G-2110-17275

This proposal is one of two that are a part of the Racial Justice in Health (RJH) initiative, which is a co-funding project between CareQuest Institute, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, and the Rx Foundation. The purpose of the initiative is to advance policies and practices in Massachusetts that promote racial justice and equity in health and health care delivery. To do this, the RJH initiative is focused on investing in the capacity of people of color-led community organizations to strengthen their position as leaders and influence policy and systems that advance equity.

The Somali Development Center (SDC) has a mission to provide accessible community services to all refugees and immigrants in the Greater Boston area. SDC develops the capacity of individuals and families to be self-sufficient. Since its founding, SDC has been fortunate to be one of the lifelines to vital educational and social services. The program will equip the leadership to catalyze a new stage of growth for the organization by being better prepared to build campaigns and advocacy tools that will help ensure refugees advance racial justice.

SDC’s community is comprised of refugees and immigrants from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, and Djibouti. Most of the refugees SDC serves have received limited formal education in their home country. In addition to this challenge, these refugees enter a society whose language and culture could not be more different than their own. The maze of bureaucracies that refugees must navigate to receive basic education and services needed for themselves and their families to become self-sufficient is daunting and often incomprehensible.

The focus of this proposal is to implement a policy-focused health advocacy project that will eliminate racial inequities in health and:
- educate SDC’s clients on these practices and policies that perpetuate the inequities because most of the individuals SDC supports are not fully aware.
- empower refugees to more effectively interact with the healthcare systems or practitioners, so they can self-advocate and receive quality care and health outcomes overall.
- leverage the lived experiences from this community to design a policy agenda focused on increasing health equity.

The budget for all grantee organizations associated with the RJH Initiative is $50,000. Of that, organizations are requested to set aside $7,500 specifically to support individually focused technical assistance that would strengthen the organization’s infrastructure and capacity to engage ongoingly in policy efforts. The remainder of the funding is to be committed staff time to participate in the cohort learning and organization-focused community power building.

This work offers several unique opportunities for CareQuest Institute, including:
- the establishment of new relationships with philanthropic partners seeking to advance health equity.
- the increased capacity of Massachusetts-based people of color-led organizations to include and speak to oral health as a key part of broader oral health efforts.
- the establishment of new partnerships with community-based organizations that will advance health and health care policy.

A key part of this initiative includes an organization’s framework around individual and cohort-based training, technical assistance and learning. Through this, grantees will be equipped with the capacity to understand health and oral health from a systemic standpoint, to meaningfully engage in conversations with communities around the prioritization of needs and opportunities. Through this framework, CareQuest Institute will work to support the provision of oral health learning for the broader cohort and the two specific organizations being recommended for funding.