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Q&A
Distinguishing Immigrant Rights Workshops from Immigrant Rights Collaborative
3:11:00
·
8 min
Council Member Avilés seeks clarification on the differences between the Immigrant Rights Workshop and the Immigrant Rights Collaborative. MOIA officials explain the distinctions in terms of goals, services, providers, and target communities.
- Both programs aim to provide information to immigrant New Yorkers
- The main difference is in the selection of workshop locations: CBOs choose for Workshops, while the city designates for Collaborative
- The Collaborative focuses on reaching newly arrived immigrants in specific locations like HERRCs and schools
Alexa Avilés
3:11:00
So the immigrants' rights collaborative and the workshops are funded separately.
3:11:09
There's some confusion between these two, the overlaps of providers, and what exactly the additional resources providing and where.
Jasniya Sanchez
3:11:18
Okay.
3:11:19
So the immigrant rights workshops, that's a different funding source.
3:11:30
So that's a separate funding.
3:11:33
Those contracts are budgeted at $443,000 I believe, for fiscal year 'twenty five.
3:11:47
In addition to that, as part of our rapid response, we have been able to reallocate this additional funding to those existing contracts.
3:11:58
So we leverage existing contracts to expand the deliverables because
Alexa Avilés
3:12:05
that particular service Right.
3:12:05
12 of the 17.
3:12:06
Right?
3:12:07
So 17 contracts at 443,000, and 12 of the 17 have opted into an expansion.
Jasniya Sanchez
3:12:15
Correct.
Alexa Avilés
3:12:15
And how much is the expansion per organization?
Jasniya Sanchez
3:12:20
For right now, each of the 12 are getting $35,000 as part of this expansion on the disruptive response, a total of $420,000 just directly going to providers.
Alexa Avilés
3:12:40
Got it.
3:12:41
So the remainder of the $4.20 I'll say that reverse.
3:12:47
Of the $6.94 20 went to expanded services to the 12 providers that opted in and the remaining amount went to printed materials?
Jasniya Sanchez
3:12:56
To printed materials and additional fees.
3:13:00
So these contracts are actually housed under Research Foundation CUNY, and we do have to incur a 10% fee
Alexa Avilés
3:13:10
in Right.
3:13:11
So administration fee.
Jasniya Sanchez
3:13:12
So yes.
Alexa Avilés
3:13:17
It.
3:13:17
And so I'm a little confused as to whether there was any impact from the this significant transfer of resources from the WeSpeak NYC, which I think we established earlier as very much underwater and not meeting demand that a huge chunk of this money be reallocated to additional services.
3:13:41
Were there any impacts to the classes in shifting those resources?
Jasniya Sanchez
3:13:46
We have not heard that there was an impact in the classes.
3:13:51
On the contrary, through our partnership and also additional investment in fiscal twenty five under this program, and our partnership with the libraries, we have this program readily available at over 80 public library branches all throughout the five boroughs.
3:14:10
As of today, right now, there are active 78 classes that anyone that is interested in this program can sign up for.
3:14:23
And you know well there's really not sign up.
3:14:26
Folks can just walk into the class and they're welcome, right.
3:14:29
And all of this is also posted in our website in terms of the available classes.
3:14:35
So we have you know we we have been able to sustain that level of programming.
Alexa Avilés
3:14:44
So was 690,000 an overestimation on the program?
3:14:48
Like, it's baffling to me that there's and you could just reallocate money.
3:14:56
So, like, something's off with the math or with the estimation around the math.
Manuel Castro
3:15:04
I believe, and deputy Kushmita, correct me if I'm wrong, these are funds that were made available later in the fiscal year.
3:15:12
Right?
3:15:13
The allocation was to be determined.
3:15:17
Can you
Jasniya Sanchez
3:15:19
Yes.
3:15:20
So this was this was a funding that we had wanted to go to CBOs for English classes specifically, but given the point in time in where in the fiscal year when we had this funding available, we were unable to, also in a timely manner, be able to engage in a procurement process that would allow our CBOs to be granted these funding for English learning classes.
3:15:52
And in parallel, around the same time, was the federal administration elections results came in.
3:16:06
That's when the rapid response piece came in.
Alexa Avilés
3:16:10
No.
3:16:10
We're clearly robbing Peter to pay Paul.
3:16:12
I mean, need it all.
3:16:14
But I I think it's it's still a little mystifying that we can't figure out how to expand classes contracts in another matter.
3:16:30
But I don't I don't think it's worth belaboring that point.
3:16:36
Can can in terms of can you walk us through how the Immigrant Rights Workshop and the Immigrant Rights Collaborative differ in terms of their goals, services providers, and the communities they serve?
Lorena Lucero
3:16:50
Goals remain the same across both programs which are to provide immigrant New Yorkers with information.
3:16:57
Biggest difference besides the number of providers is that in the immigrant rights workshops, the CBOs themselves pick where where they provide the trainings.
3:17:12
With the immigrant rights collaborative, the city of New York indicates and identifies locations where to go because, and this is important because we wanted to make sure that some of the newest arrivals, again people who are living in Herx, and on the back end we wanted to do that coordination for the nonprofits, so we designate where they go.
3:17:35
That's the biggest difference is just the designation of where folks go.
Alexa Avilés
3:17:42
And who is determining that?
Lorena Lucero
3:17:45
Amoya.
Alexa Avilés
3:17:48
Okay.
3:17:50
And in terms of the, I guess for the service levels that are in Herx schools, I think you also said institutions of faith and you said another group of stakeholders.
3:18:02
As we're seeing decreases in Herx, are you repurposing that to other entities?
3:18:09
And the reason why I ask is because we saw a very robust response in Know Your Rights, and then it dried out almost very quickly.
3:18:21
And in fact, we've seen a retraction of Know Your Rights being pushed by the city, both from Moya and even in schools.
3:18:29
So I'm trying to understand what we're funding if we're also kind of retracting the level of services at the same time.
Lorena Lucero
3:18:41
I'm gonna try to answer your questions.
3:18:43
I think there was a couple there.
3:18:45
But in regards to the question in connection to the HIRCs, yes we're working hand in hand with our colleagues at health and hospitals to identify locations where to go and prioritizing them by language as well.
3:19:04
So ensuring that the right providers speak the right language are at the Herx.
3:19:08
Simultaneously, we're also working with the Department of Education to identify where to go and we're mapping out months just like that.
3:19:21
So all of this sort of happening altogether and also working with faith based institutions to to do some of that pairing of sites.
3:19:30
But as you mentioned, the contracts themselves are we're not going to force a provider to obviously go in person if nobody's gonna show up.
3:19:40
And that's why we're also providing virtual options for some of these trainings, but we're working closely hand in hand with our sister agencies to make that determination.