The Open Society Institute, which is part of George Soros’ Foundation, announced its 2004 Fellowship winners last week:

Community Fellowships are awarded to individuals who wish to employ their educational and professional attainments in service to disadvantaged communities. The goals are to encourage public and community service careers, expand the number of mentors and role models available to youth in inner-city neighborhoods, and promote initiatives and entrepreneurship that will empower those communities to increase opportunity and improve the quality of life there.

Specifically, there were community leaders were picked from NYC:

Ten New York City community organizers, activists and leaders working to improve the quality of public life in low-income neighborhoods were awarded Open Society Institute New York City Community Fellowships.

The NYC Community Fellows are working on a range of innovative public interest projects, including the creation of a community-based legal center to aid South Asian immigrants, the establishment of a domestic violence center for refugee and immigrant African women, and a program in Harlem to protect fixed-income seniors facing eviction.

Among the ten were South Asians Tushar Sheth [disclosure: Tushar was my college roomate] and Ms. Kavita Pawria:

Mr. Tushar J. Sheth (New York City) created Workers Safe & Free. Through legal advocacy and public education, this project aims to end collaboration between federal immigration enforcement agencies and state and local authorities in federal counter-terrorism efforts—a practice that severely impairs immigrants’ access to essential public institutions and social services. The project will also provide legal assistance to low-income immigrant workers whose employment rights have been violated.

Ms. Kavita Pawria (Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, and New Jersey) created the Azaadi Legal Defense Project, a community-based legal center focusing on South Asian immigrant rights. The project will hold monthly workshops to teach legal skills to low-income families and will also organize local grassroots campaigns to encourage the reform of oppressive federal immigration and deportation policies.

Also make sure to stick around and check out Soros’ site. It’s smattered with interesting articles. For those who think he is too partisan, he gave an excellent interview to NPR explaining his efforts and motivations for spreading democracy.

Update: Just to clarify these awards are from 2004 (as mentioned above). This work is already underway. No explanation has been given for the delay of the official announcement until last week.