Public advocate creates five community organizer positions
From left, the new community organizers Keeshan Harley, Hadeel Mishal, Elizabeth Kennedy, Ivie Bien-Aime and Steve Fox Offi ce of Public Advocate
By Nelson A. King
Public Advocate Jumaane D.
Williams on Tuesday announced
the creation of five community
organizer positions within the
Office of Public Advocate, each
focusing on designated issuebased
areas to build coalitions
for change, as well as the organizers
who will fill those roles.
Williams said this is the latest
in a series of organizational
restructurings designed to better
serve New Yorkers across
the city.
“When I first started working
as a community organizer
two decades ago, before
President Barack Obama, people
questioned what community
organizing was and what
organizers did,” said Williams
in making the announcement.
“Since then, organizers across
the city and nation have shown
how this work creates change.
“Now, I’m excited to expand
the organizing strength of this
office to engage and uplift communities
Caribbean L 16 ife, DECEMBER 6-12, 2019
across our city, and
for our new organizers to be
agents of change,” he added.
Williams said the new community
organizers work with
local constituencies on grassroots
campaigns across their
specific area of focus, as well as
conduct research on policy and
legislation.
He said they will implement
campaigns and initiatives
within these issue portfolios,
working with advocacy groups
and community-based organizations.
Williams said the positions
are designed in line with his
activist-elected official strategy,
community organizing background
and newly developed
structure for the office.
Tuesday’s announcement
comes after the previous
appointments of deputy public
advocates, with each community
organizer directly aligned
with the deputy public advocate’s
portfolios.
Williams said the Community
Organizers will work with
the five Deputy Public Advocates
in the areas of Housing
Equity; Infrastructure and
Environmental Justice; Justice,
Health Equity and Safety; Education
and Opportunity; and
Civic and Community Empowerment.
The newly-announced community
organizers are: Ivie Bien-
Aime — Community Organizer
of Housing Equity; Steve Fox
– Infrastructure and Environmental
Justice; Keeshan Harley
— Justice, Health Equity
and Safety; Elizabeth Kennedy
— Education and Opportunity;
and Hadeel Mishal — Civic and
Community Empowerment.
Williams said Bien-Aime is
an experienced AmeriCorps
V.I.S.T.A. tenant organizer and
former site director of a COMPASS
Elementary After School
Program. She has previously
held three community engagement
positions with the NYC
Department of Education as
school based parent coordinator,
district family advocate and
family leadership coordinator.
Fox comes to the Office of
the Public Advocate after years
organizing campaigns and consulting
in the renewable energy
sector.
Before that, he organized
and developed offices for the
Community Voters Project,
which registered over 165,000
African American and Latino
voters in six states, focusing on
states that had recently passed
discriminatory voter ID laws,
Williams said.
He said Harley has “fully
dedicated the last four years of
his life to community organizing
and forwarding public
policy in New York City.”