Sherelle Dixon testifies on MWBE engagement and cultural preservation gaps

Yeah, you can start.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Sora, Deputy Speaker, Dr.

Williams, my current and former council members, Osei and Hudson, in their absence, fellow members of the Committee of Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Relations.

Thank you so much for having us.

My name is Chevelle Dixon.

I'm the founder and managing director of Pan African Solutions Consulting, and I bring you greetings from the great Allen Nation of Brooklyn.

In our 13-year existence, we are New York City MWBE and New York State MWBE.

We also are a New York City DOE vendor.

We specialize in strategic planning and government technical assistance, nonprofit board advisory through program implementation and third-party evaluations.

Having worked in 60 countries and 16 within Africa, we amplify economic sovereignty, collaborative opportunities, and cultural engagement across the Black diaspora locally and globally.

In our work, we have observed two critical, well, three critical interconnected gaps across our neighborhoods.

One, or firstly, nonprofit capacity constraints.

Grassroots CBOs are on the ground, but they're stretched thin.

They are operating in silos.

They are...

constantly juggling direct services while struggling with compliance for board governance and strategic external relations and coordination constraints.

Secondly, local and global cultural disconnect.

Neighborhoods are losing their local cultural essence.

From vanishing still pan yards in Brooklyn to underutilized youth library spaces, our youth need workforce exposure and our aging population need engagement that bridges generational understanding.

Furthermore, there's an opportunity to bridge local cultural with global assets, such as the United Nations and international mission offices calling our very city home.

Thirdly, cultural preservation and recognition.

There is an unaddressed gap in mapping and honoring our local cultural giants through a coordinated and transparent way of preserving our neighborhood histories through formal street cone namings and arts and cultural assets such as murals and monuments.

This also provides an opportunity to engage in 400,000, like they just said, NITRA residents.

500,000 NITRA residents where, sorry, I lost my place, are residents to not only be culturally consumers, we're always talking about them being cultural consumers, let's not forget, we are also cultural creators and contributors.

As we all know, hip-hop was founded in 1973 in NITRA.

We've reviewed, us here in Pan-African,

We reviewed the Create NYC plan and identified structural policy gaps.

DCLA funding is constrained strictly to nonprofits and individual artists for grants.

It lacks a mechanism for a mission-driven, for-profit MWBE engagement, firms to participate, build capacity, and deliver specialized technical assistance.

Our call to action.

As you reimagine Create NYC, we urge this committee to establish a dedicated funding stream,

modeling successful frameworks such as Citizens NYC, for example, neighborhood business grants, to enable for-profit MWBE engagement firms to partner directly with CBOs and city agencies.

My follow-up request and in conclusion, Pan-African Solutions Consulting welcomes the opportunity to follow up with committee members

to share our framework for nonprofit board governance, institutional strengthening, youth and aging civic engagement, NYCHA, resident inclusion, and cultural sustainability.

I thank you for your time and your leadership.