Overview:
In Southeast Queens, longtime Haitian neighborhood advocates have created Frè Ak Sè, a nonprofit offering well being packages, monetary schooling, meals help and immigrant help whereas strengthening connections by means of the Haitian custom of mutual assist referred to as “konbit.”
Editor’s word: This text was initially revealed here by Epicenter NYC and has been republished by The Haitian Occasions for its relevance to our readers.
In Southeast Queens within the Seventies and Eighties, Sacred Heart Church was the Friday night time hangout for teenagers within the Haitian Creole-speaking neighborhood. Marco Solomon, Katia Celifie-Aime, Phillipe P. Titus and lots of of their friends obtained their first paid jobs there as camp counselors by means of a grant that employed younger individuals locally. Elders additionally taught them about politics overseas, civic accountability and self-empowerment.
On the time, Haitians had been leaving their homeland in massive numbers amid political, social and financial turmoil underneath the Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier dictatorship. Neighbors in Queens Village, Cambria Heights and St. Albans finally channeled that civic engagement into Haitian Americans United for Progress (HAUP), which helped newcomers with housing, well being schooling and employment.
Greater than 50 years later and simply down the block from HAUP headquarters, Solomon and his previous pals from their Sacred Coronary heart days are taking social companies on to the neighborhood with their very own nonprofit. In 2022, they based Frè Ak Sè, which implies “Brothers and Sisters” in Haitian Creole. Targeted on youth and older adults, financial growth and psychological well being, the nonprofit presents workshops and programming that meet the wants of Haitians in Southeast Queens.
Solomon describes Frè Ak Sè’s method as “konbit,” a Haitian Creole time period for mutual assist. “It’s like a spot the place individuals can come to get recommendation and get to know one another and get to know the way we are able to nonetheless acquire sure companies,” he stated, “as a result of this factor happening proper now impacts all of us.”
The founding crew sees the neighborhood dealing with comparable wants as throughout the peak of their teen years however in some methods, it’s harder to serve them. “Proper now the neighborhood is scared to dying — persons are not popping out,” stated Solomon, president of Frè Ak Sè. He cited the Trump administration’s immigration insurance policies and its current termination of Momentary Protected Standing, or TPS, for Haitians. Greater than 5,400 Haitians in New York Metropolis alone have been left susceptible to deportation by the transfer. To make issues worse, violence and instability have deepened in Haiti whilst the federal government is pushing to return immigrants there.
“So we’re caught in [between] a rock and a tough place,” Solomon stated. “We’re being persecuted right here and but we are able to’t return residence.”
Frè Ak Sè’s first occasion was a well being honest. They recruited nurses, psychological well being suppliers and different well being care professionals to volunteer to take blood pressures and talk about numerous well being matters. For Celifie-Aime, who additionally runs the Queens/Lengthy Island chapter of Black Girls Do Bike, the health-wealth connection is actual.
“Once we come into this nation, our weight-reduction plan is totally different, after which discovering our meals isn’t as recent, so persons are gaining weight and growing metabolic illness,” Celifie-Aime stated, including that not having medical health insurance provides one other entry barrier for a lot of.
Partially due to that culture-health barrier, a lot of Frè Ak Sè’s community-building work occurs by means of food-centered occasions.
“Tradition is the glue that retains us collectively,” Celifie-Aime stated.
A 12 months in the past, Frè Ak Sè moved into its headquarters on Hollis Avenue to extra instantly serve the neighborhood. The crew begins with an consumption survey on this area or at occasions, then connects neighbors with sources or companions focusing on sure companies, together with HAUP for immigration authorized assist.
On a Friday in August, they had been hunkered down within the Queens Village hub planning for a pop-up thrift occasion to boost cash for programming. Celifie-Aime stopped poring over paperwork lengthy sufficient to indicate an impromptu slideshow of a chicken farm in Haiti that the nonprofit is helps to construct to help a village’s self-sufficiency. For the crew, sustaining “konbit” with Haitians within the homeland is simply as necessary as doing so with their Queens neighbors.
To run these companies and make referrals, the nonprofit attracts on its cofounders’ many years of expertise in social work, finance, entrepreneurship, well being schooling and navigating stacks of paperwork. That features Titus, who stated he grew into his function as Frè Ak Sè’s treasurer — dealing with state registrations and filings and making a for-profit arm of the group — after working as a “common” limo driver. Their neighborhood relationships additionally prolong their attain, together with partnerships with Selah Driving Faculty for driving classes and Taurus Monetary for an upcoming monetary literacy program in native colleges.
The group has hosted meals pantry occasions in its headquarters, with the following set for September.
“After paying the hire, which takes greater than 50% of their wage, how do you go about feeding your self?” Solomon stated.
The monetary literacy periods the group commonly presents have proven them how Haiti’s many years of turmoil have affected practices round cash. “Our dad and mom didn’t educate us sure issues about funds,” Celifie-Aime stated, citing the nonetheless pervasive concern amongst Haitians round dangers corresponding to investing and shopping for property.
Now, new fears of deportation and the isolation of staying residence are compounding current housing, meals and psychological well being wants, stated Solomon, a retired social employee.
“There’s positively a determined want for what we do right here,” he stated. “As a result of you’ll be able to’t do that by your self.”
For these affected by the tip of TPS, the change has added new worries: What occurs to U.S.-born kids if their dad and mom are deported? What occurs to the home, checking account and belongings of individuals compelled in another country?
And the political scenario isn’t simply robust on neighbors with a specific immigration standing. Beneath the Trump administration, immigration enforcement has more and more affected organizations that serve migrants, issuing subpoenas, opening investigations and making visits to legal-service suppliers’ places of work to request information, all of which advocates have called intimidation tactics.
“Nonetheless, we have to do that job,” Solomon stated. “Anyone has to do it. We have to do it.”