This month, over 600 community members from all
over New York City will join elected officials,
union and grassroots leaders in the first
annual Make the Road New York
Community Assembly. Make the Road New York (MRNY) members will present the
organization’s proposals for promoting equal rights, opportunity and justice for
our communities. Officials including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and
New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson will be present to show solidarity and hear
from our members.

This Assembly will be the largest meeting of MRNY
members in the organization’s history and will provide a platform for community
members to engage directly with City, State and Federal elected officials.

Using MRNY’s participatory
style of public engagement, members will perform music and theater to highlight
these proposals and clearly illustrate the needs of New Yorkers today:

• Educational
  policy that respects the voices
  of students and parents and closes the achievement gap for low-income
  students and English Language Learners;
• Immigration
  policy that provides a path to
  citizenship, expands opportunity for native and foreign workers, and enables
  families to stay together;
• Healthy
  and affordable housing in all
  neighborhoods;
• Accountable
  policing that respects the
  rights of community members – particularly young people, immigrants and
  the LGBT community;
• Equal
  access to government benefits
  and services through comprehensive interpretation and translation services;
  and
• Dignity
  and economic opportunity for all
  workers.

The Assembly represents the
next step in MRNY’s ongoing political engagement to improve the lives of
low-income New Yorkers, immigrants and people of color. Over the last 10 years,
Make the Road New York has achieved broad policy change through advocacy,
forming partnerships and developing strong coalitions – from the grassroots to Washington D.C.

Through the organization’s
neighbor-to-neighbor voter engagement project, MRNY members knocked on over
10,000 doors in Queens and Brooklyn in each of
the past three election cycles, and increased
electoral participation by 25% in those districts. In addition, over the
last decade MRNY’s civic engagement project has helped to obtain citizenship for over 15,000 New Yorkers.

The Assembly will take place
on Saturday, February 23, 2008, from
2PM-5PM at the community auditorium located on 143-09 Holly Avenue (corner
of Holly Ave. & Smart Street), Flushing, NY 11355. Please join us in
solidarity!