April 2021 - ciaooo!

We’re launching a new Instagram Live series called THE BIZ in partnership with Start Small Think Big where we interview DOPE entrepreneurs from all across America. Check out our first episode where we speak with Priyanka Ganjoo…the founder of Kulfi Beauty who quit her job, flew to India, flew back to NY, and launched a makeup brand for South Asian women with Sephora.

Priyanka Ganjoo is the founder of Kulfi Beauty.

Kulfi was founded by Priyanka after she worked for years in the beauty industry – but no matter how hard she looked, she didn’t see herself or anyone with her skin tone represented. She kept waiting for a brand that celebrated South Asians, but it didn’t happen. So she left the world of corporate beauty and started her own business. We spoke to Priyanka about her journey starting Kulfi Beauty, quitting her job and the beauty of…well, beauty!

What is Kulfi Beauty?

Kulfi brings celebration into beauty with fun and approachable products for south Asian skin tones and undertones. We also have a digital platform where we’re sharing stories of self-expression for south Asians.

Can you tell us what it was like to start Kulfi Beauty?

I’ve been working in the beauty industry for 6 years at Estee lauder and Ipsy. I saw the beauty indie movement and I saw them grow big and scale. What I was always missing was a brand that celebrated south Asians, we were never celebrated or the center of the conversations. At most we were the fifth model in the shade.

I thought that there are a billion of us and no one is really centering us. That felt wrong. I was mixing my own concealer shades and its hard to find products for myself and I’m working in this industry and I’m still not able to create this shade. That led me to think if no one else is going to do this I’m going to do it myself.

What I was always missing was a brand that celebrated south Asians, we were never celebrated or the center of the conversations. At most we were the fifth model in the shade.

You worked in Estee Lauder beforehand. How did you go from there to making your own beauty products?

I actually have a very traditional business strategy background, I used to do strategy consulting but I was working closely with brands thinking on the business side how to make a store more productive. I was not as close to the product and it’s what I was missing. I then made the jump to Ipsy. I was one of the first merchandising hires and it was the most amazing role to be in within the beauty business because you’re at the heart of what the consumer wants. We tested hundreds of products and brands that would be sent to us and we would share the best with our users and subscribers.

How many brands do you think you worked with at Ipsy?

Probably 4-500. Korean beauty was very new and you could actually see consumer sentiment shift and see that evolution of consumer demand. I love the fact that we were able to get instant feedback from our consumers. Being very close to the product and the consumer meant we could keep making them better.

Obviously, you saw a validation model with Korean Beauty, what made you think the same for South Asian women and that it would be well accepted?

I think it’s a mix of having this feeling in your gut and taking a leap in faith and validating it with data. I took a leap of faith and left my job but the next day I was in a Facebook group of South Asian women. I talked to 100 or 200 people, literally off the internet and it was amazing meeting everyone in coffee shops in NY before the pandemic and learning what their attitudes were towards beauty. Being able to understand their challenges, what they were missing, was so helpful. I was getting that data from them, I also did focus groups, I did surveys, I even flew to India for a month.

Can we talk about what it was like to leave your job? What made you decide to leave?

I wasn’t unhappy, I had a great job. It was all going well but it wasn’t making me as satisfied as it used to. With every job, you need to feel like you’re challenged or learning and at some point, I wasn’t getting that from the job. Mostly, I had been thinking about this problem for 2 ½ years and no one was doing it. It was a combination of timing and I had some money saved up…I knew this was a very financially intensive decision and to have the runway for a couple of years. I wasn’t nervous but I was definitely unsure. I was like I’ll give myself one year, and here we are two years later right?

I feel like had I believed in myself earlier I would have had more traction. Perhaps being a person of color I had a lot of doubt and I had a lot of people telling me not to do it…

I didn’t even switch my LinkedIn until one year or more later and I only did it because one of my interns wanted to switch it. Huge imposter syndrome. Calling myself founder and CEO just feels so alien to it.

Beauty standards in America have historically passed over women of color.

Colorism is a really big conversation in South Asian Culture, but then, the patriarchy determines so much of what beauty means. If I would wear makeup, a male friend would be like you look much better without makeup or, you are trying to attract my attention. You get these comments which make you feel like beauty isn’t for you to enjoy, it’s defined by what other people expect of you and I think that was really the relationship with beauty that I had growing up in India.

You get these comments which make you feel like beauty isn’t for you to enjoy, it’s defined by what other people expect of you

I’ve been speaking with more and more people who grow up in America and had a very similar experience of what I had where growing up where they didn’t see people in the media that looked like themselves. I think it really is this global feeling that we don’t belong and that you need to fit this traditional beauty standard to be beautiful. For a long time I didn’t find myself in beauty, and that’s how I wound up working in it.

How long did it take you to actually develop Kulfi’s first product – the Kajal Liner?

It took me about a year and over 10 rounds of iterations. I started a conversation with a lab in September 2019 and we approved it in October 2020.

What is your ultimate dream goal for Kulfi Beauty in 2021?

My goal is that we create a viable business that is financially healthy. It needs to be a sustainable business but more importantly, if we can have a future generation think about beauty differently and feel like they are beautiful and included in the beauty conversation, it will be what I wish I had I was young.

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It’s been difficult to celebrate the progress that New York City has been making with COVID-19 when 7,000 miles away, India is drowning. Drowning in grief, in death, in insurmountable suffering. My parent’s homeland, where much of our family still resides, is drowning underneath the weight of nearly 2000 reported deaths a day. My mom calls her sister in Amritsar daily, texts her brother in Jammu Kashmir regularly, there is a very real and present fear that creeps over you if you go more than a day without any word. The fear for the people on the ground is tenfold that.

According to Al Jazeera, on Thursday, India reported 379,257 new infections and 3,645 new deaths, the highest number of fatalities in a single day since the start of the pandemic. Medical experts believe that the true number may be five to 10 times greater. Crematoriums are overrun, forcing people to burn their loved ones in converted car parks. The images are devastating. The makeshift funeral pyres, the overrun hospitals. The smoke in Delhi, India’s capital, can be seen and felt for miles. There are several pieces written by reporters a lot smarter than me on why India’s second wave is so devastating. A pre-emptive relaxation of guidelines, mass gatherings, and inaccurate data all played a role. The global response for aid was also slow to come, and vaccine inequity is a very real humanitarian and global issue.

As an Indian American miles away from my family who is suffering under the weight of this, the feeling of helplessness is constant.

As an Indian American miles away from my family who is suffering under the weight of this, the feeling of helplessness is constant. I am conscious of the fact that it is very easy to give in to that feeling, to the feeling of powerlessness. I may not be a government official with the ability to sway decisions but as a member of the ciaooo! community, I have a voice and a platform. This community we’ve built right here is full of smart, compassionate, and determined individuals.Amplifying and raising awareness is the very least that I can do. If you have the means, please consider donating, every little bit truly helps.

For further reading, check out these articles:

This is a Catastrophee, In India, Illness is Everywhere

India Grieves 200,000 Dead

India COVID-19 Crisis: The World Could Be Doing Much More

The Cut created a helpful guide on where to donate, some of their suggestions:

Making the Difference is helping provide medical supplies for public hospitals and nursing homes in Mumbai as well as grocery and ration kits to daily wage earners. Details on how to donate here.
Rapid Response, India’s premier disaster-response and preparedness service, is seeking donations to provide dry food goods such as rice, dal, salt, and sugar to families across India. Details on how to donatehere.
Give India, a crowdfunding nonprofit platform created to support India throughout the pandemic, is currently running fundraising campaigns for oxygen supply, food shortages, and women’s reproductive health amid the pandemic. Details on how to donate can be found here.

US Dollar to Rupee Cheat Sheet
*Some sites accept donations in Indian rupees, use the chart below as a quick cheat sheet to help you donate.

The US Dollar goes a long way when it comes to Indian currency. For context, according to rapidresponse.org, for less than $7, you can give one family a week’s worth of basic food essentials.

$ USD	₹ INR
$ 1	₹ 74.48
$ 5	₹ 372.41
$ 10	₹ 744.83
$ 50	₹ 3,724.14
$ 100	₹ 7,410.45

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New York was one of the cities hit hardest by COVID-19 and one of the first to scale a comprehensive response to the pandemic. We led a difficult but necessary reduction of local business activity and “normal” life. Almost a year later, tens of thousands of New Yorkers are receiving their Coronavirus vaccine jabs daily.

Amid ongoing federal and state-level vaccination campaigns, NYC has made steady progress in the last four months, with 30 % of the entire city’s population fully vaccinated. But there is still a lot to do to ensure vaccination efforts are far-reaching and equitable.

Current inequities include the misuse or disproportionate use of vaccine allocations by non-Black and non-Hispanic Americans; the digital access divide, where lower-income communities have reduced ability to easily book a vaccine appointment online; and a lack of vaccination hubs planned in communities primarily of color.

Programming and efforts to engage communities directly are a winning formula, reaching precisely those average New Yorkers that the government alone cannot. We spoke with community leaders from across the city about what’s working and where more attention is needed.

Problems of access that existed in the city at the top of the pandemic reappeared as vaccination commenced. “Many immigrant communities are not well-off and struggle with the idea of taking a day off to get vaccinated,” says Sheikh Faiyaz Jaffer, a chaplain at New York University serving its Islamic Center. The Sheikh also highlights a distrust in government that is not unique to Muslim communities in the city.

“Many immigrant communities are not well-off and struggle with the idea of taking a day off to get vaccinated”

Councilwoman Adrienne Adams represents New York City Council District 28 in Southeast Queens, which includes some of the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods such as Jamaica, Richmond Hill, and South Ozone. The Councilwoman points to a trend of after-the-fact response to community need for resource allocation. “It’s been an issue for many communities of color, I would daresay across the country, to get attention. Across East Queens, it began with a lack of testing sites. Just like with testing last year, we now have ‘vaccination deserts.’”

Councilwoman Adams shares a tapestry of community-led efforts that are driving vaccine education and improving access in her district, “Hosting community forums on the vaccine in Bangla, launching PSAs on YouTube and social media, having a gurudwara [Sikh house of worship] host vaccine drives. We have really wonderful partners and it was critical to maintain these contacts, especially around language access, to help us debunk vaccine myths.”

Across the East River, before the impact of COVID-19 had been widely felt by the city, the Bronx Rising Initiative was one of few organizations articulating a vision for rapid pandemic response. The Initiative raised $3 million from March 13-17, 2020, a fundraising effort that increased ICU bed capacity in the Bronx by 30%. The Initiative’s founder and longtime community organizer, Tomas Ramos, knew that because of poverty, existing health issues, and high density, addressing the unique challenges that the pandemic posed to his Bronx community was non-negotiable.

A year later, the Bronx Rising Initiative zeroed in to increase vaccination capacity for small clinics, partnering with the Morris Heights Health Center to fund several locations across the borough. The Initiative also began organizing pop-up vaccination sites in senior centers, community centers, and public housing in January and has now launched a vaccination campaign for homebound elderly and disabled New Yorkers.

Recently, the New York Times highlighted a concerning trend in vaccine inequity, such as an under-vaccination of Latino Americans across the US in proportion to their percentage of the general population.[3].

In speaking about barriers to getting a critical mass vaccinated, Ramos points to two separate issues. The first is vaccine hesitancy, often accompanied by a mistrust of government. “We started knocking on doors in January. There have been times that we spoke with people who are hesitant. Even if they are not sure, I left my card and our pamphlet. ‘If you change your mind, call us,’” Ramos says.

While taking on “vaccine hesitancy” is now a mainstream strategy, “there’s another issue that people are not talking about,” Ramos stresses, “That’s the economic issue. We don’t have the financial resources to hire more per-diem nurses to do 1.5 million vaccines.”

Part of this vaccine access dilemma is that the city and the state have only partnered with hospitals and clinics. “They haven’t partnered with people on the ground, grassroots organizations like us who know and have been serving communities forever.” Ramos points to the success of the partnership with the Morris Heights Health Center clinics as a way forward, a model that can be replicated by other grassroots organizations in the city and beyond.

“That’s the economic issue. We don’t have the financial resources to hire more per-diem nurses to do 1.5 million vaccines.”

“The biggest takeaway is that this needs to be a ground-up effort. For a lot of the clients we serve, ‘the news’ wasn’t reaching them,” says Anya Herasme, who directs ten senior centers and one residence for older adults in the Bronx. “The first day [of vaccination] at one of the senior centers, people came who were not interested, and they were able to speak to a doctor and ask questions. A doctor who speaks in their language or ‘gets them’ — a real person — makes a real difference.”

Opacity around eligibility requirements made it difficult to vaccinate efficiently from the start. While the vaccination rollout was “all well-meaning,” Herasme explains, “when you leave it up to the states… that was a mess. Asking governors who are not scientists to decide who is eligible first — that is not the appropriate role.”

The lack of a feedback loop between communities and decision-makers also meant that critical COVID hotspots were not given immediate attention. “We’ve had an extremely hard time in worst-hit neighborhoods, like Corona [Queens].”

In addressing communication barriers and increasing community confidence about vaccination, common sense abounds.

Herasme offers a simple solution: “There’s no effort I’m aware of to train older adults to be a peer leader or advocate. When people see their peers doing it [getting a vaccine], they feel a little more confident. Older adults want to advocate, but don’t know who to go to.”

“Everybody gets mail,” says Councilwoman Adams, “There should be more effort by way of mailers, in multiple languages, spelling out locations and the urgency of why vaccination matters.”

For the student communities Sheikh Faiyaz works with, online models of engagement have been very successful. While Sheikh concedes that this isn’t a replacement for face-to-face community interactions, they have opened the Islamic Center’s “doors” to more people and are effective in providing education around vaccines. “The Islamic Center’s email listserv goes out to over 13,000 community members and our reach on social media amounts to thousands more, where some of our video content has reached over a million hits.”

For a city of over eight million, vaccinating as many New Yorkers as possible (and quickly) is the clearest path to restoring the city’s economic vitality.

For a city of over eight million, vaccinating as many New Yorkers as possible (and quickly) is the clearest path to restoring the city’s economic vitality. Vaccination is how we dodge the same public health convulsions that locked us down last March. It’s the best way we can look out for ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities.

From Ramos’ long-term community projects to address food insecurity to East Queens’ grassroots organizers in Adams’ district tackling significant language barriers during the 2020 Census, communities trust the faces and names that are most familiar to them. Across New York, these experiences demonstrate how communities can secure essential resources and marshal momentum “without bureaucracy or red tape,” as Ramos puts it.

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NYC Mayoral Candidates Feature Article: Everyone’s talking about the unprecedented upcoming New York City mayoral election: the unconventional candidates, the top eight contenders, and the introduction of ranked-choice voting.

Art Chang knows that the ideal candidate is passionate, credible, and capable of implementing the changes the city needs right now. Chang currently ranks ninth in the race, and what makes that extraordinary is that he accomplished this on a modest campaign budget of $140,000. To put this in perspective, Andrew Yang the top contender has spent in excess of $2 million. Chang is the only candidate offering office hours to discuss issues and personally answer your questions – so ciaooo! joined him on a private Zoom call to listen to his compelling story, progressive strategies, and what sets him apart from the other candidates.

NYC Mayoral Candidates: Art Chang Discusses Climate Change & The Environment

Born to Korean immigrants, Chang experienced domestic violence and left home at the age of fourteen. After moving to NYC and the failure of his first business, he eventually moved on to build Queens West (what we now call Long Island City) featuring two mixed-use buildings and a marsh ecosystem – with climate change, the environment, and affordable housing in mind. This is a big topic among all the mayoral candidates this year, and Chang was ahead of his time – this was developed in 1994! It was also one of the only two waterfront developments that didn’t lose power during Hurricane Sandy and the first to offer universal broadband. Chang vows to continue working to fortify NYC’s infrastructure against climate change and the additional environmental effects it has on marginalized communities by:

Establishing additional car-free streets to encourage more efficient modes of transportation
Electrifying NYC buses
Incorporating solar panels and green roofs into the affordable housing sector

These changes will reduce childhood asthma, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve air quality.

NYC Mayoral Candidates: Art Chang Discusses Universal Childcare

Chang knows first-hand the importance and value of caregivers to families. His son, Ben, was at the daycare inside of the World Trade Center during the attacks on 9/11. One of the daycare workers helped to rescue him and other children from the terrifying event. Chang recognizes the significance of these providers to children and to the economy, especially post-COVID19. As Mayor, he plans to implement free childcare centers to alleviate the financial burden on working parents.

Focusing on the Arts Industry

One-third of workers in NYC are freelancers. The entertainment industry brings in tourism and is the center of the economy, yet its workers were left behind during COVID-19. They did not receive the relief benefits and were the most heavily impacted. Their absence also caused local businesses, which relied on the consumerism of the Broadway crowd, to suffer. Chang’s policy will streamline the permit process for performances and artistic programs, offer tax benefits to landlords willing to donate their empty spaces in support of the arts, and allocate funds for arts education and promotion.

NYC Mayoral Candidates Art Chang Discusses Current Events

During our Zoom call with Chang, we discussed his interesting and insightful take on what’s going on in the world today and how it effects our city. We reached out to him after our meeting to ask him about issues relevant to 2021.

Tell us a little bit about your background as it relates to your innovative plans to incorporate technology within the New York government, and why is this so important?

“We deserve a city that does more with less, a city that’s efficient, with lower costs and better outcomes. We deserve a city that is transparent, so you can hold me accountable,” says Chang. “We deserve these things. Technology is essential to get them done.”

In order to make NYC more user-friendly, unbiased, fair, and reliable, it’s important to integrate technology into basic governmental functions such as:

Small-business permit approvals in a single app
Easy access to safety-net benefits such as SNAP and WIC
Inventory of affordable apartments built using city tax incentives

Joe Biden unveiled an eight-year, two-trillion-dollar infrastructure plan last month, but it is still unclear how that will directly impact New York City. How does your infrastructure strategy supplement this plan?

“My infrastructure strategy is fully aligned with the President’s plan, but with the divided senate, the timing and ultimate details will remain uncertain. New Yorkers can’t wait for the federal government. We must do more with what we have while advancing the plan’s objectives.”

Immediate action is needed to implement infrastructure improvements. As mayor, Chang promises to:

Implement universal childcare and create union jobs for childcare workers
Create low-income housing
Reduce carbon emissions
Lead a city-wide plan for housing, streets, parks, and transportation

The March 29^th assault of an Asian woman in Manhattan is the latest attack on the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) community. What needs to be done to ensure that New York City continues to be a safe and welcoming environment for people of all ethnicities and backgrounds?

The heartbreaking and unfortunate recent rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans brings back painful memories for Chang. In 1968, his kindergarten teacher refused to teach him because her brother was fighting people with similar features in Vietnam. He believes NYC should be a place where everyone feels safe. He intends to ensure this by:

Implementing unarmed rapid response teams with Asian language capabilities
Working with local Asian organizations and elected officials to ensure on-the-street presence in key neighborhoods
Bringing together anti-hate groups in the Asian, Black, Muslim, and Jewish communities
Working with educators, parents, and students on age-appropriate ethnic studies curricula

“I moved to a New York City that accepts everyone. Where people of all races, and genders, and identities, people who never fit in and who always felt different, can come and belong.”

With just ten weeks until the primaries, it’s important to educate ourselves on all the potential candidates and what they stand for. After all, this is the individual who will be representing and working for NYC for the next four to eight years! Make sure to do your research (and your part!) and vote in the 2021 mayoral election.

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March ended on a ‘high’ note! In a historic move for New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law the legalization of recreational marijuana use on Wednesday, March 31^st. Weed enthusiasts have been challenging its prohibition for years, and the failure to fully decriminalize it last year was a disappointing blow. Now, they’ll be going a little harder on 4/20/2021 as they celebrate NY joining the marijuana movement!

**What is effective for marijuana legalization right now?**

It is now completely legal for people ages twenty-one and over to carry up to three ounces of pot. It can be smoked anywhere cigarettes can be smoked, such as designated smoking areas at establishments and on sidewalks that are not within fifteen feet of a healthcare facility. Anywhere you can’t smoke a cigarette – in a car, at work, at school – you can’t smoke weed. And in New York City, that means you can’t smoke it at playgrounds, parks, beaches, or any other place under the authority of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation.

Criminal records will be automatically expunged of any previous convictions of marijuana possession under the new legal limit. Criminal sentences currently being served will be adjusted accordingly to fit what the proper punishment should have been under the new law.

What will be effective for marijuana legalization in the near future?

It’s looking real 2022-ish, but eventually, you will be able to purchase pot from dispensaries, indulge in its consumption at designated sites (think bars and lounges with weed instead of alcohol!), and even grow up to six marijuana plants of your own! You will also be able to have weed delivered to you at home (instapot?).

How will Marijuana legalization Benefit New York?

First of all – the economy! This legislation is estimated to generate 30,000 to 60,000 jobs for New Yorkers for marijuana production, distribution, and retail sales. Equity programs will be instated, meaning that half of the marijuana business licenses will be granted to those owned by women, minorities, disabled veterans, and families legally disadvantaged by the previous criminalization laws. In addition, the $350-million-dollar annual tax revenue will be distributed back into NY communities:

40 percent to education
40 percent to Community Grants Reinvestment Fund
20 percent to Drug Treatment and Public Education Fund

Weed has already been scientifically proven to alleviate the symptoms of an array of ailments and diseases, but medical marijuana treatment was previously limited to only a handful of conditions. The new laws help to expand this list, as well as extend the supply limit for patients from a 30-day supply to a 60-day supply.

Legalization is a big move forward for communities, especially minority communities, that have been negatively affected by over-criminalization. Until now, police officers could use “the smell of marijuana” as a probable cause for ‘stop-and-frisk’ – the unfair practice of questioning and searching people unprovoked and without a warrant. This controversial practice has aided in racial profiling, affecting mainly Latino and Black men.

What’s the catch for legalization of Marijuana in NY?

Even though adult use of marijuana will be legal state-wide, towns and villages can ban dispensaries and consumption sites. Towns in Long Island Beach are already planning on forbidding the sale of the plant, citing the smell, the prospect of it being a “gateway drug”, and the potential for increased DUI.

And, as with any product that has government involvement, it will be heavily regulated. Retail sales will incur a 9 percent state tax, and 4 percent local tax. Businesses (aside from those providing medical marijuana) will only be allowed to obtain one license, meaning they can choose to either grow the pot, sell it wholesale, or sell it retail, but they cannot do more than one of those things.

And for the naysayers?

Remember a time not so long ago, when weed and alcohol were in the same boat? As with any mind-altering substance, there are potential benefits, risks, positive and negative effects. Government regulations are set in place to enhance our protection against any kind of substance abuse and keep everyone accountable. We all know people who don’t smoke weed, just as we all know people who don’t drink alcohol. If you don’t like it – don’t do it. Whatever you choose, enjoy responsibly!

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