"It is not enough to just welcome immigrants to the City of Boston. We must make a collective effort to ensure that immigrants feel welcomed, and include their voices in the city government."
--Mayor Menino

To fulfill the department's mission, the ONB worked with city departments and community partners to collectively identify and address immigrants' concerns.

• Surveying the Boston Community:
  Assessing the Impact of the Mayor's Office of New Bostonians


• English for New Bostonians:
  New Bostonians Project (ENB) it is a private-public-community partnership initiated by the Mayor's Office of New Bostonians. The ENB Project was formed to help new Bostonians attain an English competency that will allow them to reach their goals as parents, workers, and members of the community. The goal of this partnership is to reduce ESOL waiting lists for adults while improving the capacity and the quality of ESOL classes of current providers.



• English For New Bostonians ESOL Citywide Directory:
  In response to the call to improve coordination of ESOL in Boston, ENB created a citywide ESOL directory in September of 2003 that provides a user-friendly, information of ESOL providers in the city. This directory allows ESOL students, providers and volunteers to quickly and effectively locate ESOL locations available. Visit our ESOL directory at www.cityofboston.gov/newbostonians/search.asp.



• Immigration Clinics:
  After September 11, 2001, community concerns around immigration issues increased dramatically. To better respond to New Bostonians' increasing need for legal advice and representation on immigration issues, MONB began the "Free Immigration Consultation" program in October 2003. This program offers immigration clinics in which constituents meet with one of our volunteer immigration attorneys to confidentially discuss their immigration situation and concerns. Additionally, if an individual needs further legal assistance after having attended the Immigration Clinic, the volunteer attorneys have been asked to provide a 15%-30% discount based on the constituent's income. The free consultations are held at City Hall in Room 804 every first and third Wednesday of each month from 12pm to 2:30pm. Please note that there are no intakes after 2:00pm.
  
  Free Immigration Advice
• October 3rd and 17th
• November 7th and 21st
• December 5th and 19th

Location: Room 804
From 12:00pm - 2:30pm

For more information, call (617) 635-2980.


• New Bostonians Community Day:
  New Bostonians Community Day was created to help the diverse communities better understand and access crucial city resources and to better understand how city government works and how to participate in it. New Bostonians Community Day is also a celebration of the diverse communities, and an opportunity to build better understanding and closer relationships amongst the diverse communities as well as with city leaders. The annual New Bostonians Community Day usually takes place in September or October at Boston City Hall. Activities throughout the day include free immigration clinics, multilingual tours of city departments, resource tables on topics ranging from immigration to job opportunities, and performances by a variety of musicians and dancers from different countries.

• Responding to community issues:
  At its inception the MONB held discussions with members of the diverse communities to determine its role. It was agreed that the Office of New Bostonians would play an advocacy role and work with the diverse communities to bring attention to the issues that the diverse communities face. The Office would work with the diverse communities to develop citywide strategies and work in partnership with the communities to address these issues. The Office seeks to enhance and support the work that is being done in the communities with regards to community building and empowerment . Since MONB's inception, the Office has held many community meetings and conducted community surveys to identify key issues that the communities face and to develop citywide strategies to address these issues.
  
  The four key issues identified in 1999 that cut across the communities include lack of affordable housing, lack of English for Speakers of Other Languages classes immigration issues and discrimination.
  
  
• Community Outreach/Empowerment:
  MONB outreaches to the community to bring it valuable information, such as new immigration laws or proposed policies through our new e-mail blast and other publications, which may otherwise not reach it properly and/or in a timely manner. MONB continues to stay close to communities to listen and respond to their concerns.



• Information and Referral:
  To maximize resources, avoid service duplication and help community members connect with the range of community resources, MONB provides information and referral to constituents. Annually, MONB handles over a thousand calls from constituents needing help with a variety of services, resources and information. To better track calls and services provided to New Bostonians, MONB created a computerized Log System. The report produced by the Log System in 2003 gives the office a better sense of what are the prominent and emerging issues in the communities.



• Facilitating access to city resources and better understanding of how city government works:
  One of MONB's goals is to assist the diverse communities to better access city services. To achieve this goal, MONB has worked with various city departments to create a City Volunteer Interpreter Pool. Bilingual and multilingual city employees assist New Bostonians who cannot speak English to access various city services. If a department is in need of interpretation in order to serve a constituent, the department staff calls the MONB who then links the department to one of the interpreters in the City Volunteer Interpreter Pool. Mayor Thomas Menino has also invested in acquiring simultaneous interpreter equipment to ensure fuller participation of community members at community meetings and events. MONB houses and monitors the use of the equipment. Many city departments and community agencies have taken advantage of this equipment to maximize participation at various community meetings and events.



• Publications and Resources:
  MONB has developed several resources to assist community members to better access city and community resources. The New Bostonians Guide to City Services details services that the city provides and how to access them. It is printed in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Cape Verdean Creole, Russian, and Haitian Creole. A Community Resource Directory, which provides extensive information on the services available in the diverse communities is published and updated every two years. In addition, MONB publishes an annual newsletter to keep its constituents and partners informed of its activities.



• Facilitating City-Community Partnerships and responding to community issues:
  MONB works closely with the communities to develop citywide strategies to address key community issues. To this end, MONB has initiated the following programs:

• New Bostonians Vote Campaign:
  The New Bostonians Vote Campaign is a city-community collaboration created by MONB and its community partners in response to the issue of discrimination. Instead of choosing a particular issue of discrimination to address, MONB and its partners launched New Bostonians Vote to provide community members with the skills and tools to advocate for themselves on any issue of discrimination. The Campaign is a collaboration of community agencies, city departments and individuals to help members of the immigrant community understand the significance of their voice. Facilitated by MONB, its goal is to increase the civic participation, voter registration and turnout in New Bostonian communities and to debunk the myth that New Bostonian communities are not invested participants in the civic process. Beginning in 2000, over 140 community organizations have participated in the campaign, registered thousands of new voters and increased voter registration significantly in the various communities. MONB created voting materials in different languages, a New Bostonians Voter Information Kit the New Bostonians Vote video "Give Our Communities A Voice," T shirts, posters, banners, and placards, to communicate this information in neighborhood meetings. In addition, MONB partnered with the Chinese, Haitian and Vietnamese communities to determine barriers to voting in these communities as well as strategies that encourage voting.



• Evaluating MONB Efforts in New Bostonians Communities:
  MONB participates actively in New Bostonians communities through various forums, meetings and events. In 2003, MONB partnered with over 180 community-based organizations events geared towards New Bostonians. The office conducted a total of 92 workshops, forums and meetings that focused on addressing community needs. A total of 9 educational and cultural competence workshops were also offered for city employees. In addition, MONB attended 91 community meetings and events, assisted 30 projects that linked city departments with immigrant groups, and conducted 50 civic participation activities. Overall, the MONB received extremely positive ratings from the New Bostonians communities. The most popular project was the English for New Bostonians, while the City Guide and the Community Resource Directory became our most acclaimed publications. Activities, such as the New Bostonians Community Day, enabled New Bostonians to get a better sense of their local government and to feel represented by an office within the City Hall. Communities expressed their sense of appreciation towards MONB for giving them a voice within the government.



• Awards Received:
  The Mayor's Office of New Bostonians received the 2001 Cultural Diversity Award from the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials (NBC_LEO), a leading voice for African American leadership in local government and a constituency group of the National League of Cities. The Award promotes the concept of "total community collaboration" and echoes the importance of MONB's mission. The 2000 City Livability Award for Outstanding Achievement was awarded to MONB by the United States Conference of Mayors for MONB's various programs and activities that ensure that city government is responsive and accessible to diverse cultural and linguistic communities.