Real change requires leadership from directly impacted communities. Our leadership pipeline prepares community members for a lifetime as social justice leaders. We provide members with intensive organizing skills training, mentorship, and emotional support and connect advanced leaders to paid opportunities. All of our member committees, as well as our staff departments, regularly undergo political education sessions so that we can develop a shared vision of our conditions and the method to achieve what we need and deserve.
We support community members in achieving their goals — and provide the tools for them to help others do the same. We are experts in designing peer-to-peer programs, such as our promotora program, which trains community members to become public health advocates and attain stable careers in healthcare. Similarly, youth at our Student Success Centers apply to college with help from their peers, learning to provide the same support to others in turn.
Our Leadership School provides six weeks of intensive raining in organizing skills, political education and movement-building. Graduates can effectively speak for themselves and their community as part of our organizing and advocacy campaigns.
We train up community members to assume staff roles at MRNY and other organizations and support them as they rise through the ranks. All our staff — from our attorneys to our ESOL teachers — work with members and participants to develop an analysis of shared problems and connect them to trainings that enable them to be stronger advocates for themselves and their communities. Thanks to our leadership trainings, apprenticeship program, mentorship and other support, nearly all of our frontline staff come from the communities we serve.
- Our leadership programs will engage 6,000 community members each year by 2022.
- Hundreds of community leaders graduate from MRNY’s training programs each year.
- Dozens of MRNY youth members have gone on to work at community organizations, service agencies and government offices across the city.
- Our trained health promotoras help 2,500 people annually sign up for food stamps and learn healthy behaviors.
Mateo Guerrero, originally from Colombia, joined MRNY at the age of 15. With the support of Make the Road staff, he stabilized his immigration status, came out as a transgender man, and learned skills that allowed him to step into a staff organizer role. Mateo has led some of our most powerful organizing for immigrant rights. He inspired hundreds of people to action, by sharing his story of coming out as a trans man and organizing for the rights of immigrant youth. Having recently graduated college, Mateo is now our Trans Justice and Leadership Program Manager, working to expand the very trainings that have supported him.
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