Multiple Organization Partnership Puertas Abiertas
Kent District Library
Innovation Synopsis
KDL partners with Puertas Abiertas, a self-organized nonprofit committed to respond to the needs of immigrant woman who have survived violence and/or are dealing with trauma. More often than not, these women are also head of household. We provide tech tutoring and access to community resources through our partners.
Challenge/Opportunity
- The group consist of approximately 160 women and their families with a diverse set of needs and abilities, but when they approached Kent District Library, they had identified tech tutoring and access to the internet as one of the most urgent requests since all other basic needs were conflated with elemental literacy skills in the Spanish language, and low level of English as a second language. Almost all applications to services and resources require email or basic web navigating skills.
Key Elements of Innovation
The partnership started by listening to their needs and identifying community partners that could join us. This led us to:
- CompreNew provides 50 desktop computers to qualifying families
- Emergency Broadcast Benefit Program provides a temporary discount of up to $50 per month towards broadband service for eligible households and up to $75 per month for qualifying households
- Internet Essentials provides permanent high-speed internet to eligible households.
- Literacy Center of Western Michigan provided ESL classes
Achieved Outcomes
Today, Kent District Library provides eight sessions of basic tech tutoring classes in Spanish, laptop computers, Wi-Fi for the classes and individual help to access library resources such as Rosetta Stone, Mango language and educational databases for the whole family. We have also established a KDL free library maintained by the program participants.
Due to the nature of the group, this collaboration is private and we do not promote publicly with them, but often do direct warm referrals to relevant organizations.