Rise up and organize!

DRUM was founded in 2000 to build the power of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean low wage immigrant workers, youth, and families in New York City to win economic and educational justice, and civil and immigrant rights.

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DRUM YouthPower! is looking for South Asian and Indo-Caribbean youth ages 14-21 for our 24th annual leadership development program this summer. Young people will build relationships and develop skills to make changes in our communities. With increasing attacks on immigrant communities and the defunding of essential resources (social programs for essential workers, housing, education, etc.) it's more important than ever for us to unite and organize.

APPLY ONLINE BEFORE JUNE 7th, 2024!

This past weekend’s Richmond Hill Arts Festival

This past weekend’s Richmond Hill Arts Festival at Atlantic Ave/Lefferts park was a lot of fun and great opportunity to connect and make art with our neighbors!

We distributed resources and information about DRUM and also shared about the work members have led around climate justice.

Thank you @chhayacdc @hivepublicspace @studioforny for organizing this inaugural festival, activating the park with a cool new structure and for the emphasis on distributing resources and information to our community! And thanks to @sabinathegreat for debuting their new play!

✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽Join @SecureJobsNYC for our f

✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽Join @SecureJobsNYC for our first ever Advocacy Day for Intro 0909: the Secure Jobs Act!

Rally with NYC workers at City Hall Steps before we head into our meetings with council members. The time to #EndUnjustFirings is NOW - help us make this message clear to @NYCCouncil!

📆 Thursday, September 26th
⏰ 9:00AM
📍City Hall Steps

ACTION ALERT: Monday 9/23 at 10am hundreds are gat

ACTION ALERT: Monday 9/23 at 10am hundreds are gathering outside @citi headquarters to demand Citi Executives meet with leaders from the Gulf South who suffer from the impacts of fossil fuel development that have been funded by Citi. If Citi execs refuse to come down and meet, we’re going to shut down their headquarters.

Join activists from the Gulf South to Bangladesh to New York as we descend on Citi’s headquarters and demand accountability.

What: Citi Standoff: Come Down or Shut Down
When: Monday September 23rd at 10AM
Where: Citigroup’s Global Headquarters (388 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10013)

In place of membership meetings for August, member

In place of membership meetings for August, members held picnics in the Bronx and Queens to come together at the end of the summer. They were fun days of food, games, and reconnecting.

DRUM members throw down for several campaigns throughout the year, in addition to day-to-day basebuilding activities in their neighborhoods. Picnics are always a great way to center rest and fun in the midst of the other work that we focus on. Our connections to each other is what makes our organizing and our communities stronger.

Many appreciations to the members and leaders who organized these picnics. In Kensington, in lieu of a picnic, members decided they would raise funds to send to those impacted by floods in Bangladesh.

At the end of this year’s Youth Power Summer Org

At the end of this year’s Youth Power Summer Organizing Program, interns interviewed DRUM members to get to know them and the work they do in their neighborhoods

In this video, the arts and culture team visited Midwood to talk to Shamim about her experiences when she first came to the U.S.

Mark your calendars! Catch DRUM with Chhaya CDC, @

At the end of the Summer Organizing program, inter

At the end of the Summer Organizing program, interns interviewed different DRUM members to get to know them better!

The arts and culture team visited the Richmond Hill to talk to their YP fellow 🥳 Andrew 🫶🏽 about his name, relationship to culture, and why he’s committed to organizing working class and undocumented communities.

RAWWRRR👹 we come bearing news of YP week 4 and

RAWWRRR👹 we come bearing news of YP week 4 and 5’s shenanigans😋

🏘️Community Organizing + Building Power— We all came together to internalize that ✨Organizing✨ is not to only putting together a fun party BUT also being able to bring people together and mobilize them on the grounding of fighting the oppressors (🤓☝️three I’s of oppression). Interns practiced coming together to overthrow capitalist shit that just wants to take over us🫡 Now that we have brought people together to build power, how do we turn that into (drumroll 🥁) PEOPLES POWER‼️

🎨 Arts and Culture— We learned about how to use art and culture to change narratives and uplift social justice values! The interns acknowledged that art is within everyone🤩 as long as we are willing to believe in it. Art🎴is not just all drawings and visuals, it’s also how people for generations have been resisting✊. Art plays an important role in captivating the current flow of people, the surrounding, and living in general. Art comes from stories, sorrows, love and resistance. We ended the day by going out in the street and interviewing our neighborhood workers. ART is what keeps culture in alive and thriving🪻

🧺 WE HAD OUR TRADITIONAL DRUM YP PICNIC- with both the WQ and BX YP’ers, where we shared what we’ve learned at DRUM with @ct4adream‼️ we played games, laughed, ate and appreciated the amazing weather 🌤️

Is the United States a democracy? What’s the poi

Is the United States a democracy?
What’s the point of voting?
What the heck is the electoral college?

For our July membership meetings, members got together to learn about the electoral system in the U.S. With the upcoming presidential election this November, we all have questions about what we should be doing to protect our communities from potential threats and build more working class immigrant power. We took time to clarify misconceptions around the election system and talk about why it’s important for us to be consistently building community power beyond elections.

Organizing for electoral power is no substitute for building power through community organizing. We’ve seen electoral organizers engage communities only to elect candidates. After elections, the infrastructure and funds to organize disappear. Beyond elections, we need to be engaged in organizations whose politics we align with. We need to be fighting for material improvements in our lives, such as health care, public education, worker protections, housing, public transportation, etc. How are we working with people in our community to develop a commitment to our collective wellbeing?

We’re looking for opportunities to build consistent power in our communities that we can wield in elections, but not only during election seasons.

Most of us, as working class and undocumented immigrants are intentionally excluded from voting. During our meetings, we talked about how the U.S. doesn’t feel like a true democracy because of the ways that our voices are suppressed.

Because we’re clear that the electoral system is designed to exclude us, we don’t act like it’s going to save us. We don’t need to pour all our energy into it. But we do have to have an assessment of it, and know when to intervene in it—whether we can vote or not. It’s important to be involved in organizations that are working towards building power and transforming our material conditions. The U.S. might not be a democracy, but we have the opportunity to practice democratic processes (regardless of voting status) through the people-centered structures we build now and our struggles for better lives.

As a part of the #SummerofHeat, people have disrup

As a part of the #SummerofHeat, people have disrupted business at CitiBanks’s global headquarters 15 times. Over 450 people have been arrested so far over 3,500 thousands have taken action this summer. #EndFossilFuels

This week is Justice for Displaced Peoples and Migrant Justice week of action. We’re taking action to bring attention to how the climate crisis displaces people globally. We fight for the right to stay in homelands, migrate safely across borders when our homes are no longer livable, and thrive in community with people wherever we may build new homes.

Join our caravan march and stand with us as we call out Citibank for their role in financing climate chaos 🌍🦋✊
📅 Friday, August 16, 10:30am
📍26 Federal Plz (Foley Sq)

By funding fossil fuels, Citi is directly responsible for the climate chaos that pushes working people deeper into poverty and increases food insecurity, violent conflict and government persecution that forces them to flee. Global south communities that have contributed the least to the climate crisis are the ones bearing the brunt of climate impacts with fewer resources to overcome them and rebuild in their communities.

Link in bio — bit.ly/migrants816

“Millions of lives have been lost to climate cha

“Millions of lives have been lost to climate chaos. We hold Citi responsible for the destruction of our lives”

This morning as part of the #SummerofHeat immigrant leaders built a memorial for those killed by climate disasters financed by CitiBank. Citi is complicit in the extreme flooding and heat that impacts our homelands and forces people to leave their countries. Every person should have the right to safely migrate when their home and been made unlivable.

Honor their lives
#EndFossilFuels

WEEK 3 OF YP ALREADY⁉️ WOOHOO!! Third times th

WEEK 3 OF YP ALREADY⁉️ WOOHOO!! Third times the charm🍀, right? This week, we studied various topics📚 consolidating our interns knowledge.

In week 3, we finished learning about the different kinds of oppression in our communities and started to pick up skills to … (drumroll 🥁) ORGANIZE‼️

👛Gender and Sexism— the three I’s 👁️ of oppression are apparently super crucial🚨 for Patriarchy to uphold too? (Surprised? Not really…😬) During this workshop, interns opened themselves up vulnerably to talk about the patriarchy they face regardless of gender in this capitalistic🪙💰 world. Through different approaches (like fishbowl😉), interns identified internalized patriarchy and other systemic conflicts that we go through day by day (😪). Integrated in our lives, but combated⚔️ here at DRUM🥁 .

⛺️Campaign and strategies— Now that our interns are fruitfully educated🤓, agitated😤, & willing to FIGHT 🤼‍♂️, they had to learn how to ORGANIZE🧩. Being the foundation of DRUM, interns learned the impacts of organizing and how it should be done in a manner that promotes retention🧠 and growth📈 of their base. We had them do a tricky blanket flipping activity to show the importance to communication and ✨People Power✨ In the next workshop, they practiced it…(wait do you mean we the interns were sent out of the office????🤨)

📋🧾Outreach 101 & Fundraising + Evaluations— If not one of the most exciting workshops, this one was definitely the most impactful‼️ Like a lab🧪 class you have in Biology🦠, interns put their skills to the test hands-on🧑‍🔬 (y’know, in the real world 🌎 😅). By going out to their communities and fundraising🧧 for DRUM, interns learned that the only way to grow their outreach skills was to PRACTICE🔂. We can talk about it all we want, but the real change will be made FACE TO FACE, out in the jungle🧟.

Also special shoutout to interns that went to DC to protest against Netanyahu‼️ in the middle of their busy YP schedule and juggleing with personal life, they came to show solidarity to the Palestinians. VIVA VIVA PALESTINA 🇵🇸 🍉

Last night in the rain, DRUM members gathered comm

Last night in the rain, DRUM members gathered community in Kensington Plaza to process emotions, anger, and grief around the current situation in Bangladesh. This was a moment for people to express their hopes in this time of critical transition and to also express solidarity with students and the working class of Bangladesh experiencing state violence, murders, and kidnappings.

We set up an altar with photos and names of those murdered and disappeared by the state. We centered their memory and honored the victims of state violence who anchored the protests. Community members also contributed to a collective art piece where they wrote up and attached their hopes for Bangladesh.

People shared their hopes for justice for the Bangladeshi people and for a future where people can live with safety and dignity. We stand against the opportunists, international media, foreign powers like the U.S. and India, and other parties who seek to undermine the efforts of working class Bangladeshis.

Thank you to those who came together to rage and grieve and honor those who have fought for justice and dignity. It’s important for us to have collective spaces to share emotions and hold each other.

Thank you to sponsoring organizations:
Bangladeshi American Advocacy Group
@bappnyc
@icnanewyork
Muslim Action Coalition
South Asian Solidarity Foundation - SASF

BREAKING NEWS: After weeks of student-led uprising

BREAKING NEWS: After weeks of student-led uprisings in Bangladesh, Prime Minister Hasina has resigned. At this critical moment, it is important for us to come together as a community to grieve and honor those who have been killed and continue to be in harm's way due to state violence. The conditions in Bangladesh remain uncertain. Thousands are still unaccounted for, in prison, or disappeared by the state. We invite members, families and communities to make space with each other and to share our hopes for what this moment of transition can mean for Bangladesh and its people.

Bring flowers and photos of those you want to honor and uplift.

Allies from other communities are encouraged to attend in support and solidarity!

#####

We grieve the murders of student, workers, and children at the hands of the Bangladeshi government. Join us to hold a vigil for our martyrs, express solidarity with student protestors, and mourn together.

These past weeks, we’ve been horrified by the violent murders and attacks on students protesting the quota system. Law enforcement and state military have brutally repressed these protestors. Countless have been murdered, and many injured and arrested. Our hearts are with our families and comrades in Bangladesh.

Join us to honor our martyrs
Tuesday, August 6 at 6pm
Kensington Plaza, Brooklyn, 11218

বাংলাদেশ সরকার যেভাবে ছাত্র, শ্রমিক, পথচারী ও শিশুদের হত্যা করছে সে ঘটনায় আমরা শোকাহত। আমরা শহীদদের জন্য শোক ও আন্দোলনকারী ছাত্র জনতার সঙ্গে সংহতি প্রকাশ করার জন্য একটি শোক ও প্রতিবাদ সভার আয়োজন করেছি।আমাদের সাথে এই শোক সভায় যোগদান করুন।

গত সপ্তাহে, কোটা পদ্ধতির প্রতিবাদকারী শিক্ষার্থীদের উপর সহিংস হত্যাকাণ্ড এবং হামলার ঘটনায় আমরা আতঙ্কিত। আইন প্রয়োগকারী এবং রাষ্ট্রীয় সামরিক বাহিনী এই বিক্ষোভকারীদের নির্মমভাবে দমন করছে। অনেক মানুষ খুন হয়েছে, আরও অনেকে আহত ও গ্রেফতার হয়েছে। আমাদের হৃদয় বাংলাদেশে আমাদের পরিবার এবং কমরেডদের সাথে রয়েছে।

বাংলাদেশের শহীদদের প্রতি সম্মান জানাতে আমাদের সাথে যোগ দিন
মঙ্গলবার, ৬ আগস্ট সন্ধ্যা ৬টা
কেনসিংটন প্লাজা, ব্রুকলিন, 11218

Hello Hello Hello! Despite the sweltering heat tha

Hello Hello Hello! Despite the sweltering heat that’s got us all AT EACH OTHERS HEADS (😔), our interns have been showing up RESILIENTLY and persisting every time 💅.

In week 2, we utilized the four I’s of oppression to understand many kinds of oppression around us!

🫘 Colonization & Desi Diaspora—
A lot of our interns questioned the term desi as it applied to Indo-Caribbean folks- wait, who are they? 🤔 We learned about the diverse and intrinsic culture of Caribbean people and bow their origins were from, drumroll please, SOUTH ASIA due to the transport of indentured servants!⛴️ Through Caribbean food, wining🕺 and some chutney beats our interns learned to be LOUD & PROUD about Indo-Caribbean culture! 🙌🏼

🚔 History of Policing & Alternatives—
Despite the bloody🩸 and unfortunate videos that we see of cops, or perhaps the more sugarcoated ones,😒 do we really know their origins?🤔 Through activities about Jim Crow laws all the way to the Black Panther movement, interns learned about the origins of policing and how it is not to serve OR to protect🤥, but to violate🤺.

📚 The US Education System & Institutionalized Bullying—
Get a good education✍️, keep your head low🧑‍💻, find a steady job💸 and boom- life should be fine right? In this workshop, interns explored the School to Prison pipeline and how our education system actually sets us up for failure😬. Through silly skits and playful activites, interns explored the deep and shocking ways the education system sets you up to be a worker👷, not a creator🎨🚫. And how does that relate to prisons being a source of funding for the government? You guessed it, the DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. (shocking? No) You wished they told you this beforehand, huh?🙄

Shoutout to all the fellows and the organizers that stood by them to make the 2nd week of YP great and cool (in this heat)💫

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DRUM - Desis Rising Up & Moving