When she café and bookstore opened in 2016, Zenat Begum created more than just a place to grab a snack and get something to read. Playground, occupying the space in which it is operated his father, a hardware business for two decades, it is also a center for the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn was and a safe space for people in marginalized communities Appointment type place where customers and friends Mach crowd in a writing workshop or an art fair or an open mic. But if COVID-19 hit, all that ended. Begum closed the library, dismantled their staff, his radio show hosted stopped at the store and reduce food offerings. Seating inside was out of the question. Like many other small business owners who BIPOC (black, indigenous and black) have applied for federal aid Begum and was rejected; The Center for Responsible Lending found discouraged that the structural problems with the salary protection program loans for smaller businesses, which include a disproportionate number of businesses in black and Latino owned. He had better luck with crowdfunding, but is still struggling business alive, to keep end to the crisis. Yet Begum, is not enough to save a playground. The community has helped her to save what was, and also how they are working to secure their future, wants them in a way that returns the favor done. “As New Yorkers, we are the children of immigrants, people who have had to fight for that service jobs are working,” he says. “We have always been in panic mode and emergency situations in which we have, and if you now can not do that, more than ever, we have fallen short.” Then, installed in June playground of a fleet of outdoor refrigerators Pending communities that produce fresh free for all needs; At the end of the month, the store security kits distributed during protests on racist violence. In July, a free outdoor library of books and authors BIPOC queer born as a proxy of sorts for the library now closed. Begum is not to sustain themselves in their commitment to their community at a difficult time for many small businesses BIPOC. These entrepreneurs shoulder an additional level of economic uncertainty, increased risk of dying from COVID-19 and a personal involvement in the negotiations on systemic racial inequality that have shaken the country. But despite these challenges, or perhaps because of them, many are finding help for this community, an important component can be a pin, the movement to survive pandemic that is both sincere and strategic. “About 80% of our POC society, and I think the biggest trend we see is that these [back] are constructed in their rotation,” says Jenny DaSilva, founder and director of the Small Start Think Big, a not -profit focused on helping entrepreneurs of the city disadvantaged group in New York. “Their communities were most affected by this, so they are the consequences of this crisis are displayed in a way that is more extreme than in other communities and their activities are worst affected. The stakes are much high, both from the staff and a point of view of the community. “in New York’s Chinatown, a, voluntary food aid donor-driven-funded program called Heart dinner proves this point. Developed by restaurateur Moonlynn Tsai and actor-writer Yin Chang, the initiative provides meals for the elderly in Asian immigrant communities in the city, but also work for small restaurants offer. Especially with the COVID-19 connected to a peak of pandemic spread anti-Asian racist and xenophobic incidents, Chang says that many restaurant owners in the area were both anxious to help in the search for new sources of income and to others. Supply of customers switching to feed the needy way. “POC have been overlooked in this whole system to go; that we must also think about food, as the easiest way to survive is a problem in the forefront,” says Chang. “That’s why there are so many small businesses that are owned by the POC properties, this jumped to understand that to create so that the government does.” Chang Tsai and original purpose was to serve 20,000 meals a goal passed in August. Now they are taking the core long-term committed Dinner and presented it (3) non-profit to make a 501 (c). “We’re in it for the long haul,” says Tsai. resident of Oakland, Calif trade Co. diaspora spices, the pandemic switching the purpose of a pre-sale model. Founder Sana Javeri Kadri has lost its supply chain in India in late March in the block is gone. But preselling from about 10,000 orders was Kadri farmers to pay in advance, storing up to when orders could meet, even if Kadri had to take a pay cut for this year’s harvest. The company also supports its employees a health plan. “Diaspora has been created to service these farmers,” said Kadri. “We have your back, that’s not important.” And to combine in some cases, decisions, justice and the survival of businesses have an impact on a company had by far. Take Aurora James, founder and creative director of the fashion label Vellies brother. James has his pivot pandemic used as a way to prove not only a new model, but also support for other blacks entrepreneurs. In April, he presented something special, a monthly subscription service for fashion and household items. While a new way has to engage customers with their business, allowing James to keep people employed artisans, many of whom are women living in Mexico and Kenya, with whom he had worked Vellies Brother products. The success allowed to dedicate held James to 15% Pledge, a call for retailers to launch large 15% of their shelf space for black businesses, the percentage of the US population that is black to match. Since it debuted in June, the promise has accumulated commitments from retailers like Sephora and West Elm and taken as Vogue and Yelp. James notes that, while their sales fell sharply at the beginning of the pandemic, have recent months, the best I’ve had in years. “I knew that my community would take care of craftsmen and my staff would be taken care of for something special,” he says. “Then it was that the freedom to go and try to force my retailers, as well as other retailers blacks companies to assist in the possession.” James tries actions pushing for other black small businesses in parallel to how communities of color, and these companies congregations-have shown in the past for them. Donations from local businesses have fueled the Black Panther Party free breakfast program for children, for example, and the relationships that transcend customer-supplier were not only useful but necessary. structural racism has meant that black entrepreneurs face more obstacles from the beginning, traditional bank loans or denied funding. The support systems that bridge the gap emerged, however, have created their own power. “Traditionally people to a kind of paint had to rely on themselves and their communities and their families and support networks,” says James. “I think it is a kind of natural that we have the ability to expand to want to [help] to someone else in our community and a real belief that all ships rise with the tide when it comes to POC communities.” Begum, the whose experience in the playground shows the symbiotic relationship between BIPOC entrepreneurs and their community is well aware of this dynamic. And if it works, he says, means that the survival of these companies is more than a matter of economics. “Do you want someone to be there to make your life better through the programming and your work? Are you going to change the world?” He asks. “The opportunities that we have shown for our community, the way we support each other, we need to be here in the future.” This seems to September 21, 2020 issue of time Picture copyright by Top row from left:. Courtesy Café playground; Courtesy of heart dinner; Bottom row from left: James Raule-Getty Images for Vogue and The Dubai Mall; Gentl and Hyers
BIPOC entrepreneurs have harshly But pandemic save Hit with their work companies, but also to give back
