The Community Economic Development Center (CEDC) grant helped to create a program, Mujeres Victoriosas, a support and resource group for immigrant women and mothers from Central America.

The goal of the program is to help participants share lived experiences, to develop mutual support actions, and to hone their leadership skills so they can become increasingly a voice in the community. The grant stipends provide a lead facilitator and community outreach coordinators to address barriers immigrant women face, such as language, lack of formal education and legal immigration status. Immigrant women are important contributors to the local economy by forming the backbone of labor in New Bedford’s $1B fishing industry. This program helps to mobilize and to lift up their collective voices to speak out and affect societal change.

The group meets bi-weekly and includes a Spanish-speaking regional resource on topics such as education, health, housing, benefits, trauma, abuse, sexism, racism, and xenophobia. From these meetings, leaders emerge who become resources for other women in their community.

Through CEDC’s broad partnerships in the community, we have been able to connect the group to a wide range of organizations in New Bedford including: New Bedford Public Schools, City of New Bedford Health Department, SC Fair Housing, the New Bedford Women’s Center, The Greater New Bedford Health Center, South Coast Counties Legal Services, United Way/Family Resource Center NB Immigrant Support Network.

Located in New Bedford, the nation’s most valuable fishing port, New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is dedicated to preserving and presenting the story of the fishing industry past, present, and future through exhibits, programs, and archives. Herstory is an intergenerational oral history project pairing students in high school and college with older women who have ties to New Bedford’s fishing community.

Girls on the Run is an after-school program that challenges young girls to embrace their inner strength, to gain confidence, and to foster care and compassion for others through the physical challenge of running. The eight-week program culminates with a 5K run that encourages participants to give it their all to reach the finish line. The Women’s Fund SouthCoast is sponsoring a local chapter of this national program and encourages you to volunteer as a coach or as an advocate. You don’t have to lace up your sneakers to make a difference in a young girl’s life. Head coach, Caroline O’Leary, who has taught in New Bedford for the last six years “cannot wait to see the growth and empowerment of this amazing group of girls!”

The Parenting Advancement Pathways Program at Bristol Community College Women’s Center, based on the LifeWork model, is an innovative program exclusively designed to support parenting students with wraparound services often found outside the college experience.

The initiative promotes economic mobility by providing holistic support and skills to help low-income parents, from diverse backgrounds, move toward economic independence and college degree attainment. It provides individual support and access to resources that are often difficult to obtain for low income/first generation parents. This program will help provide opportunity and stability for women to balance education while raising children on their own.

The program will provide resources such as holistic case management, financial and career planning, counseling, day and evening child care support, and on-going educational advisement that leads to degree attainment. 

The YWCA recognizes that coalition building, legislative advocacy, and the mobilization of public support requires a dedicated staff person to manage these responsibilities.

This multi-year grant provides salary relief to aid the director of advocacy and resource development, who sustains and grows the YWCA’s advocacy program, coordinating legislative campaigns and advocacy activities for Fiscal Year 2021.

This staff member develops and maintains relationships with regional and statewide associates, community groups, and other key partners, policymakers, and their staff. Other responsibilities include mobilization of public support and action, providing information to supporters about legislation, policies, social, or political movements related to eliminating racism, empowering women, and accessing information about how people can take action. Often individuals are asked to contact their legislators, participate in a rally, attend a fundraiser, complete a survey, and/or share information on social media about the importance of an issue. This staff member sponsors events that engage the local community on advocacy issues related to gender equity and racial justice.

Sacred Birthing Village focuses on revitalizing the community around maternal wellness and creating an experience and process that centers the voices, and experiences of the BIPOC community. Over and over we discuss poor outcomes of black maternal health specifically, however, fewer solutions are available and offered in our community and to the birthing individuals to create healthier changes for families and in turn the greater community. Sacred Birthing Village of Southcoast is a champion and a leader when it comes to educating our community and local stakeholders on the challenges and offers a unique and time-tested approach to create healthier outcomes and engage in healthier social and structural determinants of health. Our approach, collaboration, and partnership with the community is creating a pathway to support not only women but families and create generational wealth and health which starts with maternal, paternal, and infant health.

The Birthing Project is a volunteer effort to encourage better birth outcomes by providing practical support to women during pregnancy and one year after their child’s birth. The Birthing Project helps women find the emotional freedom necessary to identify and use the resources to care for themselves and their families. The beginning point is pregnancy. The final stop is a healthy one-year-old child and the ability to care for that child in terms of providing a source of income, housing, support system, and other factors involved in maintaining optimum health status.