Volunteer ‘mayors’ help boost civic engagement

Mass Innovations, From The Beacon, January 2011

A program introduced by Fitchburg Mayor Lisa Wong is helping to spur civic engagement among Spanish-speaking residents, who account for at least 13 percent of the city’s population.

The program, known as “Alcalde de Su Calle” (Mayor of Your Street), grew out of an effort during the 2010 Census to ensure that Hispanic residents were fully counted. Wong said the Census campaign, which included the creation of a “count committee” and reaching out to neighborhood groups, underlined the need to connect Spanish-speaking residents with City Hall.

“For a large part of the community, when they come into this building, it doesn’t seem very friendly, or it doesn’t seem like a building that can serve their needs, on account of the language barrier,” Wong said.

The Alcalde de Su Calle program is working to identify people who could serve as informal liaisons between their neighbors and City Hall.

“We want people to be at the street level,” Wong said. “We want them to know their neighbors. We want them to relay the concerns that are at that level. It could be a pothole, a streetlight, a sidewalk problem, or speeding.

“But there are also other opportunities to get involved. If they live in a multi-family, they can get started by beautifying their multi-family – planting a garden, for example.”

The initial goal, according to Wong, was to recruit 25 volunteers.

“We thought that we’d have trouble finding 25, because of the time commitment, and the depth at which we wanted people to get involved,” Wong said. “And now, with the publicity we’ve generated, we have a list of 100 and growing.”

The publicity included an interview on CNN in mid-October.

“We knew that we couldn’t do this as a formal program, that we couldn’t just hang up a sign and tell people to come into City Hall,” Wong told CNN’s Ali Velshi. “We needed to create trust.”

Spanish was identified as the primary language of 13 percent of the city’s households in the 2000 Census. Wong said she expects the forthcoming Census figures to indicate that Spanish speakers now constitute a larger proportion.

For more information, contact Lisa Wong at (978) 345-9550.