Families For Freedom

Families For Freedom is a New York-based multi-ethnic defense network by and for immigrants facing deportation. It is a source of education and action for directly affected families, and an organizing support center for directly affected communities.  FFF works for change through community mobilization, legal advocacy, media work, and congressional outreach. FFF collaborated with CUP on the MPP Immigrants Beware!

Petra Farinha

Petra Farinha is a NY Interaction Designer with several years of experience. She works at Purpose as the Lead Interaction Designer and co-manager of the Design Department. From developing websites for large scale collective action for nonprofits, political movements  to civic engagement platforms, Petra promotes and advocates for the value of design thinking and human-centered approaches. Petra studied at ITP, Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, where she explored the possibilities of technology,  their impact in our daily routines and how they are changing the way we experience cities. Before moving to NY, Petra was a freelance interaction/ visual designer and design faculty at the School of Arts and Design in Caldas da Rainha. prntscreen.net

Students from Fast Tracked

Sarai Arroyo, Kharee Boyd, Lawrence Daise, Juan Garcia, Isaiah Ortiz, Dayhana Santos, Aldo Sorcia, Chun Fung (Ronex) Tse, Shadiq Williams, and Steven Mejas were all part of the Fast-Tracked Urban Investigation in 2011.

Ariel Fausto

Ariel Fausto is a Principal at the nationally-recognized design firm H3. As a design leader specializing in architecture for the arts, culture and public space, Ariel is interested in design that connects people to the arts, their community and each other.  From Lincoln Center Theater’s new LCT3 to a new maritime museum in Biloxi Mississippi, Ariel spearheads some of the firm’s most ambitious projects.  He studied Environmental Design as an undergraduate at Texas A&M University, and went on to receive a Masters of Architecture from MIT.

Hatuey Ramos Fermín

Hatuey Ramos Fermín is an educator and multimedia artist who uses photography, video, installation, graphics, performance, intervention, maps, sounds, and social and curatorial practices to creatively investigate issues related to urban space. His work is informed by the documentary and the fine arts.

Stephen Fiehn

Stephen Fiehn is an artist from Chicago, now based in Brooklyn, working in collaboration, performance, sound, visual art, and writing. He co-founded the collaborative art duo Cupola Bobber in 2000 and the sound group Fessenden in 2005. Other recent collaborative projects include: Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never.(2010) and Testimony 2.2 (2013) with Every house has a door. His work has been shown across the U.S. and Europe.  Most recently, Stephen worked with CUP and the Academy of Urban Planning on a two week class consisting of a series of micro-investigations viewing federal, state, and city governments through the businesses and streets of a small area in Brooklyn, NY. The class culminated with the production of a booklet titled Field Guide to Federalism: Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York in collaboration with designer Jennifer Korff.

Fifth Avenue Committee, Inc. (FAC)

Fifth Avenue Committee, Inc. (FAC) is a not-for-profit, community-based organization in lower Park Slope and South Brooklyn. FAC’s mission is to advance social and economic justice in South Brooklyn. They develop and manage affordable housing and community facilities, create economic opportunities, organize residents and workers, offer student-centered adult education and combat displacement caused by gentrification. FAC contributed to the development of What is Affordable Housing?

Esmeralda Figueroa

Esmeralda was a CUP intern. She is a rising senior at the Academy of Urban Planning. She looks forward to going to college to study business and management and later pursue a career in art and design.  She spends her free time sketching and enjoys trying new techniques to better her art skills.  She is passionate in keeping people united by using different forms of art to help express one another.

Pilar Finuccio

Pilar Finuccio is a Community Education Program Manager at CUP.  She is a visual designer and researcher with a commitment to creative practice and social justice. She spends her time advocating for the creation and preservation of communities, exploring methods of collaboration, and working on her listening skills. Before joining CUP, she was a Design Research Fellow at Public Policy Lab, a Communications Designer for The Department of Small Business Services’ Neighborhood Development Division, and the In-house Graphic Designer for O, Miami Poetry Festival. She received her MFA  in Design for Social Innovation from the School of Visual Arts and her BFA in Graphic Design from North Carolina State University’s  College of Design. When she’s not at CUP, she’s selling vegetables for Conuco Farm at the Ft. Greene Farmers Market or fixing something her dog, Roz, chewed.

The Fortune Society

The Fortune Society, founded in 1967, supports a broad array of alternative-to-incarceration and reentry initiatives for people with criminal records. Fortune founded the David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy (DRCPP) to coordinate Fortune’s policy development, advocacy, technical assistance, training, and community education efforts. DRCPP promotes programs that support people with criminal records, and works to change the laws and policies that create counterproductive barriers to the successful reentry of people with criminal records into our communities. The Fortune Society Collaborated with CUP on the MPP Barriers to Reentry.

Genea Foster

Genea is a Community Education Program Manager at CUP. Genea is a Brooklyn native, whose Afro-Caribbean ancestry has shaped their deep commitment to social justice. Genea is passionate about popular education as a tool for transformative action and building power in communities at the frontlines of systemic oppression. As an urban planner and organizer, Genea has worked with youth, communities of color, and municipalities towards environmental justice, climate resiliency, health equity, and food sovereignty. Genea holds a Master’s in City Planning from MIT and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from Wellesley College. Outside of work, Genea can be found veganizing recipes, talking about a just transition, and dreaming about returning to the land.

James Frankis

James’ core focus is on how design can help to empower people to discover new information and understand complex problems. During his undergrad, in Information Design he designed ways to explain complex scientific information through visualization and interaction design. This led him to being hired by the National Science Museum in London as a designer, where he worked on both exhibition and print design. James is now studying for an MFA in Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons. His work at Parsons has dealt with topics as diverse as making Neuroscience cool, food access in NY and youth empowerment in slum populations. jamesfrankis.co.uk

James was a 2013-2014 Public Access Design Fellow.

Freedom To Thrive

Freedom To Thrive works to create a world where safety means investment in people & planet and to end the punishment-based criminal and immigration systems. We are a powerful Black and brown network, centering youth, nonbinary, and femme leadership through our Freedom Cities, Freedom Campus, and ongoing prison industry divestment work. We target the root causes of criminalization and mass incarceration and confronting these oppressive systems using strategic campaigning, leadership development, and popular education.

Freedom to Thrive was founded in 1998 by visionary organizations from the U.S. and Mexico to support women of color led grassroots campaigning against transnational corporations. Ten years ago, our members cited the threats of mass incarceration and immigration detention as the most harmful systems impacting their lives. We have spent the past decade building campaigns led by Black and brown communities to confront criminalization.

Erik Freer

Erik Freer is a designer, artist and writer who lives and works in New York City. Currently, Erik works managing the graphic design at the Neue Galerie Museum in Manhattan. Erik also maintains an independent cross-disciplinary practice. Contact Erik and find out more at his website, erikfreer.com. 

Omar Freilla

Omar Freilla has been named one of “The New School of Activists Most Likely to change New York City” by City Limits magazine (2000). Raised in the South Bronx, where he continues to live, he has gained international recognition as an outspoken environmental justice activist who has dedicated himself to seeking solutions to the disproportionate environmental impacts faced by low-income communities of color. He is the founder and director of Green Worker Cooperatives (GWC), an organization dedicated to the creation of worker-owned and environmentally friendly businesses in the South Bronx. Through GWC, he is working to develop ReBuilders Source, the first worker-cooperative reuse center for building materials that will help create a new generation of “green collar” jobs and help reduce the generation and export of waste. His writing on community opposition to transportation racism in New York City was published in 2004 by South End Press in the book “Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity” edited by Robert Bullard. Omar has received numerous awards for his work including the Open Society Institute’s New York City Community Fellowship, the Union Square Award for grassroots activists, the Environmental Leadership Program fellowship, and the Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism. He has also been featured in the 2007 environmental documentary “The 11th Hour” produced by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Omar was an MPP juror.