Bio
Mira Silveira is a third year student at the Gallatin School for Individualized Study. Her concentration focuses on prison policy and justice by looking at the social and cultural impacts of the prison industrial complex on politics and society, and how they may shape the future of punishment in the United States. She is also pursuing a minor in social and public policy through the NYU Wagner School. In the past, she has worked for Senator Gillibrand’s New York office as a casework intern, as an organizing fellow for the North Carolina Democratic Party, and in other positions pertaining to voter rights and advocacy. Her interests include learning more about community organizing, mutual aid, food and housing justice, decolonization, and sustainability. She can be found somewhere exploring New York City via Citi Bike, reading in a park, eating ice cream, and learning how to use her film camera. Silveira is looking forward to working with the Pratt Center for Community Development this summer.
Project Summary
Mira worked on three Pratt Center initiatives over the summer. She contributed to research for an update to a hotel zoning research report in New York City called Still Room for Improvement. She also contributed research on the Hunts Point Forward Vision Plan, primarily through work on a survey gathering community feedback. Mira also worked on Pratt Center’s efforts to facilitate the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project’s Community Advisory Group.
Mission Statement
I want my time this summer with the Pratt Center for Community Development to be an exploration of ideas which will inform my Gallatin concentration, and also a time in which I advance their goals for the Hunts Point Forward plan and East Side Coastal Resiliency project. I hope to gain skills in facilitating community organizing work, learn about the process of translating community needs to workable action items within a governmental scope, and experience what grassroots change looks like in smaller New York City neighborhoods.
The Gallatin Global Fellowship in Urban Practice provides funding of up to $5,000 and support for 6-10 advanced BA and MA students to pursue extended, community-engaged, practice-based research projects in partnership with urban social justice organizations.
