RESOURCEFULNESS & RESILIENCE – HALLMARKS OF IMMIGRANTS AND THE IWC (Summer 2020). In 2005, then First Lady of Indianapolis, Amy Minnick Peterson, founded the Immigrant Welcome Center (IWC). Since then, the IWC has been on a mission to connect Indy's immigrant community to the people, places and resources they need to thrive.

Over the years, the Immigrant Welcome Center has adapted and innovated its programming and services to meet the community's needs. When faced with the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the IWC recognized how the virus would impact many vulnerable immigrants. Language barriers, legal status and lack of resources already existed as significant challenges before the pandemic and have been exacerbated as case numbers increase.

The Immigrant Welcome Center responded to the crisis by developing its Wellness Check project as part of its well established immigrant integration program, which includes sharing critical information and resources with immigrants in one's native language and connecting them with direct services and Natural Helpers who are immigrants trained to help other immigrants. Initially, bilingual staff called past clients to collect information on how their food, income, housing and health access security were impacted during COVID-19.

The program grew in response to demand, and while other organizations were forced to consider staff furloughs, the IWC hired seven additional Natural Helper Specialists representing diverse countries of origin including, Burma (Myanmar), Vietnam, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mexico, Venezuela, Jordan and Palestine. In just three months (end of March through June), IWC conducted 381 wellness checks with immigrant and refugee community members.

Meanwhile, other activities include launching a COVID-19 hotline available in more than 200 languages for immigrants seeking information and resources to navigate the pandemic, transitioning citizenship classes to a virtual platform, organizing weekly Partner Power calls with an average of 40 organizations in attendance each week, and partnering with the City of Indianapolis and Marion County Public Health Department to distribute 4,000 face masks during an outreach event aimed primarily for the Latinx community.

In 2018, the Immigrant Welcome Center garnered a research grant from the Lilly Endowment to study the barriers to English language learning for the immigrant population. No one knew then that two years later, IWC would be piloting a new English instruction curriculum and pivoting quickly to do so through web-based instruction as necessitated by the pandemic.

The IWC recognized that the logistics of managing English classes while maintaining job and family responsibilities can be overwhelming, and the need for more English classes in the workplace and potentially online became clear. IWC leadership believes that collaboration in the area of workplace English instruction could be transformative; inspired by English for New Bostonians’ EnglishWorks Campaign (a Clowes Fund grantee). The IWC supports the growth of such an effort through collaboration with the Indy Chamber and others, including Indy Reads (also a Fund grantee).

In the image, IWC staff and volunteers stand masked and ready to serve Indy’s immigrants!

Clowes Fund Field(s) of Interest: Immigrant Services

Grantees