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Kununuana Food Cooperative

In 1971 the East started a food co-op called called Kununuana which meant purchasing and solidarity in Kiswahili. The principle of Ujama—cooperation drove the decision. The East understood that a lack of access to nutritious food and poor environmental conditions had disproportionately negatively impacted lower caste communities in places like Central Brooklyn. The East modeled their food cooperative program after what members of their movement saw during a trip to Guyana. It started with members pooling funds together to purchase food once a week at wholesale prices from the Bronx food market at Hunt’s point. The goal of the cooperative had been to provide better quality food than African-American neighborhoods typically had access to and secondly to show lower case community the power of collective purchasing; that they could do better when united and divided in all aspects of their lives.

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