Full-time program manager Dinanyili Paulino-Rodriguez has ten years of experience working with Latino youth in various capacities. She has been with Sociedad Latina since 1997, when she was hired as a youth development specialist. Her background includes program planning and implementation, community needs assessment, and outcomes measurement.
Sociedad Latina
Founded in 1968, Sociedad Latina is a nonprofit organization that provides a comprehensive, community-responsive array of programs designed to empower Latino youth and their families. Its mission is to enhance the overall well-being of the Latino community by delivering programs that encourage community leadership through educational attainment, cultural identity, and continuation of traditions. Sociedad Latina fulfills its critical mission by combining direct service and advocacy with information and referral assistance. It offers a human service resource center for Boston’s Latino youth, particularly those in Mission Hill and Roxbury.
Located on Tremont Street in Roxbury, Sociedad Latina is a community-based organization dedicated to serving the educational, employment, and out-of-school-time needs of its constituents with a special focus on Latino youth. Like most young people, these adolescents spend 80 percent of their waking hours outside of school, when at-risk behaviors are most in evidence. Sociedad Latina has demonstrated its commitment to the individual and to the community as a whole by providing constructive programs that counteract unhealthy behaviors. These programs instill in young people a sense of self-confidence and responsibility, showing them they can succeed despite overwhelming statistics that say they cannot.
With staff guidance, Sociedad Latina teen peer leaders reach thousands of youth and adults through school and community presentations, one-on-one tutoring and support, and broad-based organizing/advocacy campaigns. Further, its one-on-one programming offers at-risk youth many opportunities to explore their skills and talents while earning a paycheck to validate their efforts. Because many of those served are very low-income, there are often family pressures on youth to take paying jobs rather than participate in unpaid activities. By providing compensation, Sociedad Latina can better ensure that those who can most benefit from its youth leadership development programming will be able to participate. In addition, an experience in which students are paid for their work offers similarity to a real-world work environment. Waiting lists for future peer leader positions are long: more than 100 young people are waiting at any given time.
The stellar reputation of Sociedad Latina and its contribution to advancing Latino health were recognized in 2002 by the National Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco. That organization has also requested publishing rights to the Tobacco Prevention and Advocacy Program booklet prepared by the society’s youth leaders. In 2004 Sociedad Latina became the lead agency in one of ten partnerships funded nationwide through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: the Policy Advocacy on Tobacco and Health (PATH) Program works to build the capacity of Boston communities of color to change tobacco policy. Now in its fourth decade of service, Sociedad Latina continues to work toward full access to resources and opportunities for the Latino community, to combat racism, and to foster respect and appreciation for different cultures.
