On the Table: Shifting Worldviews with Gabriel Feldman
Summary:
What happens when your career path no longer aligns with your conscience? In this episode, we sit down with Gabriel Feldman, who spent nearly a decade as a professional architect before a series of volunteer trips fundamentally rattled his worldview.
In this limited series episode, guest host Mariana Caro sits with Gabe to talk about his transition from the highly technical, relationship-driven world of architecture to the front lines of humanitarian aid and restorative justice. They dive deep into the concepts of white saviorism, the duality of systemic inequality, and his current work at Columbia University’s Center for Justice and Project Restore.
Contents:
00:00 Introduction to the student series, On The Table
02:20 Getting to know Gabe
06:00 A career in architecture
16:45 The turning point
24:00 Confronting white saviorism
28:00 Leaping into a different career
33:00 NECR, Project Restore and the Center for Justice
01:05:20 Rapid fire questions from peers
01:26:00 Closing
Concepts and frameworks featured:
Restorative Justice, Violence Intervention, Latent Attractors, Systems Mapping, White Saviorism
About the expert:
Gabriel Feldman came to The Center for Justice at Columbia University (CFJ) with a diverse background. He studied architecture at Wentworth in Boston and worked as an architect in Manhattan for nearly a decade, managing the design and construction of thousands of square feet of interiors. In 2019, he transitioned to humanitarian aid in Levos, Greece, focusing on assisting refugee and asylum-seeking minors. From 2019 to 2022, he managed various programs with organizations such as Boat Refugee Foundation, Still I Rise NGO, and Better Days NGO.
With Better Days, he worked as a Program Coordinator, supporting activity implementation as well as crisis response. As a Team Lead at the Boat Refugee Foundation, he supervised the operations of a healthcare clinic and managed volunteer teams supporting refugees and asylum seekers in Moria Camp, the most infamous refugee camp in Europe. With Still I Rise NGO, he moved to Samos, another Greek island, and served as Programme Manager of a school/youth center for refugee and asylum-seeking children. He managed all facets of the initiative; Education, mental health & psychosocial support activities, and overseeing logistics as well as general team coordination.
In his role at Project Restore: Bedstuy and CFJ, Gabriel worked as Project Manager, supporting the project's overall operations and programming alongside community leaders in the field, like Inside Circle. He also led monitoring and evaluation efforts, coordinating data collection, analysis, and reporting, and worked with Dr. Geraldine Downey to develop a comprehensive evaluation of the 18- to 24-month initiative. As Project Director at CFJ, he runs the Justice Ambassadors Youth Council-now in its 9th year of programming as well as continuing the Project Restore work as it expands into other neighborhoods and boroughs throughout New York City. These positions allow him to apply his experience from humanitarian aid to social justice, demonstrating his commitment to confronting and removing barriers in front of communities and looking toward systemic shifts that would alleviate the need for the kind of work he is now doing.
