Foreword, 2025 in numbers, and about QARAVAN

This section of QARAVAN’s Annual Report 2025 has the letter from our founder and president about 2025, the year in numbers, and an introduction to QARAVAN.

Letter from the President

Dear friends,

2025 tested us. In late January, new federal orders took aim at immigrants, asylum seekers, and transgender people, the heart of our community. We responded the only way we could: by organizing legal training with our partners at SAFE Asylum and ensuring our community members had the knowledge and resources to defend themselves in the face of an unprecedented assault on their rights.

QARAVAN is a community of LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other identities) immigrants from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, on the journey together toward safety and dignity. Over the course of the year, we held 93 events, roughly one every four days.

Our core programs served 485 people, and 25 to 30 newcomers joined us each month. Dozens found a volunteer partner for English practice and a first friend in a new country. Hundreds of us marched at our ninth Brighton Beach Pride.

When four of our members were in crisis, the community stepped up and, chipping in what they could, raised the funds to help them through difficult times. We also stood beside people in detention with legal funding, translations, and letters of support, helping bring members home.

Our work, while not flashy, is absolutely critical. It makes a tangible, meaningful difference in people’s lives.

You made it happen this year! Every donor, every volunteer, everyone who came to our events. We are on this journey together. Join us.

Yelena Goltsman (she/her), Founder and President, QARAVAN

2025 in numbers

• 485participants served in core programs, fiscal year 2025
• ~500participants at the ninth Brighton Beach Pride
• 25–30new participants each month, on average, fiscal year 2025
• 109program sessions and gatherings
• 100participants in Rainbow Connections, fiscal year 2025
• 93distinct events in 2025
• 68letters of support for asylum cases
• 155inquiries received through qaravan.org
• 46new winter coats distributed
• 7,800+messages exchanged by more than 420 community chat members

Participation figures are for fiscal year 2025 (July 2024 to June 2025). Attendance and activity counts are estimates. Chat messages were counted from late 2024 to late 2025. The detention stories include releases in early 2026.

About QARAVAN

QARAVAN is a New York-based nonprofit serving LGBTQ+ immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. We organize events, provide peer support, help members access services, and advocate for LGBTQ+ immigrants’ rights.

QARAVAN, the name our community adopted as it grew beyond its origins, means what it says: a caravan traveling together toward safety and dignity.

• 2008: The community began in New York City as RUSA LGBTQ+ (now QARAVAN), growing from a Brighton Beach circle into a citywide community.
• 2022: The community became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
• February 2025: QARAVAN earned the Candid Platinum Seal of Transparency.
• June 2025: New York City Pride (NYC Pride) selected us as one of 11 nonprofits citywide for its Pride Gives Back grant.