F.I.E.R.C.E.

Since 2000, the Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment (F.I.E.R.C.E.) has empowered New York City's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color to realize their political power and effect change in their own communities.  A membership-based organization, F.I.E.R.C.E. is also one of the only organizations in the United States that offers LGBTQ youth of color the opportunity to engage in leadership development and youth-led community organizing.

F.I.E.R.C.E.'s campaigns have focused on Manhattan's West Village, an area long seen as a friendly neighborhood for New York City's displaced LGBTQ youth of color.  "It's a neighborhood we consider our home, because we consider it a place to develop new forms of family," explained Rickke Mananzala, executive director of F.I.E.R.C.E.  Since the mid-1990s, however, increased policing and criminalization of homeless and LGBTQ youth have threatened that sense of safety and community.  In addition, plans to redevelop public spaces have discounted their needs and concerns.

"We want to have a role in shaping the political processes of the neighborhoods we care so much about.  We want to have a seat at the table and make our voices heard," said Mananzala.  As part of this mission, F.I.E.R.C.E. launched the "Our Safe Place for Organizing Together" (Our S.P.O.T.) campaign in the summer of 2008 to mobilize LBGTQ youth to take part in development decisions affecting their community and neighborhood.  At some of the largest public forums ever seen anywhere in New York City, F.I.E.R.C.E. members spoke out against the so-called "Vegas on the Hudson" proposal, an upscale, private development planned for Pier 40.  Along with a broad-based coalition of community groups, F.I.E.R.C.E. scored a major victory in the winter of 2008 when the Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT)-the public-private partnership in charge of the city's Westside piers-rejected the plan.

While the HRPT also rejected a "People's Pier" proposal that included a 24-hour drop-in center for LGBTQ youth, the campaign helped other West Village residents view F.I.E.R.C.E. as an integral part of the neighborhood they all share.  "People now expect to see us at meetings," said Mananzala, "We are seen more and more as community members."  F.I.E.R.C.E. plans to build on this momentum in 2009 by continuing to advocate for an LGBTQ youth center, fight against funding cuts for LGBTQ youth services, and create viable citywide coalitions to champion economic development that meets the needs of ordinary people. "The economy makes this moment both exciting and challenging," explained Mananzala.  "We can't just fight on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis because the changes we're fighting on the west side are happening all over the city."