“One of the beautiful things about this neighborhood is that you can engage with people from different islands and walks of life. On my block, we have Spanish, French and English-speaking Caribbean immigrants. We have nurses, architects, educators, creatives. In the #Caribbean, it’s very complicated to travel between islands. But here, you can island hop just by walking down the street or going to a neighbor’s house. There’s a nexus of thriving small businesses here. You can get the best Caribbean food — roti, jerk chicken, patties. I started to ask, ‘Why isn't there a Little Caribbean?’ In 2017, we started the effort to develop @littlecaribbeannyc here in Flatbush. Soon after it launched, my organization caribBEING began hosting tours to celebrate all the Caribbean-owned businesses. I founded CaribBEING to fill the gap of Caribbean arts and culture in New York. As a first generation daughter of Caribbean #immigrants, I thought it was important for us to start telling #stories from our perspective. This year we are turning 10. We’ve partnered with organizations, like @brooklynmuseum and @elmuseo, and our work has even traveled beyond #NYC, to the #Caribbean and Europe. I think we need art and culture right now. Since COVID-19 hit, I’ve been listening more to the needs of the community and seeing how caribBEING can respond. We fed ER staff with food from small businesses in #LittleCaribbean. I was also asked by @nycgov to fast-track 40,000 #masks to #FrontlineWorkers. We did that in under a week. At one point, we were among the top five zip codes with the most cases. That disturbed me. I was born in this zip code. This also happens to be mostly a community of color, and we know that Black and Brown people have been more adversely impacted by the coronavirus. #BlackLivesMatter is not only about social activism. It's also about equity, inclusion, sustainability, and generational wealth. There's so many layers to it. Supporting #blackownedbusinesses is one of the ways that you can help bridge the gap.” 📸 : @brownstonebabe 📝: @larasienaw