Three Projects by the Center for Urban Pedagogy
In 2015, the James Conlon Fund contributed $20,000 to the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP). A New York-based nonprofit, CUP uses the power of design to create tools that enable meaningful civic engagement. CUP projects demystify urban policy and community planning issues, making them accessible to New York residents to enable them to better advocate for themselves or their community.
Through a collaborative process, designers, writers, community-based advocates, policymakers, and students come together to create visual material that breaks down complex information related to public policy, urban systems, and civic rights, and advises how people can participate or seek help. CUP’s tools are used by organizers and educators all over New York City and beyond.
The James Conlon Fund’s contribution supported three CUP Public Access Design projects, which are summarized below:
Get It Back!
CUP brought together The Bronx Defenders and graphic designers L + L to create Get It Back!, a guide that helps New Yorkers who have recently been arrested retrieve their possessions. The illustrated guide breaks down the property seizure and civil forfeiture processes into detailed steps, including what to do when arrested and after released.
Get It Back! launched in January 2016 at The Bronx Defender’s offices as part of a series of events for their larger campaign pushing for transparency in the civil forfeiture process.
Don’t Trash NYC
CUP teamed up with the organizations ALIGN: The Alliance for a Greater New York and Transform Don’t Trash NYC, along with animator Cole Hannan, to make a video called Don’t Trash NYC. The short animation sheds light on New York City’s commercial waste system, from trashcan to landfill, exposing the impacts it has on workers, community members, and the environment.
The video also features people engaged in the fight for a cleaner, more equitable commercial waste system, including youth from the community development non-profit The Point in the South Bronx, and former commercial waste workers.
SERVE! Street Safety for Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Youth
For trans and gender non-conforming youth of color, police profiling and harassment are the realities of everyday life. Part of the struggle to stay safe in these interactions is knowing and exercising rights. That’s why CUP teamed up with Streetwise and Safe (SAS) and designer James Dunphy to make SERVE!, a pocket-sized, know-your-rights guide to help youth advocate for themselves when they’re detained, searched, and in custody, as well as after they’re released.
SERVE! also publicizes rules that protect the rights of trans and gender non-conforming people in the NYPD Patrol Guide, the rulebook that governs how police interact with the public. The design breaks down personal rights and gives youth examples of language they can use to advocate for them. SAS Youth Leaders participated in all parts of the design process, providing feedback that ensured that the design of the guide would speak directly to their community.
SERVE! was launched at a special event at SAS, which brought together youth from organizations across NYC that serve LGBTQQ youth of color.
For more information on the Center for Urban Pedagogy, visit welcometocup.org
All images courtesy Center for Urban Pedagogy. Special thanks to CUP Program Coordinator Oscar Nuñez and Community Education Program Manager Ingrid Haftel.
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