Rachid Arar, president of Open Table in the Goutte d’Or, telling me what time he is going to meet me later that day. Paris, 2014
When I heard that both Rachid Arar and Chaney Yelverton were busy making sure the people in their respective neighborhoods were getting enough to eat during the quarantine, I was not surprised.
Rachid is head of Open Table, a community organization in the Goutte d’Or area of Paris. Chaney is president of the tenant association of the Morrisania Air Rights Houses in the Bronx. Both men have a long history of building networks in solidarity with the people who live in their neighborhoods. Their organizations are made up in large part of local volunteers giving back. Both men were hugely supportive of Cocoon project when I worked in their neighborhoods. It gives some small measure of relief to know that they and thousands of others like them are doing the work of helping people at this time.
Rachid was featured recently in a short video from l’Humanité.
Chaney Yelverton, 2018, by Eric Etheridge