Blog - Page 4 of 47 - NYC Anti-Violence Project

AVP Condemns Anti-Black Mass Shooting Hate Violence in Buffalo

May 17, 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Cindi Creager, CreagerCole Communications (646) 279-4559, cindi@creagercole.com New York, NY – The New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP) condemns the heinous anti-African American Hate violence incident at a supermarket in Buffalo that occurred on May 14th. Statement from AVP Executive Director, Beverly Tillery: “AVP is outraged over the racist mass shooting this past weekend, which directly targeted[...]

40 Change Makers: Ovita Williams

May 10, 2022

This interview has been shortened and condensed for clarity. Ovita Williams is the Executive Director of the Action Lab for Social Justice at Columbia University and has been working with the next generation of social workers for 17 years. As an Afro-Caribbean woman whose parents immigrated to the US in the 1960s, being surrounded by people who want to shake things up and change systems is a part of Ovita’s everyday inspiration. The first tim[...]

AVP Condemns Draft Opinion Overturning Roe v. Wade

May 3, 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Cindi Creager, CreagerCole Communications (646) 279-4559, cindi@creagercole.com New York, NY – The New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP) joined the chorus of voices speaking out against the widely circulated leaked draft Supreme Court opinion that overturns Roe V Wade. Statement from AVP Executive Director, Beverly Tillery: “Overturning Roe v. Wade would unleash a direct assault on the reprod[...]

40 Change Makers: Matt Johnson

April 26, 2022

This interview has been shortened and condensed for clarity. Matt doesn’t consider himself an “activist,” so much as he considers all the things he does as work that needs to be done. Matt has worked in a variety of spaces– from promoting trans inclusivity on kink LiveJournal boards, to HIV research, to working as a hotline trainer at AVP. In his six years of producing the Folsom Street East (FSE) street festival, Matt was determined to[...]

40 Change Makers: Teal Inzunza

April 19, 2022

This interview has been shortened and condensed for clarity. Teal Inzunza knew AVP was the right place for her after receiving the call to create AVP’s Economic Empowerment Program (EEP). She’d been looking for a job that would allow her to work at the intersection of trauma and economic justice while also holding an anti-oppressive lens on LGBTQ, people of color, immigrants, and HIV-affected individuals at the forefront of the work. Teal u[...]

40 Change Makers: Karen Satin

April 1, 2022

This interview has been shortened and condensed for clarity. Karen started volunteering at AVP at the ripe age of 68. After retiring from a lifetime in the suit-and-tie sector of Wall Street, her passion for the LGBTQ+ community brought her to AVP after she researched many organizations, trying to find where she might best spend her time. AVP’s work culture and engagement with trans communities are what made her decide to get involved. “You[...]

National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) Applauds Passage of the Violence Against Women Act

March 15, 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Cindi Creager, CreagerCole Communications (646) 279-4559, cindi@creagercole.com New York, NY - The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) celebrates the passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization Act of 2022. VAWA creates and supports responses to intimate partner violence/domestic violence, sexual assault dating assault, and stalking. The legislation, signed i[...]

40 Change Makers: Kim Fountain

March 14, 2022

This interview has been shortened and condensed for clarity. As the current Chief Operating Officer of the renowned Center on Halsted in Chicago, Kim Fountain knows that her community and advocacy work there stems from her start as an AVP staffer doing everything from legislative visits, Pride events, bullhorning protests alongside people like Tish James and Sylvia Rivera, to coordinating numerous hotline and other trainings. “I am privileged[...]

40 Change Makers: Victoria Cruz

March 9, 2022

This interview has been shortened and condensed for clarity. Victoria Cruz started out the way many at AVP do — as a client. She decided to get involved because her experience working with AVP’s kind and nonjudgemental coordinators left her feeling transformed. Much of her work now is dedicated to giving queer and trans and black and brown people their power back. Cruz, known by her colleagues as “Miss Vicky,” was one of eleven children[...]

40 Change Makers: Diane Dolan-Soto

March 7, 2022

This interview has been shortened and condensed for clarity. When there were no formalized LGTBQ+ domestic or intimate partner violence (IPV) services in New York City or the State, as Domestic Violence (DV) Program Coordinator, and later as the Director of Client Services at AVP, Diane Dolan-Soto, LCSW, provided representation for the LGTBQ+ community and collaboratively worked to make formal and lasting changes. When did you first start work[...]

40 Change Makers: Shay Huffman

March 2, 2022

This interview has been shortened and condensed for clarity. Shay Huffman is many things, but foremost, she is a profound storyteller. Her abilities led her to the incredible advocacy work she’s done with AVP, from fundraising to policy work, to event planning. But sharing her story was not just something that helped clients, it was also a mode of healing “that was really the way to shed a lot of the shame.” Huffman is a survivor of intim[...]

40 Change Makers: Melania Brown

February 23, 2022

This interview has been shortened and condensed for clarity. Emerging activist and writer, Melania Brown, has been pivotal in the fight to end solitary confinement. Brown’s life was changed forever when her sister, Layleen Extravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, a 27-year-old Afro-Latinx trans woman, died in a Rikers Island solitary confinement cell after suffering an epileptic seizure. Since then, with the help of AVP, she has mobilized to demand #Ju[...]