Chelsea Latino Coalition

Mission

Mobilize Chelsea Latino businesses, churches, youth agencies, public officials, police and other community leaders to implement a comprehensive campaign to keep immigrant youth out of youth gangs and reduce youth violence, to increase civic participation by Latinos, and to address other quality of life issues affecting Chelsea Latinos.

Overview

The Latino Coalition was founded in 2001 to mobilize the City’s Latino leadership to deal with the problem of gangs and youth violence. Three hundred Latino leaders attended its Latino Summit to plan its comprehensive campaign. The Coalition since has launched the Summer Youth Employment Initiative, coupling summer jobs with character building workshops stressing non-violence. The Latino Coalition also sponsors Chelsea United in Defense of Education (CUDE) which mobilizes parents of Chelsea school children. At the beginning of last summer 200 Chelsea residents attended the Coalition’s community meeting with Chelsea law enforcement officials, school personnel and state and city elected officials to outline its comprehensive strategy for addressing the youth violence problem. The coalition’s third major program is the Chelsea Voter Initiative. Since 2002 they have registered more than 2000 voters from Chelsea’s Latino community, public housing developments and the general public and increased Latino voter turnout to equal or surpass the City’s overall turnout. Largely as a result of these efforts six Latinos were elected to office in Chelsea during these years.