A.C.T.I.O.N.
Activists Coming to Inform Our Neighborhoods
OUR ACTIVISTS
Alexis Davila
My name is Alexis Davila. I am eighteen years old and this is my third and last year in ACTION. ACTION has truly helped mold me into the person I am today. Being an activist is something that will never leave me no mater what journey I take. ACTION has not only built up my confidence but taught me terminology and knowledge that is crucial to live in and understand this society. This youth activist program wasn't something that I thought I would fall in love with, but i did. Yes everything didn't always run smoothly but I will never retreat my time in ACTION. My brother inspired me to join ACTION, but it was the residence of Hunts Point and the director as well as my fellow Coworkers that made me stay. The Campaign I am currently working on is Redefining Rehabilitation. This campaign focuses on three things. 1. Knowing how to act when being stopped by cops and knowing what your rights are.
2. Understanding that the jail system is no longer about making a citizen a better person but using them for labor. 3.Understanding what it actual means to be rehabilitated. There is no reason a high percentage of men go into jail being unaffiliated with gangs and come out as a gang member. The jail system is becoming a business rather then a rehabilitation center and that is unexceptionable.
Dawn Ortiz
I am Dawn Ortiz and I am 17 year old. I go to East Bronx Academy For The Future. I work on the South Bronx Greenway. I heard about A.C.T.I.O.N. from my mom. She told me about a great job experience at The Point. So I took a chance and I signed up for A.C.T.I.O.N. and about a week later I got in. In my time in A.C.T.I.O.N. I knew how much I care about my community. One reason is because I’ve lived in Hunts Point all my life. The other reason is I want to make my community better. I want to make it clean. Also, I want to make it safer for the children of The Bronx so they don’t have to be scared of their own community. In A.C.T.I.O.N. I’ve been working on the campaign called the South Bronx Greenway. The Greenway is a network of green streets that connect to parks and waterfront ways. In November 2006, the South Bronx Greenway is one of the primary goals of a comprehensive planning process for the South Bronx that began with the Hunts Point Vision Plan, issued in March 2005.
Guessan Effi
Hi, my name is Guessan Geraldine Effi. I presently go to Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, and I will happily be attending Howard University in the Fall. I presently live in the Northeastern part of the Bronx, but the Hunts Point community is truly my home.
I heard about A.C.T.I.O.N. at The Point CDC through my sixth grade teacher from Bronx Charter of the Arts. She told me about their summer interviews and told me that I should apply. So I did and I have happily been apart of A.C.T.I.O.N. for three years now. I have been working on the Urban Food Justice campaign, which is basically a campaign that encompasses the process of getting fresh, healthy, affordable produce to underserved communities. We garden and harvest alongside the community, and try every harvesting season to get them as much free produce as possible. We hold Townhall/Dinner events where we talk with the community about the things we would like to do with and for them, and have them give us feedback. The community’s feedback is key, it is what powers our activism.
On top of it all, The Point CDC - the building we work in - provides such an extraordinary working environment; one in which you experience so many amazing, friendly, caring people, who all provide an unmatched support in whatever you do. And the opportunities here are innumerable. You get exposed to a lot of organizations, there are many chances to network. In addition to that, during the A.C.T.I.O.N. year you build crucial skills: public speaking, resume writing, job training etc...
A.C.T.I.O.N. is truly a PAID program in which you receive more than you put in. I am so grateful that I am a part of it.
Ixcel Baez
Hello my name is Ixcel Baez and I am 18 years old. The school I go to is called Hyde Leadership charter school. The campaign i'm in is called Urban Food Justice and it's the South Bronx being a food desert as well as the largest food distribution in the nation. Our campaign takes action by helps planting in our community parks and giving out the fruits and vegetables that we plant. I heard about Action in my school and soon had an interview to get hired to work in the program. I really do care about the South Bronx, it is where I live in. I want to see this community grow and want to see lots of good changes.
Jordan Phillips
Hey, my name is Jordan Phillips and I'm a 16 year old that lives in Hunts Point. I've been living in Hunts Point all of my life. I actually live right across the street from the Point so I have been involved in the Point’s extra curricular activities since I was young. If I'm not at the point I’m usually skating or hanging out with my friends. What draws me to the point and why I love it is that the Point is a very open site where you can be accepted for who you are. As being a part of ACTION I'm glad to have such a wonderful opportunity to serve and educate my community about what they are blind about that's happening in their own backyard. I'm associated with the Urban Food Justice campaign. This campaign promotes food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is the having the ability to gain the best possible quality produce you can in your community. Hunts Point houses the largest Food market in the Nation and sadly we don't have access to it. Hunts Point is surrounded by plenty of unhealthy food choices. Most people don't know about that and if they do they don't know what to do about it. That's ACTION come in to inform them. ACTION has two urban farms. One located in front of the Point and one Located in riverside campus. We grow fruits and vegetables. When the produce sprouts we give the produce back to the community. We also teach cooking classes to a middle school in the community to teach them healthier alternatives than fast food.
Chenlee Carrasco
My name is Chenlee Carrasco. I am 14-years-old and the youngest member of A.C.T.I.O.N. I am a proud freshman student at Urban Assembly Bronx Studio School For Writers And Artist. I first heard of A.C.T.I.O.N from my brother Jacobchen Carrasco who is also a member. Every time he came home he would always tell me these great things the group has done and it would always excite me on how my neighborhood would become a better place. When I was young, my father Chenkon Carrasco would go to The Point to do artwork with Carey. He would bring us along when there was no one to baby sit us at home and I would always get involved in things like the Fish Parade. Most of the time my dads would win first place. When my forthteen birthday came, and since it was my first year of high school, my brother Jacob said that I should join A.C.T.I.O.N. I applied and soon after I was helping my community to be greener and healthy. When the year started for A.C.T.I.O.N there was a major set back. Hurricane Sandy had pushed back the time that we could have been working. After the hurricane we started to work on our campaigns. I had the choice of choosing one out of the 7 campaigns. I chose the Greenway campaign. A Greenway is a strip of land set aside for recreational or environmental use. A Greenway helps people identify our parks in our community. Around the Hunts Point community there are not many parks that we can go to. Sadly enough the parks that we do have are too far away from people or people feel that the path to the park is dangerous. People think they might get robbed or jumped while on their way to the parks. The objective of this campaign is to make our community greener and to lead our members of our community to our parks.
Erykah Solano
I used to come to the afterschool program before high school and always saw teens go up the stairs for some reason . I later found out that it was a group called A.C.T.I.O.N. Also, last summer I volunteered for the Summer Youth Employment Program with Visual Arts. I also hung out with SYEP A.C.T.I.O.N and loved it. Afterwards, I wanted to become a part of it so, in October, I applied and finally got in. I care about the South Bronx because it is my home and i live here too. In A.C.T.I.O.N., I’ve been working on the Sheridan Expressway campaign. In 1958, Robert Moses created the Sheridan Expressway that hasn't benefitted the Hunts Point community at all. The Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance is a coalition that has been together for over ten years. After years of thinking, it isn't just about tearing down the Sheridan Expressway, it's more about beautifying the community for its residents.
Imtiaz Shovon
My name is Imtiaz Shovon. I am 17 years old. I got to Manhattan Center For Science And Math. I care about the South Bronx because the community is not receiving the rights it deserves.The community deserves more than this. Moreover, I live in the Bronx. It is also my responsibility to take care of it. My campaign is Transit. In this campaign, we teach the community the new updates, how to use alternate transportation and fight for a Rider representative on the MTA Board. For example, some methods of alternate transportation are walking, biking, skateboarding, etc.
Jacob Carrasco
My name is Jacobchen Carrasco and I am 17 years old. I am finishing my senior year at the Bronx Lab School in the Evander Childs Campus. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been coming to The Point and one day when school started in September 2011, I was hanging out with my friend Victor, who is an A.C.T.I.O.N alumni, and saw a flyer posted on Sharon de la Cruz’s office (Former A.C.T.I.O.N director) and asked about it. Victor told me about the campaigns and issues that they researched on, about gardening, and how fun it is. I told him I was interested and he said that I definitely should join. I actually was one of the last people to be interviewed by Sharon. A week or two later, I got a call saying that I got in. I was pretty excited and couldn’t wait to start. After learning the ropes it was time to chose one of the seven campaigns and I joined the Transit campaign. Currently I am apart of the Fair Share campaign. My campaign focuses on Hunts Points burdens, which consist of Factories, Jails, Waste Transfer Stations and Industry. There has been a rise in asthma rates and pollution in the past decade and a lot of that revolves on the over-industrialization of the Hunts Point community.
Justin McMillan
I am Justin Mcmillan and I am 17-years-old. Why did I join A.C.T.I.O.N? Well, why now I lived here all my life and have always been exposed to people fighting for action so I joined A.C.T.I.O.N. My love for Hunts Points are deeply rooted here and that’s what I do. What I do in A.C.T.I.O.N. is work on the South Bronx Greenway campaign. The greenway is medians in our road that helps bring in more green space and clean air.
Mandy Lopez
My name is Mandy Lopez. I’m 16 years old and attend Bronx High School For The Visual Arts. I’m from Hunts Point Ave and Im currently an A.C.T.I.O.N. member at The Point. How I got into A.C.T.I.O.N. was really rare. A group of old A.C.T.I.O.N. members were flyering and I happened to get one at the local chicken spot in Hunts Point and was interested. After that, I completed multiple steps of getting into A.C.T.I.O.N. and all the interviewing process. I finally got accepted and now I’m a happy proud A.C.T.I.O.N. member! Born and raised in the South Bronx so I care so much about the Hunts Point community, because I've seen so much potential and ability come out from the people of Hunts Point. The campaign I work with is Environmental Stewardship. It connects to the South Bronx because there is a South Bronx Greenway that connects parks and also the campaign influences Hunts Point on gardening and keeping the community clean and Going Green!
Maya Davila
My Name is Maya Danielle Davila, I am 16-years-old and a sophomore at the Academy of Mount ST Ursula. I am a first year at action and have been apart of the point community since I was 8. The reason I joined action was because I wanted to make a difference in the neighborhood that I hold so dear. I wanted be apart of a group of teenagers working towards a common goal for the good of the community, I believe I have found that in action. My campaign is Environmental stewardship, Environmental Stewardship is anything and everything that has to do with taking ownership and responsibility over your environment. It is making an effort to lessen your carbon foot print. It can be anything as small as changing your light bulbs to CFL's (compact Florescent Light bulbs), which are environmentally friendly, or as much as volunteering for a park/Green-way/community-garden or community clean-up.
Marissa Alicea
My name is Marissa, I’m 17 years old and I study at Hyde Leadership Charter School. I heard about ACTION through Sharon de la Cruz who came to the my school to discuss activities The Point. I was a part program called the Youth Empowerment Program where I learned to be an advocate for my community. I wanted to more than just that i wanted to work around activism. It was important for me to join ACTION. The South Bronx is where I am from. It is my home. My home deserves to be beautified and taken care of. My campaign is the Sheridan campaign. The purpose of this campaign is to inform the community the use of the Sheridan. It is a route used by trucks. These trucks make it dangerous for pedestrians to cross on local streets and adds to the neighborhood's asthma rates because of the pollution they create. Through this campaign we try to also find ways on how to prevent less of these issues.
Omar Rodriguez
President of Action
My name is Omar Rodriguez. I am 17-years-old and I'm a senior in high school. The school I go to is Explorations Academy. I first heard of A.C.T.I.O.N. from my older brother. He told me that it's a good opportunity to learn about the community and a good resource for information. I care a lot for the South Bronx. The reason I care for it is because I live here. This is my home and I take it personally when people who don't live here decide what they want in our community. I don't want people to go through things that people use to or currently go through in our community. There's a lot of things that go on in the South Bronx and people don't know about it. If they do know, they won't really do anything about it because they rather don't know what to do, or they don't even care. I was always a curious person and for a while I wanted to do something for the community. I thought the main issues were littering and pollution, but then I decided to sign up for A.C.T.I.O.N. and got hired and learned that the issues were more than just litter. The campaign I was working on this year was Fair Share. Fair Share is the equal distribution of burdens throughout a city. Hunts Point has a lot of industry in it such as waste transfer stations and the biggest food market in the nation, while other places like Manhattan doesn't have anything. The point of this campaign is to make sure that not only one community has to take in a lot of burdens that other communities took a part in making.
Ruth Tirado
Hello, my name is Ruth Tirado. I’m 18 years old and I’m in Hyde Leadership Charter School. Currently, I’m in the Transit Campaign. When I first started out in A.C.T.I.O.N., I was in the Urban Food Justice Campaign. In fact, it was because of food that I was able to join A.C.T.I.O.N. During my sophomore and junior year of high school, I was researching the kinds of food in our country. I came across mostly fast food. In this, I saw the correlation between fast food and low-income communities. Wanting to change this, I first started to fix my own diet. I started eating a plant-based diet and drinking a lot of water. I got into A.C.T.I.O.N. with the knowledge I already had and set out to change things in my community. After a year of gardening, and serving my community by facilitating healthy eating workshops, I saw Hunts Point in a different light. I saw that it had the potential to be a great place despite what everyone thinks. That’s why I care about A.C.T.I.O.N. Then I switched to the Transit Campaign. In this campaign, I learned about how the public transportation system in New York serves Hunts Point and what could be better. I also learned alternative modes of transportation and got my own longboard. I saw how badly fare hikes hurt my community. This is something I’m working on because despite what most people may think, Hunts Point is full of great people that deserve to be listened to. I should know –I know a lot of them.
Rossemary Gomez
Vice President of Action
My name is Rossemary Gomez. I am 17 years old. I attend Hyde Leadership Charter School. My high school is a type of school that works with the community. They believe that school should always have a connection with local organizations, because school is not everything. One day when on my sophmore class my english teacher, Mr. Fusco, gave us an assignment of a research paper. My topic, was about food justice and I came to the Point a local organization and did some interview with some ACTION members. Over the last 3 years in America, my life has completely changed. I have used my newfound English voice to work with local organizations such as A.C.T.I.O.N (Activists Coming Together to Inform Our Neighborhood) to help educate our community about social justice issues. One of the main problems in the South Bronx, my community, is people normalizing inequality. Whereas highways are only on the outskirts of Manhattan they run right through my neighborhood. The Sheridan Expressway, a mostly unnecessary route, has done nothing but add more danger, and given us one of the worse asthma rates in the country.
Sasha Matta
My name is Sasha Matta and I am seventeen-years-old. I go to the High School of Art And Design. In A.C.T.I.O.N., I am in the Transit Campaign. In my campaign we focus on informing the community about the many things happening with Transit in New York City. Such as service changes and even fare hikes. Recently in my campaign the new big issue is to get a rider representative, which would be a person who actually uses the MTA system (Metropolitan Transit Authority) to talk on the MTA board, which is a board that deals with all of MTA's business.
I got into A.C.T.I.O.N because my older sister was in A.C.T.I.O.N for 4 years and I always wondered what A.C.T.I.O.N was and what they did. Then my friend and coworker now told me more about A.C.T.I.O.N and told me I should join when I made it into High School. So in my second year I applied and got in. I care about the South Bronx because since I was little I always, with my mother, helped to clean up rivers and parks and realized I liked to see my community beautified.
Savannah McDaniel
My name is Savannah McDaniel. I’m 17 years old and I attend Bronx Community High School located on the Stevenson High School campus. I live in Throggs Neck and work at The Point as an A.C.T.I.O.N member. My aunt went to Fordham University and did Urban Studies, for her field study she worked at The Point and told me all the fun she had working with everyone. She brought me with her one day during the summer of 2011 for Mormon Volunteer Day. I found out they had a summer program for teens and I thought it was interesting and a good opportunity.
My great-grandparents came here from Puerto Rico; my family has been born and raised in the South Bronx. Growing up in Throggs Neck, I’ve seen the difference in how whites are treated by police in comparison to people living in low-income neighborhoods of color. This is why my campaign is Redefining Rehabilitation. It connects to the South Bronx because it talks about how jails aren’t being used for rehabilitation as originally intended and instead are being used as a business. People are being used as labor workers within jails to fill a certain quota. It’s also no coincidence that people of color in low income communities have the highest incarceration rates. That’s why my campaign also works to let people know their rights!
Yves Celestin
Yves Celestin
17
Hyde Leadership Charter School
Redefining Rehabilitation
I came to ACTION to help better my community. I heard through my best friend that ACTION was about teen activists coming together to create campaigns that would inform the community of different injustices. The campaign that I have been mostly apart of for my entire 2 years of ACTIONS is Redefining Rehabilitation. This campaign was created to inform ourselves, teen activist, of the jail system in Hunts Point. Then using our knowledge to inform the community of our rights to better defend ourselves against unjustified police interventions. I care about the South Bronx because its the place I call home. The South Bronx is where I've lived all my life. First I lived in Coster Street until I was 2, then moved to East Tremont. Hunts Point is my home, ACTION is where i learn to help others.