February 13, 2012 · www.gothamgazette.com

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Neighborhood Activists' Toolkit

Toolkit Home | Getting Started | Organizing | Publicity | Online Activism

GETTING STARTED

Bryan Pu-Folkes began his community activism one day when he passed by a billboard he found offensive. He decided to fight it with a poster of his own.

In 1999, Pu-Folkes, a Jackson Heights resident born to a Burmese mother and Jamaican father, noticed the new billboard in his neighborhood, by a group called Project U.S.A., which blamed immigrants for America's traffic problems. It was one of several such billboards the anti-immigrant group had put up throughout Queens.

The young attorney turned on his computer, researched the Internet to find statistics that would refute the billboard's claims, and made his own poster. His creation in hand, Pu-Folkes set out to get his neighbors involved.

One of his first steps was the local Business Improvement District, where he convinced the executive director to endorse his effort. Pu-Folkes then took that endorsement to local merchants up and down 37th and Roosevelt Avenues -- the neighborhood's main thoroughfares -- asking the shopkeepers, who are largely immigrants themselves, if they would help pay to get the poster printed.

"I started to reach out to small businesses, because I wanted to get broad-based support," said Pu-Folkes, "and also because it was going to cost."

Within days, he had raised the money he needed to put his posters up in local subway stations. Pu-Folkes also organized a press conference which drew media and city employees, as well as the man who posted the original billboard. Pu-Folkes said his intention was never to suppress the original message, only to respond to it; but his work generated enough bad attention, he said, that the anti-immigration group now avoids New York City altogether.

"It really galvanized a lot of people," said Pu-Folkes. "We were very helpful in letting him know that there was no market for his message here."

This one-time effort turned into New Immigrant Community Empowerment, a group that organizes immigrants to become more civically involved. The lesson from that first poster campaign, Pu-Folkes said, is that your neighbors already offer a lot of resources. The trick is to learn how to tap into those resources.

TOOLS

For most neighborhood activists, the first step is knowing who to call for help.

WHO TO CALL -- There may already be community groups in your area that address your specific concerns. Here are a few good starting places for help on any neighborhood issue:

City Councilmember and Community Board

Find out who represents you:

Street address:

Zip Code:

Parent Coordinators -- for school-related issues, each school's parent coordinator is a good first step.

Inside Schools has contact information in its school profiles.

TIPS ABOUT CONTACTING PUBLIC OFFICIALS

How to Be an Effective Advocate -- From E-thepeople.org, this Web page answers ten frequently asked questions about effective advocacy. Largley, they deal with how to deal with elected officials -- for example, be specific, be polite, and don't shun an official's staff member.

The American Civil Liberties Union has guides about writing letters to and meeting with elected officals.

TIPS ON MAKING PRINTED MATERIALS

Making a Poster
Making a Brochure
Making a Newsletter

(These tips are part of the Community Tool Box published and maintained by Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development at the University of Kansas. Click here to see its main Web site.)









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