#Vote4Harlem and Bridging Africa and Black America Inc ( BABA Inc) have organized on November 7, 2022, an online participatory budgeting idea generation session that brought together several people.
The goal according to the two non-for-profit organizations, is to collectively generate ideas and submit those ideas to New York City Civic Engagement Commission.
Apostle Onleilove Chika Alston Founder, Her Wisdom Consulting LLC and #Vote4Harlem said that “ participatory budgeting in both the city council and city wide, is a process where residents have a direct say in how public funding is spent.”
“ This is a session for coming with ideas,” she added.
Before generating ideas, Abdoulaye Cisse who is BABA Inc’s executive director, has laid out 5 community agreements. The 3rd one was : “ Together we know a lot, alone we don’t know it at all.”
And together participants have generated ideas based on how the city spends public resources. According to Apostle Onleilove Chika Alston, “ our money goes to education, social services, public safety, health, youth and child services, parks and recreation, seniors, cultural affairs and libraries …”
The top priority of the participants was the health issue. However, all ideas that were generated, were indeed submitted to New York City Civic Engagement Commission.
According to Ms. Alston, anyone can generate ideas and submit them to New York City Civic Engagement Commission. She also pointed out that participatory budgeting is a concept that was starting in Brazil.
Bazona Barnabe Bado