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Company: Oyate Group, New York City, NY
Nomination Submitted by: The TASC Group
Company Description: The Oyate Group is a nonprofit organization with the mission to alleviate poverty by creating sustainable solutions that empower underserved communities all across New York City. Founded in March of 2020 by Tomas Ramos, the organization’s programs include Bronx Rising Initiative and Uptown Rising Initiative, serving the neighborhoods of Washington Heights and Harlem, and A Mother’5 Promise.
Nomination Category: COVID-19 Response Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Valuable Non-Profit Response
 Nomination Title: Reaching the Unreachable: Oyate Group's COVID-19 Vaccination Initiative
- If you are providing an essay of up to 350 words, place it in the following space:
Total 350 words used.
[REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] the Oyate Group formed to tackle the effects of the pandemic on New York City’s most impacted borough: the Bronx. In early 2020, the Bronx was the epicenter of the pandemic, representing all of the characteristics that make communities particularly vulnerable: high levels of poverty, high numbers of essential workers, over 90% of the population with at least one comorbidity and a large percentage of Black and Latino individuals and immigrant communities, many of whom speak English as a second language or not at all.
Oyate raised over $5M to reverse the impacts of the pandemic on New York’s hardest hit community. The organization [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] giving out over $200,000 in grants to small business; offering scholarships for local youths headed to college; and launching an initiative to provide fresh produce to those facing food insecurity, with a focus on individuals living in public housing. In January 2021, Oyate launched a vaccine initiative. Beginning by knocking on doors in public housing to cut through access issues, sign up residents to receive the vaccine and fight vaccine hesitancy, the organization then created a mobile vaccine program that brought vaccinations to the very public housing centers where they had conducted outreach. Oyate later expanded its mobile vaccine pop-ups to schools, busy streets, houses of worship, community centers and senior centers and covered a local clinic’s vaccination overhead costs.
Oyate Group’s efforts fighting hesitancy, overcoming the access obstacles elders and those without access to the internet or transportation faced in getting vaccinated, bringing vaccines to where their community already is and employing trusted messengers from the community resulted in over 30,000 New Yorkers being inoculated by Oyate. Of those Oyate has vaccinated, 6 in 10 identify as Latino, and 3 in 10 identify as Black.
Oyate has recently expanded its food insecurity and vaccination initiatives into the under-resourced neighborhoods of Washington Heights and Harlem and created a public safety program through which it hosts gun buybacks to stem increasing levels of violence spurred by the pandemic.
- Optional: Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 134 words used.
Included in the attachments, please find a sampling of media coverage of Oyate Group and its Bronx Rising Initiative, whose efforts have been featured in local, national and international media. Included is coverage by The New York Times, Univision, The Economist, Bloomberg, AP News, USA Today and Vox.
Additionally, please find Oyate Group’s annual report from June 2021 which outlines its work from March 2020 to June 2021. It provides a glimpse into the organization's financials, programming, history and culture.
The final attachment is a presentation of a sampling of data collected at Oyate vaccination events. The sampling of 2,000 people showcases which populations they served, how effective they have been in comparison with New York City’s vaccine efforts and how impactful they have been in reaching communities that were previously vastly under-vaccinated.
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the nominated non-profit organization, OR an essay of up to 350 words? (Choose one):
An essay of up to 350 words
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video:
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