Brooklyn Bridge Initiative

The Brooklyn Bridge Initiative is a place making, restorative/social justice community placemaking and organizing imitative from the Afro Caribbean Cultural Center and community partners. This initiative strives to make the neighborhood greener, cleaner, safer and a arts/cultural hub for the City of Waterbury, that is resident led and driven.

The Mission of the Brooklyn Bridge project is to create a meaningful change to advance democracy and racial justice, using arts and place-making as a uniting activating force for residents of the neighborhood. Fostering collaboration and community investment into the neighborhood and bringing the richness of the City to the neighborhood.

Brooklyn Bridge will use the philosophy of the organization Race Forward and Americans for the Arts;

“BUILDING THE BIGGER WE.”

What is the “Bigger We?” Simply, the “Bigger We” is us.

The “Bigger We” is a vision about who we can be when we recognize that we are diverse — across race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, language, and more — and that we are interconnected. And because we are interconnected, we understand that equity and racial justice are a benefit to all of us, across our identities or backgrounds. In the Brooklyn neighborhood in Waterbury, CT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Puerto Rican (20.8%). There are also a number of people of Jamaican ancestry (14.5%), and residents who report Dominican roots (14.3%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (11.8%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (4.6%), among others.

Our mission will be to do the following;

* Increase civic participation in local elections (increase voter turnout %). Non Partisan
* GOTV Campaign for neighborhood (Early Voting Election Day & Election Day)
* Community Organizer Institute (Building and Strengthening Neighborhood Organizers/Leaders)
* Monthly Family Fun Nights
* Brooklyn Greet the Children (First Day of School Community Pep Rally) Duggan & CMS
* Brooklyn Bridge Block Party (Arts, Poetry, Music Block Party)
* LGBTQIA+ Inclusion / Healing Racism / Restorative Justice Circle Process
* Neighborhood Clean Ups
* 2 Neighborhood Murals
* Brooklyn Branded Neighborhood Pole Banners (50)