Urban Mana
Kristian Bello, Hermon Getachew, Nilda Laguer & Lionel Ouellette, Co-Founders
Urban Mana is a community organizing and self-education resource center in East New York, Brooklyn. Urban Mana promotes access to resources and the principles of self-determination, sustainability, interconnected personal and social transformation, sustainability, interconnected personal and social transformation, and collective action for positive social change. Urban Mana is a space for voice and leadership of low-income communities of color, queer, and transgender people who believe that the solutions to the issues residents face should come from those most affected.
Programs and initiatives are developed among neighbors, families, young people, artists, poets, dreamers and visionaries who live in and know the community. Initiatives include Crystal House, a temporary low cost emergency housing for people of color activists and organizers; Netzanet (Freedom), a prison abolition and prisoner support project; No Me Juega Production, a multi-media initiative dedicated to alternative media projects; Urban Healing, a holistic healing initiative focusing on women of color and physical, mental and spiritual health; and the Community Sustainability Project, which organizes around sustaining low-income housing, utilizing the land to grow organic foods and build healthy economies.