La Alianza Hispana

La Alianza Hispana was founded in 1969 by residents of Roxbury/ North Dorchester as a social service agency that would support Boston’s growing Hispanic population. In 1970, it became a community-based non-profit organization, funded by Boston's Model Cities Program. In 1975 La Alianza became a United Way affiliate to diversify funding. La Alianza advocates for equal access to services and public resources for the Hispanic Community by combating the effects of discrimination, poverty and challenges of migration.^[1]

History

The organization was created in 1968 by Ana Maria Rodriguez, teacher of English as a Second Language at an elementary school, after observing the impoverished conditions of her Latino students. Since its foundation, its main goals have been to support the needs of Spanish speaking immigrants with a low income—-mainly those that live in Roxbury. It addresses the quality of human services to promote the improvement of the community.^[2]

Objectives

To accomplish its mission goals, La Alianza manages five program areas, serving 5,000 people a year. It has also developed a financial and budget management system in order to keep track of each program’s record of financial activity by conducting monthly computer program based financial reports. Through the Finance Committee, the Agency’s Board of Directors creates policies and supervises staff operations.^[3] The organization has collaborative agreements with other institutions such as Roxbury Community College, Project AFRIC and the University of Massachusetts. Although these partnership have influenced and helped disadvantaged and homeless women, none of these address the importance of literacy training to clients. So the adult illiteracy education program through La Alianza Hispana fills a significant gap in services.

Programs

La Alianza Hispana is a complex service agency that functions in a decentralized manner. Units that focus on particular topics in order to achieve the organization’s overall goals organize it. The programs are administered under four units: The Youth Center, Counseling and Advocacy, Adult Education, and Mental Health.^[4]

Youth Development Unit was established in 1978 with the aim of expanding and focusing on youth programs. Programs have included children's services, recreation, tutoring, and involving Spanish-speaking youth in educating their friends about substance abuse and prevention. There have been different projects that take place throughout the year. One of the most popular ones consisted of the production of a documentary film that included interviews with families, youth in school and clients form the organization. The film is produced and directed by participants under this program. Other activities that are carry out involved adolescent counseling, after school program for youth from 6 to 12 years of age and the prevention program for youth 7 to 21 and other cultural arts activities. Projects such as this provide individuals with culturally relevant material about prevention by spreading it through a popular medium.^[5] The use of recreational activities such as karate classes and sports leagues allowed children to develop better relationships with one another and be pro-active. Counseling services for teens increased teens' awareness about health issues such as teen pregnancy and AIDs This program involves three full-time and two part-time Drug Prevention and Recreation Workers.

The Latino Family Counseling Center offers culturally individual, group and family counseling as well as behavioral health services to Latino communities. It helps its clients by finding available resources such as welfare, housing, food and social security. The Counseling Center provides services, which increase a client's capacity of developing long-term behaviors that can help remedy its client’s problems. These services include mental health, sexual abuse, and substance abuse counseling, and a support group for LGBT youth and their families.^[6] It function on the basis of family systems theories, looking at cultural, economic and political factors that impact mental health and substance using behaviors. This is the only Spanish-speaking contributor that offers both child welfare and mental health services. By increasing its clients' access to community resources, the center seeks to empower individuals to cope with their behavioral and mental health issues. Appropriate guidelines serve as a model for tackling universal challenges. Currently, the agency wants to partner with a parent clinic with the purpose of obtaining the necessary license for third party payments.^[7]

The Elderly Services Program consist of providing both linguistically and culturally appropriate services to Latino elders age 60 and up. The services are carried out by bilingual and bi-cultural staff which are responsible in meeting existing health and medical needs of disabled, cognitively and or physically impaired Latino elders living in Roxbury, Dorchester. Its goal is to facilitate the networking and companionship among the Latino elders and implement a medical model of service which responds to the plan.^[8] The program is very practical because it allows elders to continue living at home while attending the Adult Day Health Program for at least two days a week. Some of the different services include counseling, daily nutritional meals delivered by Council of Elders and client escort.^[9]

Funding Resources

La Alianza has tripled its operational budget since its founding. Currently,about 5,000 clients are seen per year. The majority of the programs do not charge any fee for the services provided due to clients who suffer from extreme poverty.^[10] However, there are a combination of sources that fund La Alianza Hispana’s programs. For example, the Department for Social Services and the Department of Public Health provide funding for the Youth Center Unit. Besides public sources, the Alianza is also funded by private sources.^[11] United Way of America is a non-profit organization that works throughout the country in partnership with charitable organizations in an effort to increase fundraising and support, provides 18% of their current funding while others provide 6-7% of the current operating costs.

References

1. Finding aid for the La Alianza Hispana Records. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2014.
2. La Alianza Hispana, Records, 1965-1999, University Libriaries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, Box 3, folder 24
3. Finding aid for the La Alianza Hispana Records. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2014.
4. La Alianza Hispana (2014, February 13). Retrieved October 17, 2014
5. La Alianza Hispana, Records, 1965-1999, University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, Box 83, folder 23
6. La Alianza Hispana (2014, February 13). Retrieved October 17, 2014
7. La Alianza Hispana records, 1965-1999, University Libriaries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, Box 75, folder 13
8. La Alianza Hispana (2014, February 13). Retrieved October 17, 2014
9. La Alianza Hispana records, 1965-1999, University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, Box 78, folder 10
10. La Alianza Hispana, Records, 1965-1999, University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, Box 70, folder 16
11. La Alianza Hispana, Records, 1965-1999, University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, Box 3, folder 15