NEW YORK - The Open Society Institute, part of the Soros Foundations Network, today announced the ten New York City organizers, activists and leaders selected to receive an 18-month stipend of $48,750 to support innovative public interest projects that address critical social needs in their disadvantaged communities.

OSI’s New York City Community Fellowship Program, which this year had more than 300 applicants, provides individuals an opportunity to envision and initiate community-led projects that empower and improve the quality of public life. Community Fellows lead local social change efforts that address economic justice, civic participation, workers’ rights, health, education and the arts.

“Many New York residents exist without adequate access to resources and become a part of a growing marginalized population,” said Erlin Ibreck, Director of OSI’s New York City Community Fellows Program. “Communities become rejuvenated and inspired when individuals like the Fellows contribute skills and resources to the communities in which they live and represent.”

Since 1997, the Community Fellowship Program has supported over fifty social entrepreneurs in New York City and Baltimore. OSI Fellows have received numerous awards in recognition of their efforts to transform communities and provide needed services.

2001 OSI NYC Community Fellows (listed in alphabetical order)

Marineves Alba, Generation Hip-Hop L.E.A.D.S. (Leading Efforts to Address Disabling Social challenges), New York, NY
Generation Hip-Hop L.E.A.D.S. is a program that promotes self-esteem, social awareness, and youth leadership among high school-aged youth of color. The project incorporates arts with political education and skills development activities. Designed to promote leadership and participation, L.E.A.D.S. frames youth activism and leadership within the context of contemporary urban, Hip-Hop culture.

Majora Carter, Sustainable South Bronx, Bronx, NY
Founded to fight being labeled “the sewer of the city,” Sustainable South Bronx is an emerging community organization committed to environmental justice. The organization rebuilds the social capital of the South Bronx by investing resources in the community and implementing sustainable development projects and urban planning strategies to reintegrate disenfranchised members of the community.

Leslie Silver Hoffman, LGBT Independence Project, New York, NY
LGBT Independence Project assists lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people as they outgrow the New York City foster care system. The organization is a resource for LGBT foster care youth in numerous areas including job placement, housing, education, and advocacy.

Chaumtoli Huq, Wheels of Justice, New York, NY
Wheels of Justice provides legal support through direct representation, policy initiatives and community education to New York’s taxi drivers, most of whom are immigrants. The long-term goal is to develop a legal advocacy model for the taxi industry which has a multi-lingual, transient workforce often excluded from traditional labor laws because of their independent contractor status.

Aida Leon, Amethyst Women’s Project, Brooklyn, NY
Amethyst Women’s Project assists women, many of who are sex workers in Coney Island, and their children affected by addiction. Operating in a community with few social services where drug use is highly prevalent, Amethyst is committed to rebuilding the neighborhood by fighting addiction. The organization is comprised of residents who are in recovery, professionals in the field of substance abuse and concerned members of the community.

Monami Maulik, Desi Reel Newz Project, Queens, NY
Desi Reel Newz Project trains low-income South Asian youth in grassroots organizing around immigrants’ rights and racial justice through community video and documentation. Desi is a common term used by people of South Asian descent, particularly youth, to identify people from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and parts of the Diaspora including Africa, England, Fiji, Guyana, and Trinidad.

Raeshma Razvi, The Documentary Project for Refugee Youth, New York, NY
The Documentary Project for Refugee Youth is a collaboration between community organizations, artists and refugee youth in New York City that uses community-based research, artistic inquiry-interviews, photography and poetry to create work reflective of the refugee condition of displacement, desire for connection and the need for home.

Joanne Smith, Girls for Gender Equity in Sports, Brooklyn, NY
Girls for Gender Equity in Sports (GGES) creates opportunities in Brownsville and Bedford-Stuyvesant for girls aged 7-12 to play team sports while changing social attitudes in the Black community that are derogatory and discriminatory towards female athletes. The project also organizes parents around Title IX of the Education Amendment mandating that community schools and centers give girls equal opportunities, equal access, encouragement and a safe place to participate in team sports.

Walter “George Stonefish” Willis, First Nations Empowerment Project, New York, NY
The First Nations Project works to attain fair representation for native peoples living in the New York City area by focusing on the media, the political process, the arts and funding sources.

Luna Yasui, Immigrant Day Laborer Advocacy Project, New York, NY
The Immigrant Day Laborer Advocacy Project represents individual workers seeking to enforce their vocational rights; offers support for worker organizing efforts; and connects immigrant workers organizing efforts with organized labor. The long-term goal of the Project is to foster an organized immigrant day laborer community that has an array of advocacy resources and is connected to other immigrant worker initiatives.

Note to editors and reporters: Interviews with Fellows are available by contacting Amy Weil at aweil@sorosny.org. For more information or applications for the 2002 NYC Community Fellowships Program, please visit http://www.soros.org/initiatives/cf/.

These areas include access to justice for low and moderate income people; judicial independence; ending the death penalty; reducing gun violence and over-reliance on incarceration; drug policy reform; inner-city education and youth programs; fair treatment of immigrants; reproductive health and choice; campaign finance reform; and improved care of the dying.