ciro
We met up with a GCC member, Micheal Wasserman, at a Brooklyn compost headquarters. We collected a garbage bag, a recycling bag, gardening tools and a cart to put it all in. We walked all together to a large avenue on which there are community gardening boxes. The problem was, however, that very few of…
Healthier New York – Imagine
by Alice
Some of the ideas we had to solve the problem of food deserts was to buy healthy food at a supermarket. What that does is when you buy an item, you are instantly voting for it, the more people buy it and the more they will put of that item, after a long time, they…
Children in Poverty: FEEL STAGE
by Sophie
The main problem that our group focused on was Children in Poverty. We chose this because many people are unaware of how big of a problem poverty is in our city and in our country. We wanted to help educate others because they may not know about the problem or if/how they should help. We…
Feel Stage
by Augustus
First we familiarized ourselves with propny (Police Reform Organizing Project). They were able to help us by bringing us to go court monitoring. He learned so much through them and other organizations and individuals that we put together a teach in for the grades below us. we decided to make a mural with them dipicting…
Share: Social Justice 2016
by Brianna
As a result of my experience as a change maker, I learned that children can do most of whatever they put their minds to, and that the smallest action on the smallest of whims, when multiplied, can have the biggest effect. Even though the Social Justice Project has ended, I will continue to support social justice…
Share – Stage
by Cameron K
What have you learned as a result of this experience of being a change maker? I have learned by being a change maker is helping other people. Helping other people and sharing our topic by teaching which is very important. Other people understanding the problem helps. The result of people knowing problems might spark…
Police Brutality Share Stage
by Ethan
What were some of the ideas you had about possible ways to address/solve this problem? Teach-In Protesting Flyers Videos Articles Social Media These are some ways we can address Police Brutality and spread the word. Which did solutions feel like ones that you could actually take on? That is, where could you imagine your efforts…
Opinion Editorial: Freedom Of Speech
by River
Nearing the end our Social Justice project, we were assigned to write opinion editorials utilizing the culmination of knowledge we gained over the course of several months. These were to exhibit how we grew as advocators for social justice and teach those who read our papers about our issue that we chose to learn about. Mine…
Change Climate Change Feel
by Maisy
Throughout our project we hoped to learn what we could do to help the climate and how we can prevent climate change. We chose this problem because we recognized that climate change affects us all, and that it is a huge threat that we need to fix. While on our fieldwork, we heard many stories…
Education Inequity DO Stage
by Anna
As a group we worked with about 10 different organization all taking different parts in solving education inequality. Our fieldwork stretched from watching movies, making phone calls, lobbying and hands on tutoring kids. This stage taught us so much. We started not even knowing all the different types of school and what differentiate them. We…
Gun Violence Prevention Imagine Stage
by Will
One idea that we had to address this epidemic of gun violence was to work with existing groups that already had ideas, and elaborate on them. We worked with Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E., an organization that already had an idea for stopping the illegal gun pipeline in their neighborhood by working with the police to watch…
Imagine
by Aditya
We wanted to help public schools get funded and we wanted to raise awareness about underfunding. We thought that one of the best ways we could help was to participate in protests and lobbies. We met a lot with the alliance for quality education to fight for funding in public schools.
“Do” Reflection
by Dakota
In the “Do” stage, my group and I scheduled a fieldwork with a non-profit organization called Dress For Success. This organization helped women get/prepare them for jobs by giving them interview clothes and prepping them for the interview. Then if the women got the job, Dress For Success gave them a week’s worth of work…
DO Reflection
by Anna
Not including our Teach-In Workshop, we had an impact on a company which we visited. The company is called MMC, Marina Maher Communications. They work in marketing to women. After visiting them twice, where we had multiple discussions and interviews with different people within the company, they said that we impacted them because we educated…
Feel Reflection
by Jaquelin Adler
Throughout this social justice project we hoped that people would understand the discrimination of women in the workforce. We hoped that we would show the younger kids in our school that we can make a difference in the world, and that anyone can. People need to learn about this problem and to fix this! We…
SHARE (Change Climate Change)
by Ming
After going on fieldworks for the DO stage, we needed to share our work to inspire others. We learned that if you feel that something is wrong in the world, you can’t for others to make the change. You have to make the change yourself. In the beginning of the social justice project, we were…
Social Justice: The Feel Stage
by River
The main problem we wanted to resolve and gain a larger understanding around was freedom of speech in foreign countries. Since we are currently living in a nation that prioritizes our first amendment rights, and makes it a paramount objective to protect them, we believed that solving freedom of speech issues in our country would…
Do
by Reggi
A plan to take action that we had was to tell our students of the teach-in to visit Change.Organization to sign petitions to help solve the issue of poverty in New York City such as raising the minimum wage. We hoped this idea could help accomplish our goals as a group.
Do
by Jane
In the do stage we went on many fieldwork to learn what it felt like to take action. We contacted organizations such as the beyond coal Campain, the Sierra club, El Nevado and many more. We went as far as Albany, New York and as close as an LREI classroom. No matter had far away…
Imagine Stage
by Theodora Dotson
In the imagine stage, my group and I read the book Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, the former CFO of Google, and the current CFO of Facebook. The book was really interesting for us because it outlined strategies and ways that women could encourage each other to stand up for themselves and what kind of…
Women in the workplace Social justice Review
by Skyler
After we conducted interviews and went on many field works, my group was ready to share what we learned and found out about the discrimination of women in the workplace and the glass ceiling. We learned about what kinds of discrimination there are, like men with less experience getting the job a woman with more…
Children In Poverty: Share
by Ryann
After the feel, image, and do stage my group felt that we were strongly educated on our topic and thought that we could make a change. To educate people on our topic we held a teach-in and taught the fifth, sixth and seventh graders at our school about our topic. To do this we deigned…
Imagine
by Graham
As the Climate Change group We thought that we could attend conferences and rallies to help spread awareness to people with political power as well as voters. There are no big immediate solutions that we can put in act right now. So we settled for small things that still make a difference such as: recycling,…
Maysville Interview
by Alice
How healthy is your food? Answer: it ranges to 1-10 depending on what you order. Buy from the right places (union square farmers market). All meat comes from good places. They make their own everything. Where do you buy your fruit and vegetables from? Answer: union square farmers market 4 days a week. Vegetable…
Do and Share
by Stella
Obviously the social justice teach-in enabled all of us to put our knowledge out into the school and teach others about our topic. But for us the teach-in was a part in a very long important process. Throughout this project visiting organizations and doing hands on work made us realize that making a difference…
Canstructing a Solution to Hunger: Imagine
by Sophie SF
During this project, we wanted to address our topic, (hunger) in the most effective way possible. One of the ideas that we had in addressing hunger was creating our own version of Canstruction. Canstruction is an annual exhibition where designers and architects build sculptures completely out of food cans. After Canstruction is over, all of the food cans…
Police Brutality Do Stage
by Onaje
We interview the head of the Police Reform Organizing Projecr, Robert Gangi. It started as four boys interviewing an educated activist and his intern. However, it became way more than that. First he introduced us to court monitoring. In court, we recorded in sheets the name, race, gender, charge and verdict of all of the…
Police Brutality Share Stage
by Jacob
I have learned that it doesn’t take a lot of people to make a big change. As long as you are committed and willing, anyone can make a change. We will submit our police brutality mural to an art show. There it will be displayed as a memoir to the victims of police brutality.
2016 PSAs
by Mark Silberberg
Click on an image below to see enlarged view:
Maysville
by Hanna
For our fifth fieldwork, Stella, Alice and I went to a restaurant called Maysville. Maysville is a 4.5 star restaurant, and we wanted to see and hear about the healthiness of food from a different perspective other than just from our eyes. Many people just assume that fast food restaurants are unhealthy while fancy restaurants…
Interview with Nigel Barker/He for She
by Theodora Dotson
We interviewed Nigel Barker, an ex model, judge on America’s Next Top Model, and a spokesperson for the UN organization, He for She. Nigel grew up in England, where he was raised in the world of fashion. His mother was a supermodel from Sri Lanka, and both she and his grandmother instilled a strong belief…
MMC Visit #2 2/10/16
by Nika
My group and I visited the MMC (Marina Maher Communications) again. This time we set up a meeting with a specific group of women that deal with advertising different brands. We talked to them about how the media portrays things in a wrong way, and then girls aren’t prepared when they actually need to deal…
Interview with Nigel Barker on 2/18/16
by Dakota
On February 18, my group (consisting of Bay, Skyler, Jaquie, and myself) interviewed Nigel Barker. Nigel is a former model and a photographer, and a spokesperson for HeForShe and Girl Up. Both these organizations are part of the UN. The goal of HeForShe is to encourage men to stand up and be a voice for…
Interview with Allison Grover on 2/1/16 at Zara Terez
by Dakota
On February 1, my group and I went to Zara Terez, located in midtown, to interview their president, Allison Grover. Allison isn’t only the president of Zara Terez, but also a parent of some kids at LREI. She has been the president of Zara Terez for about a year, and before that she worked at Goldman…
Interview with Noa Meyers 2/19/16
by Jaquelin Adler
My group went to interview Noa Meyer who works with 10,000 located in Goldman Sachs. 10,000 women is an organization that helps women in different countries start their own small business. When we first met Noa she showed us a video about 10,000 women and what they do, there was one women that produced her…
Interview with Karen Y Bitar – Former Kings County Prosecutor
by Will
Interview with Nigel Barker 2/18/16
by Jaquelin Adler
Know Your Rights Workshop
by Ethan
Martin Luther King Assembly 1/20
by Will
On January 20th, Louie and I spoke at the Martin Luther King Assembly about gun violence prevention. Before everyone saw us, Louie and I were approached by Ana, our principal, to present at this assembly. We spent about a week prepping a presentation, a speaker and a video clip. We worked really hard on the…
Interview With Sister Mary 2.8.16
by Layne
On Monday Sophie and I had the opportunity to interview Sister Mary from St. John’s Bread of Life Food Pantry (a different St. John’s than the one we visited twice.) With our advisories we have been to St. John’s many times. They are a small pantry run out of the basement of St. Johns Baptist…
Phone Call with Director of CAGV (Connecticut Against Gun Violence)
by Louie
On Wednesday, February 17th, we had a phone conversation with the director of CAGV. In our conversation we discussed the work we had completed and learned what the CAGV does. Connecticut is the state with the second strongest gun laws. CAGV has lobbied for legislation that makes it difficult for Connecticut citizens to illegally obtain guns.…
LREI Martin Luther King, Jr and Social Justice Issues: School Assembly
by Louie
In late January 2016, our social justice group, Stop the Shots, organized an assembly that was in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision for a peaceful and equal America. The focus of the assembly was gun violence prevention. We showed a portion of President Obama’s speech on his Executive Order to increase background checks.…
School of Visual Arts: Mapping Health of a Community Symposium
by Reggi
On Monday, February 1st, our Social Justice group returned to School Visual Arts to attend a symposium on health issues. We heard from important activists on this topic: community leader and public servant, Clyde Williams; Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Junior; Director of the Arnhold Global Health Institute, Doctor Prabhjot Singh; Rob Carmona, Co-founder of…
Interview with Gabriel Mendez, Director of El Nevado
by Jane
Our interview with Gabriel Mendez was more beneficial to him and El Nevado than to us. We were originally going to be interviewed by Brian Torres but he couldn’t make it. He interviewed us on our views on climate change and how we think it will effect us. These questions and our answers will probably…
Interview with Allison Grover, President of Zara Terez
by Jaquelin Adler
Albany
by Jane
Interview with Sister Mary: 2/8/16
by Sophie SF
On Monday, February 8th, 2016, my group had an interview with Sister Mary, who works at the Saint John’s Bread of Life Food Pantry. We learned many different things about how Saint John’s Bread of Life Pantry works and we also learned many personal stories of people who have to rely on Saint John’s for food.…
Court Monitoring
by Jacob
This past Friday we went court monitoring with PROP. We went to the arraignment part of a criminal court in Manhattan on 100 Centre Street. After entering the court we received our notes sheets for writing down the cases. There we noticed that all of the people there were either Black or Hispanic. This to…
Interview with Michelle Kaminsky 1/21/16
by Jaquelin Adler
Interview with Lisa Busillo
by Theodora Dotson
Interview with Tanya Wexler
by Theodora Dotson
We interviewed Tanya Wexler, a director and mother of four children. Tanya started out as a child actor with her sister, and grew up acting throughout high school. When she was in college, she had to make a short video clip with a sample of her acting in order to start getting professional roles. When…
Idlewild Park Wetland Cleanup
by Ciro
We met at Idlewild Park with the park services and we also met Micheal Wassermann from the Gowanus Canal Conservancy group unintentionally. We had not talked to anyone in specific, we just happened across the Cleanup and decided that it would be great to participate. We learned a bit about just how much trash there…
Interview with Wen Zhou
by Theodora Dotson
We interviewed Wen Zhou, the cofounder, president, and CEO of 3.1 Phillip Lim. Wen was born in China, and moved with her parents to New York as a teenager. Wen lived on the Lower East Side and attended Brooklyn Tech High School. Wen spoke only mandarin, but where her parents worked in Chinatown, people only…
Our Conference Call with a Duke Professor
by Louie
In December my social justice group had a conference call with Joseph Blocher, a professor from Duke University. He had recently written an op-ed on the recent demonstrations supporting being allowed on college campuses. In his opinion, this was a dangerous precedent that he did not support at all. His op-ed was interesting as it…
Writing valentines letters to scholarship donors at Mt. Carmel Holy Rosary Parochial school
by Aditya
Lobbying In Albany With AQENY
by Aditya
The bus going to Albany Left at 7 from One MetroTech Center and it arrived in Albany at 11. We went into the building and were guided to a room where all the lobbyists were sitting. A few different people made speeches, a parent, a teacher, and a student, about the problems that underfunding caused…
Billion Oyster Project @ Governor’s Island 1/29
by Michelle
On Friday, January 29th, my group and I took the ferry all the way to Governor’s Island. We met with the Billion Oyster Project (BOP). The Billion Oyster Project is an organization that works with bringing oysters back to NYC. You may wonder, what is the importance of saving oysters? Sure they are delicious,…
MLK Idlewild Park Clean Up 1/18
by Michelle
Billion Oyster Project Fieldwork on Governor’s Island, 1/29/16
by Brianna
We took the ferry to the Harbor School on Governor’s Island to volunteer with the Billion Oyster Project. For clarity, the Billion Oyster Project is an ongoing effort to bring oysters back to the Hudson. The Hudson area used to be abundant in oysters, but due to over consumption slowly disappeared. Oysters also have an…
Our interview with Floyd Abrams:
by River
Today, January 28th, my group and I traveled down to wall street to meet with a prolific first amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams. By the time Abrams was in college, he had taken a liking to freedom of speech related topics. During high school he had participated in many exercises of his first amendment right, including…
Our Phone Interview with Nisan Chavkin:
by River
Today my group and I held a interview over the phone. We called a man by the name of Nisan Chavkin, the executive director of CRFC for over 20 years,(Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago.) This is an organization dedicated to the education of students and teachers about their free speech rights and others. He made a…
Interview With Arch Puddington of Freedom House
by Nissim
On the 7th of January, our group interviewed the vice president of research at Freedom House, Arch Puddington. Arch talked with us about what Freedom House does, how freedom of speech plays different roles in different places of the world, and some of his views on free speech. Freedom House publishes various analytical documents about…
AQENY Parent’s Meeting 12/21
by Elisabeth
P.S. 98 12/14
by Elisabeth
On Monday, December 14th, we were originally scheduled to volunteer at a program called DEER, Drop Everything and Read. It was an animal themed reading program held at the school once a month. When we arrived we found out that the event was actually cancelled because a teacher had called in sick and a class…
Breakfast with Santa at St.Brigids via CSF 12/19
by Elisabeth
Anna, Sophie, Ryann, Reggi and I all volunteered at a Christmas event at St.Brigids with Children’s Scholarship Fund as a joint effort between the educational inequity and the children in poverty groups. Anna, Sophie and I took the bus across town and arrived in front of the school where we met Reggi. Ryann was already…
Lobbying in Albany with AQENY 1/12
by Elisabeth
Court Monitoring with Robert Gangi
by Augustus
ACLU/NYCLU Interview with Sam Thypin-Bermeo, 1/26/16
by Onaje
Meeting with NYCLU
by Augustus
On Tuesday, 1/26 my group and I met with Sam Thypin-Bermeo from the NYCLU. We had to travel downtown to get to the NYCLU’s office. We immediately started our interview that included questions such as, “How did you get involved in Police Misconduct issues” and “Was there something in your life that drove you to…
Interview with Michelle Kaminsky, Assistant DA on 1/21/16
by Dakota
On January 21, my group went to the District Attorney’s office in Brooklyn to interview Michelle Kaminsky, a District Attorney’s assistant. While there, we asked her about how it was like to be a district attorney’s assistant, especially as a female. We left school around 12:45, took the F train to Jay St in Brooklyn,…
Our Interview with David Reiter
by River
Interview With Sam From NYCLU
by Ethan
On January 26 my group and I went to the NYCLU to meet Sam. Sam is a worker at the NYCLU and he focuses on police brutality and he is a lawyer. The ACLU is The American Civil Liberties Union is a nonpartisan, non-profit organization whose stated mission is “to defend and preserve the individual…
Our Volunteer Work at Democracy Now!
by Cameron K
On Friday, January 15th, our group met with an organization named, “Democracy Now.” This tv show deals with several problems regarding freedom of speech and other issues in America. We met in their office and we had the opportunity to participate in research related activities for them. Their offices like last time were just the…
Interview with Tanya Wexler 1/20/16
by Jaquelin Adler
My group and I wanted to go out further to interview different women and their occupations. We reached out to Tanya Wexler who is a female director who has produced 2 independent movies. Tanya was very smart and went through Yale and studied psychology. When she grew up she went out to LA and started to…
Our Interview With Floyd Abrams
by Cameron K
Today, January 28th, my group and I traveled to busy crowded wall street to meet with a great first amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams. Floyd Abrams has done amazing work during his time as a first amendment lawyer, fighting for the New York times on the pentagon papers case which is one of the most memorable…
LSA Food Pantry Visit #2
by Sophie
My group decided to go back to LSA because we enjoyed going so much a few months ago and we thought that it was an amazing organization that helped lots of people. I liked how the organization not only provided people with food but they also helped with immigration, child care, tutoring and more. They…
Washington Square Park Survey
by Sophie
Washington Square Park Fieldwork
by Reggi
Our Social Justice group went to Washington Square Park to ask random citizens questions about poverty. We asked many different questions, and got all sorts of answers. All of the people we interviewed happened to be very smart, and they all gave amazing answers. Our group in total interviewed about six people, and each interview…
Interview With Ronald Kuby
by Ethan
Harlem Community Health Workshop/Gallery
by Sophie
My group went with Mark to a gallery/workshop at the School of Visual Arts. At the entrance of the building there was a gallery that contained different interactive elements that portrayed the Harlem community. There were recordings of the sounds of different neighborhoods and statistics such as diabetes and the number of supermarkets in the…
LSA Food Pantry Visit
by Reggi
Thursday January 24th, our Social Justice group visited LSA, Little Sisters Assumption, for the second time. We really enjoyed our first experience there and we learned a great deal from it. The people there were so friendly, and it overall seemed like a great community, so we decided to re-visit. This visit, we helped with…
Protesting at City Hall with AQENY 1/10
by Elisabeth
Interview with Michelle Kaminsky 1/21/16
by Skyler
On Thursday, January 21st (2016) my group and I interviewed a female Assistant District Attorney. She also happens to be the Chief of the Domestic Violence department. Kaminsky’s answers were much different from other women that we interviewed. She told us that she hasn’t faced gender-based discrimination in school or in her career. She told…
Interview with Tanya Wexler 1/20/16
by Skyler
On Wednesday, January 20th (2016) my group and I interviewed a female Indie film director. We talked to Tanya about a lot of statistics. Like how only 9% of directors in the U.S. are women. This fact really surprised us. Tanya’s most well-known independent film that she directed was Hysteria. Tanya came out of college…
Interview with Anthony Rogers-Wright
by Ming
On January 26, 2015, my group had an interview with Anthony Rogers-Wright. We first saw Anthony on our first fieldwork at Patagonia’s screening “This Changes Everything.” We thought he was a very interesting and powerful speaker so we decided to contact him. Once we go in touch with Anthony we set up and interview at…
Climate Rally in Albany
by Ming
On Wednesday, January 13th, both climate change groups went to Albany to go to a climate rally and march. All of us (Ming, Jane, Maisy, Graham, Michelle, Ciro, Brianna, Scott and Danny) met at a Starbucks near the bus station at 6:30am at around 6:45am two of our group members were running late so the CCC group decided to…
Meeting with Jackie Rowe-Adams, founder of Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E. 1/12
by Will
On January 12th, my group and I went to 306 West 128th Street to meet with Jackie Rowe-Adams, founder of Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E., which is an organization that helps families of victims of gun violence. It is considered to be one of the most prolific gun violence prevention organizations in the whole of New York…
Harlem Gallery Mapping and Meeting
by Reggi
Court Monitoring System, 1/22/16
by Onaje
Robert Gangi, 1/21/16
by Onaje
On Thursday, we met up with Robert Gangi. Robert Gangi is the director of PROP; Police Reform Organization Project. We first met a while back on an interview with him and his intern. On that first interview with him we discussed the police quotas and how the are forcing police to arrest people for frivolous…
Harlem First Fieldwork
by Pierre
For our fieldwork at Harlem First we learned about East Harlem and looked at many valuable maps on East Harlem. The two maps that stood out to me most significantly was a map that showed the audience the amount of colored skinned people living in East Harlem versus the rest of Manhattan. Another map that…
Washington Square Park Fieldwork
by Pierre
During our fieldwork at Washington Square Park we interviewed people on there thoughts about children in poverty and the statistics. It was a very interesting to hear people’s thoughts on youth poverty in NYC. People were very disappointed, mad, interesting and some felt as if they needed to do something about this ASAP. Everyone’s answers…
Visit to PS 98
by Oliver
We went to PS 98 for an event called DEER. When we got there we figured out that the event was canceled. We then asked what to do, we were sent to the library to help out in the school. We walked into a class where they were only speaking Spanish. The same was for…
Interview with Wen Zhou 1/20/16
by Skyler
On Wednesday, January 20th (2016) my group and I went to the 3.1 Philip Lim office to interview (one of) the founder(s)/CEO/president of the designer company. Wen Zhou told us her incredible and inspiring story of how she got where she is today. Wen came to America, from China, when she was around 13 years…