Chair Salaam questions OPHC on youth initiatives and school feedback

OPHC emphasizes the importance of working with our city's youth as key components in

Hate prevention.

Which of your youth-based initiatives have seen particular success, and what do you attribute that to?

In addition to that, what feedback have you received from the young people that participate in your programs and at the events?

And how is this feedback incorporated into future planning?

Thank you for that.

So we have a young lady, her name is Zoe, and we had gone, so we started a program called NYC Youth Moving Forward Against Hate.

This initiative started in 2025, in January of 2025.

When I came into this role, at that time, we saw a lot of college campuses experiencing heightened hate and bias and discrimination.

And my thought was that at some point, these college campus students were youths.

And I truly believe that the first time a child or a person knows what a hate crime is, is not when they commit one or when one is committed towards them.

They should know what the difference between bias, discrimination, and hate is.

And more importantly, they should know that there are consequences for these actions.

But also to build unity and alliance among these students at a very tender age.

So the NYC Youth Moving Forward Against Hate program, we are in schools.

And it was groundbreaking because before people said it couldn't be done because parents will rally against it.

And we found a way to work with principals and school districts to say, how can we come to your schools and speak to the fourth and fifth graders so they leave with knowledge going to middle school about hate, bias, and discrimination.

How can we speak to elementary students in the 7th and 8th grade and high school students in the 11th and 12th grade and expand this programming also to colleges?

And I'm proud to say we have worked with City College, City Tech in Brooklyn, to also bring this knowledge there too.

And what we're doing, we're talking about hate, bias, discrimination, the difference between these things, how to recognize it, but more importantly, how we can build allyship.

How can we appreciate the differences in our classrooms?

And what we have seen at this point is more than 35% of our students, and we do a pre- and a post-survey.

To this programming.

And we leave each student with one of these brochures that we have printed out that we've made.

We have an elementary school brochure, we have a high school brochure, we have a middle school brochure, and an adult version.

And at the back of these brochures, there's a part to sign that says,

I pledge to help create a community where everyone is safe and accepted.

And I pledge to defend my peers if they are being treated unfairly based on who they are.

And I pledge to help New York City move forward against hate.

And each student gets one of these to sign, and they make an informal pledge like we pledge to you to tell the truth.

And they say they're going to be a part of me to solve hate crimes.

The point is this.

This work cannot be done from my office sitting where I am.

It has to be done on every single level, on the grassroots level, at the schools, at the mosques, at the synagogues, on the streets, at the bars, wherever we can go, we go.

And we ask each student to sign this portfolio, this flyer, and keep it with them.

Lastly, I'll see you.

that we've seen over 35% of students report post-survey that they now know the difference between hate, bias, and discrimination.

More than 18% of them now know the difference between those three, what resources their school have, and more than 20% of them now know they could get in trouble if they continue to do hate, bias, and discrimination.