We work with immigrant parents and students in the East Ramapo Central School District (ERCSD), which now mainly serves Black and Latin@ students, to push for change in the once excellent district which has been systematically defunded and whose programs have been dismantled by a majority-white school board. From 2017 until the beginning of the pandemic, Founder Charo Ureña held weekly office hours at Ramapo Senior High School during which she established relationships with at-risk students and learned the stories behind their struggles. During the pandemic when regular education was disrupted, we remained connected with the students and were regularly contacted by different parties in the community to assist with the specific challenges undocumented youth faced.
In partnership with several organizations, we have, since 2020, been involved in organizing to address the many educational injustices in ERCSD. In the summer of 2022 we held a 2-week community organizing intensive training with students from the district and we’ve been mentoring them since. We also are doing leadership development and organizing workshops with a group of district parents who are immigrants. If you are an East Ramapo student or parent, or an ally who’d like to be involved, please be in touch: info@proyectofarorockland.org.