we build power by investing in people
our mission:
El Grito focuses on engaging and empowering communities historically and directly impacted by the criminal justice system, housing crisis, displacement and invisibility by neglect of attention and rights; documenting and actively denouncing the abuse and neglect for restorative justice efforts.
El Grito aims to cultivate stronger communities with cultural programs and projects that use the arts and history to facilitate the education and development of community sustained initiatives of solidarity in action, peaceful resistance and community resilience.
By becoming stronger communities, we can then also be empowered to shift efforts in support of other autonomous community efforts that address immediate needs in times of crisis.
our story:
El Grito is a longtime grassroots organization using the arts and social justice to advocate for housing rights, police accountability, and youth empowerment. It was founded from the experiences of communities that have borne the brunt of historic disinvestment and hyper policing.
For over a decade, El Grito has been at the forefront of community-based advocacy efforts that dealt with the concerns about police brutality and economic justice in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It works to develop community models that invest in people through economic and social support, networks to strengthen trust, equity initiatives, and cultural enrichment.
In 2002, El Grito’s founder was arrested and assaulted for filming police as they harassed a group of youth in Brooklyn, NY. At the time, New York City was at the cusp of an era of policing that would reshape the City. A rising number of police brutality incidents and protests would become one of the precursors to the social justice movements of today. It was in this era of social unrest and injustice that El Grito would lay down community organizing roots that would serve it for years to come.
Today, El Grito builds power by investing in people. Through community organizing, it develops cross-generational networks of social resources that include young people and also elders who have been part of resistance movements of the past. They also connect people from across cultures, bridging the experiences of marginalized people from different backgrounds towards common points of interest. These networks strengthen trust and solidarity across not only immediate neighborhoods, but connect people from across the City, the country, and the planet.
Through its copwatching and court support efforts, El Grito built a reputation of holding law enforcement accountable. El Grito also supports justice-involved community members navigate through the criminal justice system by putting them in contact with trusted legal advocates and providing guidance on court navigation. When appropriate, El Grito also uses its resources and networks to host rallies, protests, town halls and press conferences to raise issues in the public and to diffuse negative perceptions often related to criminalization.
In a rapidly changing city, El Grito’s work supports tenants from low-income and immigrant communities by using its networks to mobilize advocates, provide media support, and organize direct actions. This includes tenants fighting landlord abuse or protesting lack of services at the where they live. El Grito also takes on larger public policy issues of gentrification, housing injustice, and the systemic displacement of some of the City’ most vulnerable residents.
Through the years Sunset Park has grown in diversity, and with it the tolerance, pride, and festivities of the cultures that allow us to call it our home. The neighborhood has had, and will continue to have many flags hanging from its windows and awnings. It is with this same dignity and unity that the neighborhood continues to build multicultural bridges, cultivate community strength, and maintain safety for Sunset Park and beyond. As a result of El Grito’s sustained organizing efforts, it has expanded its work from a focus on the Sunset Park community to New York City more broadly.
El Grito’s work is liberation work. As the diaspora of Puerto Rico and all Latin Americans reflects the multicultural origins of our strength, El Grito believes our collective future can and will be built on the strength of all communities that respond to the call, the grito, to preserve community, restore justice and build grassroots power for all oppressed communities.