Our Time Press: Flossy Founder Jibreel Jalloh: Advocating for Canarsie’s Underserved from Ferry to Families

Published In: Our Time Press

A group of Canarsie residents held a rally along the waterfront this May to showcase the necessity for a ferry dock in their community. Canarsie has limited mass transit and is described as a “transportation desert.”

The lead organizer was community advocate Jibreel Jalloh, a lifelong Canarsie resident and founder of The Flossy Organization, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to closing the advocacy gap in underserved communities.

“Since the ferry program was started in 2017, there’s been multiple stops opening along the North Shore of Brooklyn. For example, Williamsburg has two ferry stops. It’s a ‘transit rich’ neighborhood. They have multiple train lines, multiple buses, they have multiple ferry stops,” Jalloh told Our Time Press.

When we reach out to the the mayor’s office about a ferry in Canarsie, they always hit us with the question: “How we got to make sure the system is efficient. Cost effective. How are we laying equity in that equation of where to open up stops?’”

“Canarsie is a community that’s working class. That’s along the waterfront,” Jalloh said. “How are you going to continually open stops in transit rich neighborhoods and not even consider bringing it here?” The ferry rally was attended by Public Advocate Jumanne Williams and Canarsie City Council representative Mercedes Narcisse, who announced she will be introducing a bill for the ferry.

Community advocacy is Jalloh’s personal mission. While studying political science and economics at Baruch, he held summer internships in Washington, D.C. with Brooklyn Congressional Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke. After jobs in Mayor de Blasio’s office as an urban fellow and special assistant, by 2019, he was hired by Public Advocate Jumanne Williams as the Brooklyn Borough Advocate.

“Essentially, I was the eyes and the ears of the office, which is actually tied directly to what we do in The Flossy,” he said. “My job was to literally go throughout the borough to places like Park Slope, Bed Stuy, Bensonhurst and help accelerate campaigns of people fighting against their landlords, getting street safety or anti-gun violence. What I realized was that in Canarsie, we didn’t have that organic organizing base.”

After he left the Public Advocate’s office, he launched The Flossy Organization, organizing Canarsie grassroots’ advocacy needs from gun violence to environmental justice to transportation to city ordinances. While balancing his nonprofit advocacy, he was studying for a Masters in Public Administration at NYU.

Last year, Jalloh had to postpone his NYU masters. He was awarded the prestigious 2024-2025 Obama Foundation Scholars Program at Columbia University. It brings together rising leaders from the United States and around the world who have demonstrated a commitment to finding solutions to challenges in their communities and countries.

The Columbia fellowship is an asset to growing The Flossy. “They look for leaders who are doing some sort of social impact work that aligns with the value of Barack Obama and ideas to help accelerate your impact,” he explained. “It’s one of Columbia’s fellowships that give people the opportunity to utilize the campus research and technical facilities.”

In December, Jalloh traveled to Chicago with Obama scholars to attend the Obama Foundation’s Democracy Forum. “We had the opportunity to have a 40-to-45-minute round table discussion with President Obama,” he recalled. “It was just incredible. Just a real surreal moment. You know, I’m a son of immigrants from Sierra Leone. My dad is a taxi driver and my mom was a home health aide. And here I am sitting with the former president of the United States. It was really super surreal.”

Like President Obama, Jalloh is a grassroots community organizer. At The Flossy, he instructs the Advocacy Academy. “To really have deep transformational change in Canarsie, we need to start training other folks in the science and art of local community organizing. That’s what led us to running the Advocacy Academy,” he said.

“We’ve been to a couple schools and taught student assemblies on organizing. Anyone can apply from Canarsie and we train them in the work of organizing, how to do a power map, how to effectively canvas, how to do research. The goal is to training people so they can perform.”

This summer, The Flossy is piloting the Mobile Advocacy Hub. Using his contacts and skills from the Obama Foundation and Columbia University, the mobile outreach will help Canarsie residents be their own advocates through AI. “We can train people on how to engage with government on a way to get started on bringing about change on a hyper local level,” he said.

“The Mobile Advocacy Hub will be located by the park or the L Train or bus stops. It will have WiFi enabled tabling so people can come to us during office hours. You can tell us what government issues you are facing and we can work with you right there. We will use AI and language models to work through the steps on what you are trying to solve.”

The work of The Flossy Organization continues to get recognition. It was a part of South By Southwest Festival’s student pitch program looking for sponsors for the Mobile Advocacy Hub. This year, it earned a Brooklyn Org social justice grant. This fall, Jalloh is returning to NYU to complete his MPA for nonprofits.

To bring its message to the community, The Flossy Organization outreaches to local Canarsie businesses from coffee to ice cream to smoothie merchants to host their events. There are sometimes free giveaways for attendees that is promoted on Evites.

“I recommend it highly. If you don’t have space, instead of booking a conference room at the library or something else that’s more traditional, see if you can do something at a local business. You may even get some in kind donations,” said Jalloh. “You know, we bring them some business and we have a space to build up programming. It’s a win-win all around.”