In the hazy summer of 2013, the south Queens neighborhood of Richmond Hill, New York, was rocked by an act of violence that wrought trauma on the lives of the queer+ neighborhood residents and victims and also exposed the virulent dynamics of hatred in the West Indian conclave. A need was identified to advocate for queer people at the neighborhood level and to educate the community as a whole.
Founded in 2015 by Mohamed Q. Amin in response to anti-LGBTQ+ hate in Richmond Hill, Queens, NY, the Caribbean Equality Project (CEP) is a community-based organization that empowers, advocates for, and represents Afro and Indo-Caribbean, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, and queer Caribbean immigrants in New York City. Through public education, community organizing, civic engagement, storytelling, and cultural and social programming, the organization's work focuses on advocacy for LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights, gender equity, racial justice, immigration, and mental health services, and ending hate violence in the Caribbean diaspora. To date, CEP is the only educational-based agency serving the Caribbean-American LGBTQ+ community in New York City, with a dedicated aim to cultivating supportive and progressive Caribbean neighborhoods free of violence, oppression, and discrimination. CEP's organizing fosters solidarity, community partnerships, and greater family acceptance.
As a Black and Brown immigrant-led social justice and human rights organization, inclusivity and intersectionality are the foundation of the Caribbean Equality Project's work. The organization's liberation movement educates, inspires, uplifts, and celebrates the Black and Brown, queer and trans non-religious, Muslim, Hindu and Christian, documented and undocumented members of the Caribbean diaspora of all generations, all categories of ability, and all HIV statuses.
Additionally, the organization acts as a liaison to government agencies and elected officials with the collective vision of an equitable society based on justice, inclusivity, and equal opportunity, regardless of an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity within the Caribbean diaspora. Since the official launch of the Caribbean Equality Project on June 26, 2015, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court legalized marriage equality in all fifty states in the case Obergefell v. Hodges, the organization has made significant strides toward advancing and uplifting Caribbean LGBTQ+ immigrant voices in NYC and Caribbean diaspora.
In the face of anti-immigrant sentiment, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, gender, and racial discrimination, lack of access to health services, and hate violence at the hands of their families, friends, employers, medical professionals, and law enforcement officers (even in New York City), Caribbean Equality Project is creating sustainable and progressive Caribbean diaspora communities, free of violence and all forms of discrimination.
Year-round, the Caribbean Equality Project conducts street outreach and hosts educational workshops and programming that provides an authentic, intergenerational safe space for shared experiences by building support networks through various pioneering programs and services.
The CEP programs, services, and initiatives are intersectional, with an emphasis on, but not limited to, family acceptance, awareness, HIV/AIDS prevention and care, education, cultural performing arts, visibility at citywide LGBTQ+ pride parades and cultural festivals, all aiming to promote acceptance and reducing stigma and eliminate all forms of discrimination in NYC.
Further, in 2018, the Caribbean Equality Project held its inaugural Breaking Silences conference in Toronto, CA, to unite activists centering Caribbean people in their LGBTQ+ activism, art, and academics in a transnational space--the first international program that CEP has undertaken.
Each year, the scale and scope of the organization’s programs expand through the generous assistance of volunteers and the support of our community members and allies.
On behalf of the Caribbean Equality Project, we wish to acknowledge the land we are situated on, which includes but are not limited to, sites we now call New York City, Toronto, Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago (among others). For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, the Mississaugas of the Credit River, the Lenape, Rockaway, and Canarsie communities, as well as the Kalinago, Taino, Lokono, Akawaio, Arecuna, Macusi, Warrau, Wapisiana, Wai Wai, Patamona, and Kalina peoples.
Since time immemorial, these Indigenous communities have lived on these lands and survived genocide and forced relocation by imperial powers. The Caribbean Equality Project acknowledges that it was founded upon the death, exclusion, and erasure of many Indigenous peoples, including those on whose land we occupy and organize on, respectively. This acknowledgment demonstrates a commitment to beginning the process of working to dismantle the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism.
As we are positioned in a time of ongoing pandemics and precarity, and largely continue to gather as non-Indigenous and settler communities, it is essential to be reminded of our commitment to solidarity, coalition, and decolonization efforts in support of Indigenous communities across Turtle Island [now also called North America].
Written by Ryan Persadie and Mohamed Q. Amin
