Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2023.A novel, worker-owned cooperative serving the language needs of New York City’s growing African immigrant community from within is officially up and running.
At Afrilingual’s launch party in Harlem on Thursday, more than 70 guests ate spinach stew and fermented rice balls over tables decorated with the black, red and green stripes of the Pan-African flag. Many guests — including family members, friends, elected officials and fellow advocates — were dressed in Ankara print outfits and colorful head wraps, kufi caps, and loose flowing boubou gowns.
“We have people who are underemployed not using their language skills, their multilingualism, their resources, their brilliance, from back home. Think of that as an asset,” said Amaha Kassa, the founder and executive director of African Communities Together, the nonprofit that incubated the co-op. “And the asset is that we can build something like Afrilingual, where the people who are closest to the problem are also closest to the solution.
“You can see the ways in which language access will be critical for people who have come here from all over seeking to flee poverty and war and violence,” City Comptroller Brad Lander told those gathered at the launch party.