We welcome immigrants – NY City Council Speaker
New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark- Viverito has reiterated the City’s stand on immigration and the immigrant community. She was speaking at an exclusive round-table discussions with a cross section of the African ethnic media at City Hall July 21, 2016. She urged the immigrant community to get involved in the electoral processes, and challenged those without voting rights to help in any possible way they can without fear. She added that the rhetoric being spewed out by some politicians on immigrants must not intimidate or cow the community into oblivion. She reminded the media practitioners that New York City is a multicultural, multiethnic, and multi-religious enclave for immigrants and therefore “we cannot move backwards, but rather find commonalities in our diverse relations to move the City forward.”
The Speaker who was a quondam media personality, charged the African media to disseminate wide and conspicuous the messages from City Hall to their various communities. She remarked that there are grants for qualified organizations that provide services to the community and advised African communities to take advantage and apply for funds. Applications for grants are online and usually available in February. The City, the tough talking Speaker said, “needs to be more aggressive to engage the African media to help the African community with current and dynamic information such as the subsidized City Housing Lottery.” In a brief remark, the Coordinator of the African media Ms. Isseu Campbell said the African media needs partnership with City Hall for it to discharge its duties to the community and called for increased advertising money from the City. The City has had very limited engagement with ethnic media and none whatsoever with the African media until now.