Organization Details:

New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) is a community-based, non-profit organization that works to ensure that new immigrants can build social, political and economic power in their communities and beyond. NICE envisions a world where all people -regardless of status- live and work with dignity and justice.

Description and/or History:
NICE is in the process of transitioning to being a community based organization, increasing its membership in
order to have a strong voice in the community. It is in this way that we are creating political, economic and social
power for the immigrant community, which many times tends to be marginalized in these areas. The importance
of being a member is to fight together for the respect, defense and realization of our civil and human rights in this
country. It is the members that make the decisions of what strategy and direction the organization takes in order to
accomplish our objective of improving the well‐being of the immigrant community. Another objective of the
members is to have a stronger political voice, so we are heard by politicians when they propose laws that directly
affect our community at the local, state or federal level

NICE began as a community-led campaign to reject divisive, anti-immigrant rhetoric being propagated in New York and across the country. In 1999, the group Project USA launched a misleading billboard campaign throughout New York City. Under the leadership of Bryan Pu-Folkes, the son of immigrants and then a public-interest lawyer, a coalition of immigrants in Western Queens responded by organizing a subway poster campaign presenting facts about the contributions of immigrant communities to counter Project USA's xenophobic and divisive messages.Coalition members from the South and Central American, East Asian, South Asian, Caribbean, and Eastern European communities, united by a desire to give immigrants greater visibility and voice around the pressing needs of their communities, agreed to form NICE to sustain its collaborative work around a proactive agenda. Over the past four years, NICE has mobilized a broad base of immigrant communities to implement organizing and outreach campaigns through its three primary initiatives: the Government Access Project, the Another City is Possible political education project, and the New Immigrant Youth Initiative.

Contact person: Diana Resrepo, Office Manager, (718) 205-8796, (email)

Address:

37-41 77th Street, 2nd Floor Jackson Heights, NY 11372 (See a map)

Directions:

Our office is located at 37-41 77 th St on the second floor. Between Roosevelt Ave. and 37 Ave. Take the F/E/R/V/G pr 7 train to 74th St. Jackson Heights in Queens, New York   Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: F/E/R/V/G pr 7 train,   Walk distance (in minutes): 5