Recognizing Somerville's Welcome Project

After solicitations to upcoming candidate forums I wondered about who would be in the room and language justice. I had reached out to the new Executive Director Sara Kirubi to take temperature about plans to promote civic participation and solicit a questionnaire. The history below was added in lieu of no questionnaire to keep myself centered and rooted and to show appreciation to the Project's long history in supporting direct access and advocacy for human rights. Director Kirubi replied that the translators program was available to give assistance to upcoming candidate forums.

Below excerpted from email to The Welcome Project:

My understanding is that fear of reprisal is rampant in the nonprofit community,not simply for being suspect of violating Internal Revenue Service rules that limit political activities. Yet an event was announced for October by a coalition a candidate forum after the prelims. I don't see collaborative governance happening to achieve greater diversity of candidates.  Coud the coalition of community associations organize a public forum separate from the city's "official" election to develop their own vision for the future of this city?

"...SomerVision called a large public meeting attended by about one hundred people on January 5, 2010. This gathering was run according to a process developed by a national consulting group called the World Cafe. Urged by the immigrant advocacy organization the Welcome Project, this time the city also offered multiple simultaneous language translations. The program consisted of a series of structured 'conversations' held at each of eighteen tables of six persons each. [...]" 

While the coalition of stakeholders I believe meets eye-to-eye, the leg work to facilitate a conversation about social citizenship and what it is to be undocumented could be discussed via the Human Rights Commission focus group Tuesday, August 5. 

I know looking at me, I don't reflect a turn of the city's diversity into democracy. Not having an opportunity through a questionnaire, to express my campaign commitment to speak as loud as I can for protection of neighbors. I want to share some received oral/written history related to recent efforts such as the Displacement Report which called for a value statement. Who will compose this and what is the process? The last of these, in 2009-2010, SomerVision was actively influenced by an alternative Vision statement process--both successfully supported for language justice by the Welcome Project.  In 2009 two successive years of 400,000 deportations by the Obama Administration had followed the powerful undocumented rising for Universal Health Care witnessed in 2006. 

Of course, in 2009 two competing processes were initiated to craft vision statements of the future Somerville. As you know, the Welcome Project played a key role. And the HRC preserves some of that historical memory, the fact that the leadership of the Welcome Project has intertwined with the Human Rights Commission since the latter's inception, Nelson Salazar and Ben Echevarria, and other board members. A 2004 Human Rights Report based on student pairings arranged exists accessible in the local history room of the Central Library. One of the Tufts Emeritus Sociology Faculty Susan A. Ostrander writes in Citizenship and Governance in a Changing City: Somerville, MA 

"On April 29, 2009, in the same school cafeteria where the city had held its SomerVision open house just four days earlier, the coalition of civic associations and organizations held their first community meeting on a Wednesday evening from 6-8pm. They called themselves the Community Corridor Planning coalition (CCP): "a grassroots non-profit coalition committed to resident participation in planning for a livable, equitable, Somerville" (text from flyer). The group included STEP, the city's community development agency the SCC, a small organization focused on environmental issues called Groundwork Somerville, and the city's health alliance. In an apparent nod toward shared governance, the city's SomerVision project manager and his co-leader also spoke at the coalition's evening event. They said, "We see ourselves as partners with you in the beginning stages of a city-wide plan."

"About seventy people attended the CCP community meeting, which was described by the welcoming speaker as 'the first of many.' It appeared that about one-third of those present were Latino, Brazilian, or Haitian, in vivid contrast to the city's largely white Anglo attendees. The flyers publicizing the coalition event were in multiple languages, and interpreters (multi-lingual Somerville youth trained by the local immigrant advocacy organization called the Welcome Project) provided translation into Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. The introductory speaker identified the goal of the meeting as to "ensure that the Green Line meets the needs of our diverse communities." (Susan A. Ostrander, Citizenship and Governance in a Changing City: Somerville, MA pp. 52-53).

It is again an odd year election, and amidst further deportation terror, I'm hopeful for processes that turn diversity into democracy led by the Welcome Project ---thanks to Executive Director Sara Kirubi, members of the Welcome Project Board, and Volunteers.

I quote the above, only childlike, pleased for myself to make a discovery of one of the influencing processes that occurred with the SomerVision process. As you may imagine, I am receiving questionnaire's constantly from well-organized special interest groups, asking me what I will prioritize from the SomerVision. I rely on the paper trail because I am finding that launching a political campaign has the inadvertent consequence of creating a bubble--buffering me from immigrant-advocates that have wondered what hat I'm wearing Human Rights Commissioner or Political Candidate for an outreach conversation.