OUR PAST ACTIVITIES & ANNUAL REPORTS
/ ХРОНИКА НАШЕЙ РАБОТЫ
2022
This year, we were pleased to join We Are All America Opportunity Table and its numerous activities. WAAA generously supported our project “Collaborative Efforts between Ukrainian Refugees and Russian Asylum Seekers working on Immigration Relief and Social Services Advocacy”.
In December 2022, RCC took part in WAAA National Convention at the National Harbor near Washington DC and submitted our presentation which was included in the convention’s materials. You can view the visual part of our report here: https://rcc-amrusrights.org/what_we_do/ /
В этом году мы стали коллективным членом сообщества иммигрантских организаций США “Мы все – Америка” (WAAA), которое предоставило поддержку нашим антивоенным круглым столам деятелей украинской и российской диаспор на темы иммиграции и беженства и связанной с этим работе.
В декабре 2022 г. мы приняли участие в общеамериканском съезде WAAA в пригороде Вашингтона Нэшнл-Харбор. С визуальной частью нашего доклада, включённого в материалы съезда, можно познакомиться здесь: https://rcc-amrusrights.org/what_we_do/
2021
2020
This year, we launched and produced, for more than seven months, a COVID-19 and Russian-speaking diasporas’ news weekly, that was read by thousands via email and on our Facebook pages https://bit.ly/2KR006p; we pushed, publicly and privately, for more attention and support for those fighting for their rights in Russia and Belarus, including with our appeal to the leadership of both major parties on Russia’s Day of Political Prisoners https://bit.ly/3h8OFei; we spoke up about our policy proposals at the virtual National Immigrant Integration Conference; and we strategized on the human rights agenda in the US-Russian relations (with remarks by Dmitri Glinski at our Human Rights Day roundtable subsequently published by the legendary Moscow Helsinki Group on their website).
2019
On Jan. 14, we partnered with the Kyrgyz American Foundation on the opening night of the spectacular Eurasia Festival that brought together extraordinary classical music performers and opera singers from former Soviet countries. Thanks to its organizer as well as an excellent pianist Aza Sydykov.
2018
On Oct. 16, we held our annual celebration at the CUNY Graduate Center. We were honored to receive a Citation from New York State Assembly, presented to us in person by Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz. The second part of the evening, titled ‘Songs of Resistance,’ was dedicated to the centenary of Alexander Galich (Ginzburg) (1918-1977), a distinguished Russian poet, singer, and human rights advocate, born in Dnipro, Ukraine in a Jewish family, who studied and rose to fame in Moscow, becoming the preeminent bard of the Soviet human rights movement, was pushed into exile and lived as a refugee in Norway, Germany and France, where he died of an accident in Paris. On the picture below, Andrew Grigorenko, President of General Petro Grigorenko Foundation and one of the longtime leaders of the Ukrainian-American human rights community, is reminiscing at our event about his encounters with Galich in 1975-76 in Munich where both were working at the time for Radio Liberty.
In June, during the Immigrant Heritage Month, we released our first annual report on immigrants from former Soviet countries in New York, the overwhelming majority of whom are also native Russian speakers. Taken together, this is the third largest linguistic minority both in our city and in our state. Our report called for action by City and State governments, with private foundation and corporate support, to drastically expand funding and capacity-building assistance to the nonprofit organizations that are led by and serving Russian-speaking/FSU immigrants and refugees (especially given the increase in the flow of asylum seekers and refugees from dictatorship in Russia and the war zone in East Ukraine). We also called for the establishment of an institute for the study of diasporas from former Soviet countries at one of CUNY colleges.
2017
OUR ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2017 / НАШ ГОДОВОЙ ОТЧЁТ ЗА 2017 Г.
2016
On June 14, 2016, RCC, along with the American Russian-speaking Association for Civil & Human Rights (ARA), led a delegation of Russian and Ukrainian Americans to the White House Heritage Day. From left to right: Andrew Grigorenko, President, General Petro Grigorenko Foundation; Natalia Mizuri, Vice President, Pushkin Society of America; Dmitri Glinski, President, RCC; Sylvia Ryabichev, RCC Cultural Affairs Coordinator; Dimitri Bakhroushin, Vice President, RCC; Olga Petrova, RCC volunteer; Gleb Vakhrushev, RUSA-LGBT/ARA volunteer.
2015
Since 2015, we have been among the 80+ members of the NY Coalition to Expand Voting Rights (iVote) and its successor “Our City, Our Vote” (its list of members can be found here). We took part in their campaigns that resulted in the passage in 2021 of NYC Local Law 11 providing non-citizen residents of NYC with voting rights in municipal elections (the future status of this law is currently being decided by NYS Court of Appeals). / С 2015 г. мы участвовали в коалиции около 80 НКО за расширение активного избирательного права и в последующей коалиции “Наш город, наш голос” (список её участников – здесь). В результате проводившихся нашими коалициями кампаний в 2021 г. был принят городской закон о предоставлении нью-йоркцам – негражданам США права голосовать на муниципальных выборах (судебная тяжба, инициированная противниками этого закона, в настоящее рассматривается апелляционным судом штата Нью-Йорк)
2014
Thank you to all those who helped us organize and hold important events throughout 2014, raising awareness of our city’s diversity and our people’s contributions, advancing our community’s interests, and sending our message of solidarity with human and civil rights defenders in our native country. With your support, in this past year, we were able to:
– Open our part-time pro bono immigration attorney office in NYC, to serve the growing number of asylum seekers and other immigrants from Russia and post-Soviet Eurasia who face significant barriers to obtaining these services from other sources;
– Hold community forums with NYC’s Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Nisha Agarwal, as well as representatives of Department of Youth and Community Development, Human Resources Administration, and NYC Human Rights Commission;
– Continue RCCMB’s pursuit of language access equality for Russian-speaking voters in New York, with our testimony to the Campaign Finance Board’s Voters Assistance Advisory Committee;
– Get RCCMB cleared for our first contract with NYC’s Department of Youth and Community Development, thanks to discretionary awards from our Councilmembers Ydanis Rodriguez and Mark Levine;
– Deepen our unique collaboration with the Black community and other minorities in our joint struggle for a more equitable immigrant integration in NYC;
– Organize and host a joint community forum at Columbia University with ARA’s French counterpart, Association Russie-Libertes, as well as a joint Ukrainian-Russian antiwar forum, also at Columbia University;
– Organize and co-organize, on behalf of ARA, the first-ever joint Russian-Ukrainian diaspora rallies on September 21 that brought together over 1,000 people in six US cities (New York, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Houston) in protest against the Russian government’s military interference in Ukraine and in defense of peace between these two countries;
– Launch the first-ever Russian-speaking Diaspora Justice Award that ARA and RCCMB co-founded jointly with The Andrei Sakharov Foundation, General Petro Grigorenko Foundation, Lodyjensky Immigration Archive Center of Russian and Ukrainian Culture, The Pushkin Society of America, as well as distinguished community leaders – Reverend Michael Aksionov Meerson (of The Orthodox Church of Christ the Savior in New York City), Rabbi Leonid Feldman (of Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, FL), Boris Tenzer (talk show host at RTN-WMNB), and Tatiana Yankelevich (Harvard University associate).
2013
We’d like to thank all our volunteers who helped us organize and hold important events throughout the year 2013, advancing the interests of our community, immigrant integration, raising awareness of Russian-American past and present, and sending our collective message of solidarity with human and civil rights advocates in our native country. To list just a few of these events:
~ RCCMB-organized series of first-ever meetings of Russian-Americans in Northern Manhattan with our elected officials, that gave us the chance to discuss economic integration, intercultural dialogue, equal opportunity in government employment, and other issues;
~ our third annual conference on the history of the struggle for the freedom of emigration from the former Soviet Union; this year, it was held in honor of the 50th anniversary of Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.’s advocacy for the civil rights of Jews in the USSR, and co-organized with The Black Institute and Jewish Labor Committee; we were proud and honored to share the stage with Harry Belafonte, the leaders of the Soviet Jewry movement of the 60s-80s Glenn Richter and Jerry Goodman, Congressman Charles Rangel, and other distinguished participants;
~ RCCMB participation in the research for the Center for an Urban Future’ report on elderly immigrants in NYC, with subsequent panel presentation with Department for the Aging Commissioner Lilliam Barrios-Paoli and other leading experts in the field;
~ RCCMB participation in the events of The New York Immigration Coalition, including:
- Immigrant Leadership Summit in Albany,
- the work of the NYIC campaign arm advocating for comprehesive immigration reform,
- joint press conference on immigrant voting power on the steps of City Hall with Congressman Jose Serrano and other leaders,
- and joint presentation of our proposals for the incoming administration of NYC Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio.
~ participation in the National Immigrant Integration Conference in Miami (December 2013), featuring US Secretary of Labor Tom Perez and other distinguished speakers.
2012
Nov. 15 – We co-sponsored, together with The New York Immigration Coalition, The New Sanctuary Coalition, and many others, a rally in NYC for immigration reform / В ноябре мы выступили соорганизаторами, совместно с Нью-Йоркской иммиграционной коалицией и ещё двумя десятками НКО, митинга возле Уолл-стрита в Нью-Йорке за иммиграционную реформу, которая уравняла бы всех иммигрантов в правах и предоставила им всем независимо от нынешнего статуса возможность получения гражданства США в будущем.
March 14 – Along with 32BJ SEIU, Arab-American Association of New York, Emerald Isle Immigration Center, Haitian-Americans United for Progress, Minkwon Center for Community Action, Russian-American Voters Education League, and other leading immigrant advocacy NGOs, we co-chaired the Immigrants’ Action Day in Albany that was organized with participation of 70 organizations: / В марте 2012 г. наша организация РОСМБ была в числе сопредседателей Дня продвижения интересов иммигрантов в законодательном собрании штата Нью-Йорк в Олбани; в мероприятии участвовали 70 организаций, а вместе с нами сопредседателями были крупнейший профсоюз работников сферы обслуживания 32BJ SEIU и объединения арабских, ирландских, гаитянских, корейских и латиноамериканских организаций:
2011
RCCMB BOARD OF DIRECTORS STATEMENT ON LANGUAGE ACCESS
The Board of Directors of RCCMB has issued the following statement on the implementation of language access policies by New York State agencies:
“The Russian-Speaking Community Council of Manhattan and the Bronx, Inc. applauds the series of legislative and executive actions by New York State and City autorities in recent years that have been geared toward providing language access to government services for immigrant communities. In particular, we celebrate and commend Governor Andrew Cuomo’s milestone executive order No. 26 on statewide language access policy. We are especially pleased by it since our individual members took part in advocacy for expanded language access during the 2011 Immigrant Action Day in Albany by the New York Immigration Coalition.
We believe that the proper implementation of this order is a crucial next step. In this regard, we note that some state agencies have recently installed Google Translate programs on their websites. Thus, for example, the Division of Housing & Community Renewal uses Google Translate to provide foreign-language versions of its 43 Fact Sheets about rent regulation (http://nysdhcr.gov/Rent/
We are well aware that the implementation of the provisions of Governor’s Executive Order No. 26 has only begun and will take time. We trust that the methods and approaches used by State agencies in their individual language access plans will provide usable translations of vital documents and forms into relevant languages. We believe that the involvement and input of immigrant community-based organizations is essential for successfully putting this decision into practice.”
ЗАЯВЛЕНИЕ СОВЕТА ДИРЕКТОРОВ РОСМБ О ПЕРЕВОДЕ ДОКУМЕНТАЦИИ ВЕДОМСТВ ШТАТА НА РУССКИЙ ЯЗЫК
Совет директоров РОСМБ выступил со следующим заявлением:
“Русскоязычный общественный совет Манхэттена и Бронкса приветствует и поддерживает изданные в последние годы законодательные акты и указы властей города и штата, которые направлены на обеспечение равного доступа к услугам государственных ведомств для иммигрантов, не в полной мере владеющих английским языком. Изданный 6 октября указ №26 губернатора Куомо является исторически важным шагом в этом направлении. Для нас это имеет особое значение, поскольку ряд наших членов-учредителей принимали участие в кампании за предоставление государственных услуг на языках иммигрантов, в рамках ежегодного Дня иммигранта в Олбани под эгидой Нью-Йоркской иммиграционной коалиции.
Теперь крайне важно обеспечить исполнение буквы и духа этого указа. В этой связи мы отмечаем, что некоторые ведомства штата недавно установили на своих вебсайтах программу Google Translate. В частности, жилищный департамент использует ее на своем сайте для перевода 43 основных информационных документов о регулировании арендной платы (http://nysdhcr.gov/Rent/
Мы понимаем, что работа по исполнению указа только начинается и займет время. Уверены, что предусмотренными в указе индивидуальными планами отдельных ведомств по его исполнению будут избраны такие методы и подходы, которые позволят предоставить переводы необходимых документов на соответствующие языки на высоком уровне. Считаем, что участие в той или иной форме иммигрантских организаций в выработке этих планов было бы важно для успешного исполнения указа.”
RUSSIAN-SPEAKING COMMUNITY COUNCIL OF MANHATTAN & THE BRONX CO-SPONSORS HOUSING AND SAFETY FORUM IN WASHINGTON HEIGHTS
On Sunday 10/23, the Russian-Speaking Community Council of Manhattan and the Bronx (RCCMB) co-sponsored the Housing and Safety Forum, organized by the Center Altagracia for Faith and Justice at St.Elizabeth Church. The introductory remarks were presented by the Center’s director of social justice ministry Kathryn Anderson and RCCMB founding president Dmitri Daniel Glinski, who noted the importance of interfaith and inter-ethnic organizing around the shared values of social justice. The forum was keynoted by Councilmembers Robert Jackson and Ydanis Rodriguez and included panelists from NYPD’s 34th Precinct Community Council, NYC’s Housing Preservation and Development, and NYS’s Department of Housing and Community Renewal.
It was the first time that such a forum was conducted jointly by a Russian-speaking and a Hispanic organization, with interpetation provided in both languages. The Forum was attended by RCCMB Vice President Vladimir Gutkin; Board Chair Victor Levin; and Board Members Margaret Gorelik, Lisa Eisenberg, and Alex Yegudin. The Russian-speaking participants raised a range of issues, including availability of Mitchell-Lama housing; tenant rights of children who expect to return from college to the apartment rented by their parents; and language access policies of individual New York State agencies, in the light of the latest executive order on statewide language access policy issued by Governor Cuomo. RCCMB representatives raised questions about the usefulness of Google Translate on the DHCR website as a tool for language access implementation and were assured that their concerns would be taken into account.
Информационное сообщение
РУССКОЯЗЫЧНЫЙ ОБЩЕСТВЕННЫЙ СОВЕТ МАНХЭТТЕНА И БРОНКСА ВЫСТУПИЛ СО-ОРГАНИЗАТОРОМ ВСТРЕЧИ С ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЯМИ ГОРОДСКИХ И ШТАТСКИХ ВЛАСТЕЙ В WASHINGTON HEIGHTS
23 октября недавно зарегистрированный Русскоязычный общественный совет Манхэттена и Бронкса (РОСМБ) выступил со-организатором общественного форума по вопросам жилья и безопасности в северном Манхэттене с участием представителей законодательной власти города, а также жилищных служб города и штата. Форум проводился по инициативе испаноязычной организации – Центра “Альтаграсия” за веру и справедливость” – и стал первым мероприятием на памяти жителей района, которое проводилось с переводом не только на испанский, но и на русский язык. При открытии форума выступили директор Центра “Альтаграсия” по вопросам социальной справедливости Катрин Андерсон и президент РОСМБ Дмитрий Глинский, говоривший о необходимости развития сотрудничества по социально-экономическим вопросам между различными этническими группами и конфессиями Северного Манхэттена. Главными выступающими на форуме были члены горсовета Роберт Джексон и Иданис Родригес, вслед за которыми выступили представители жилищных департаментов города и штата.
Русскоязычные участники форума поставили перед выступавшими ряд вопросов, в том числе связанных с программой доступного жилья “Митчел-Лама”, правами на жилье детей квартиросьемщиков, а также доступностью документов и официальных разъяснений на русском языке, в свете указа губернатора Куомо об обязательном переводе основных документов на шесть языков. Участники выразили представителю жилищного ведомства штата точку зрения РОСМБ по вопросу использования Google Translate и получили заверения в том, что она будет доведена до сведения руководителей ведомства, ответственных за выполнение указа.
Во встрече принимали участие вице-президент РОСМБ Владимир Гуткин, председатель Совета директоров Виктор Левин, члены СД Лиза Айзенберг, Маргарита Горелик, Александр Егудин и приглашенные членами Совета другие представители русскоязычной общины.