About one year ago, members and staff of the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission – a state government agency serving elected officials, Latin@ community leaders and organizations – began the formulation of a two-year strategic plan to be implemented between July 2007 and June 2009. Six months into the plan, called Global-Ready Ohio for the 21st Century (GROh 21), the commission’s staff has completed the infrastructure phases. The comission is now beginning the strategic portion dedicated to creating Economic Development opportunities for Hispanic Ohioans, maximizing the opportunities created by Ohio’s emerging Diversity, and continuing its multi-year focus on the condition of Education for Latin@ youth across the state.
Key to the strategic plan is integration with Governor Ted Strickland’s landmark Turnaround Ohio program, which focuses on economic and workforce development, education, technology, and other similar initiatives.
Development
Ohio Latino Affairs is in the final stages of negotiations with various agencies to launch Project OPEN, a multi-year, multi-component initiative focusing on three areas of economic development: business start-ups and job creation, business growth, and research.
Project OPEN for Business is a partnership between the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission and the Ohio Department of Development to establish four Latino Small Business Development Centers (SBDC’s) with bilingual staff and culturally-competent resources to help entrepreneurs start-up their businesses in accordance with US business practices, regulations, and customs, as well as identifying opportunities for start-up capital and growth. During the pilot phase (2008 and 2009) Ohio Latino Affairs is investing resources into the first Latino SBDC, which is operating in Central Ohio.
Project OPEN for Opportunities is a capacity-building project between Ohio Latino Affairs and the Hispanic Chamber of Columbus. The goal is to strengthen the capacity of the Chamber to better serve the needs of Latino-owned and -operated businesses, as well as those Ohio businesses that seek to do business in the Latin@ and Latin American marketplace.
Project OPEN for Information is a further partnership between Ohio Latino Affairs and the Department of Development to conduct an economic impact study to determine the contributions of Latinos to Central Ohio’s economy.
In future years, the goal of Ohio Latino Affairs is to increase all three Project OPEN components and roll them out statewide, beginning with three new investment sites in 2010 and beyond. This growth is predicated upon the success of the Project OPEN pilot in Central Ohio during 2008 and 2009.
Diversity
The headlines feature news about some of the challenges faced in both Ohio and across the United States regarding the integration of New American communities, especially Latin@s. Although the typical approach is to blame Latin@s for some of the challenges in learning English and acculturation, the objective for the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission is to find a way to increase the capacity of Latin@-community serving organizations to better address these challenges. The Commission has designed the Grassroots Capacity Building Initiative as a three step program to accomplish these goals and take a proactive approach to turn our emerging diversity into an asset instead of the prevailing attitude that diversity is a liability.
The first step of the Grassroots Initiative is an intensive training program to improve organization’s skills in the areas of grant writing and legislative advocacy. Ohio Latino Affairs staff will travel across Ohio during March and April 2008 to eight different cities – including Lorain, Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo, Fremont, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton – to offer the half-day training session to over 100 organizations.
The second step gives participating organizations an opportunity to apply the lessons learned in the training. Ohio Latino Affairs plans to offer over $100,000 worth of grants across the state in a mini-grant opportunity, with maximum grant sizes of $10,000 across the eight communities. This will be followed up with a legislative visit day on Tuesday, May 6, 2008.
Finally, in 2009, the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission is working to foster relationships with eight local community foundations to create a challenge grant opportunity that will expand the work begun through the Grassroots Initiative in 2008.
EDUCATION
For nearly seven years, the Commission has been devoted to addressing issues in the area of education for Latin@ youth, beginning with its seminal report on the state of education in the 2001-2002 school year. Since then, Ohio Latino Affairs has been a part of national activities, developed a campaign to close the academic achievement gap, and held a statewide conference in 2006.
The ongoing Soluciones Education Campaign is entering its third year with initial roundtable conversations between Ohio Latino Affairs commissioners, staff, as well as members of the community to chart a new course. Initial goals include a new statewide conference, a pilot investment in an English-language tutoring program, and the creation of a stronger statewide council on Latin@ education with formal partnerships between the community and state agencies like the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Board of Regents.
Although this is just a brief sample of all the strategic initiatives of the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission, more information is available at the website,
http://ochla.ohio.gov
or by calling the Office on Latino Affairs at (614) 466-8333.
The purpose of the Ohio Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs is to advise state government on issues affecting Hispanic Ohioans, to connect the diverse Latin@ communities across the state, and to build the capacity of community organizations so they may better serve the fast growing Latin@ population of Ohio.
