The Mission of the Winchester Multicultural Network is to:
- Promote the recognition, understanding, and appreciation of diversity;
- Advocate for each and every person’s civil rights;
- Confront intolerance.
Although we can’t be responsible for the ongoing content of these websites, we offer them to you as potentially valuable resources. They include organizations that focus on training, education, and other topics. A brief description of the organization’s mission is included. We welcome recommendations of other organizations and websites you have found useful.
- Anti-Defamation League
“The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.” (from ADL’s charter, 1913)
- Asian American Resource Workshop
The mission of the Asian American Resource Workshop is to work for the empowerment of the Asian Pacific American community to achieve its full participation in the U.S. society. It is a member-based organization that seeks to document the diverse Asian Pacific American histories, experiences, and social conditions. Our resource and activities are used to respond to current Asian Pacific American issues and to promote Asian Pacific American identity.
- Center for Family Connections
The goal of the CFFC is to serve individuals and families touched by adoption, foster care, kinship, guardianship, as well as other complex blended families, and to serve the people with whom they are connected, but offering training, education, consultation, advocacy, and clinical treatment.
- Community Change
CCI is a small, non-profit organization with a particular focus on systemic racism committed to serving as a Center for action and collaboration among individuals and multiracial grassroots groups in the fight to achieve racial justice and equity.
- Disabilities Awareness Institute
Understanding Our Differences, Inc. is a nonprofit organization working to increase information, understanding and acceptance of people with disabilities and individual differences. Based on its long-term success, Understanding Our Differences established The Disability Awareness Institute to extend its reach. The Institute provides training and consultation to employers, educators, and government and private organizations. Its goal is to help clients include and serve people with disabilities effectively and with respect.
- Discover Roxbury
Discover Roxbury celebrates Roxbury, the heart of the African American community in Boston and now home to a rich mix of Latinos, Caribbean people, Africans, Europeans and Cape Verdeans. They welcome both Roxbury residents and visitors to learn about and appreciate Roxbury’s many assets: its vibrant art, historic past, long and continuing legacy of social activism, distinctive architecture, and unique food.
Tours benefit the Roxbury community in so many ways: preserving and expressing Roxbury’s rich history from 1630 to yesterday, fostering community pride, bringing customers to stores and restaurants, developing audiences for Roxbury’s important cultural institutions and promoting the vibrant art community. Our tour program has wide support from organizations, institutions and people in the Greater Roxbury community.
- Edchange
EdChange is dedicated to diversity, equity, and justice in schools and society. We act to shape schools and communities in which all people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, (dis)ability, language, or religion, have equitable opportunities to thrive and achieve free from oppression
- Educators for Social Responsibility
ESR helps educators create safe, caring, respectful and productive learning environments. They also help educators work with young people to develop the social skills, emotional competencies, and qualities of character they need to succeed in school and become contributing members of their communities.
- Facing History and Ourselves
Since 1976, Facing History and Ourselves has offered in-depth professional development services; curricular resources; and ongoing support to educators and students in the areas of history, social studies, and language arts. We are dedicated to helping teachers around the world lead their students in a critical examination of history, with particular focus on genocide and mass violence.
Facing History’s work is based on the premise that we need to — and can — teach civic responsibility, tolerance, and social action to young people, as a way of fostering moral adulthood. If we do not educate students for dignity and equity, then we have failed both them and ourselves.
- GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network
The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. Their work focuses on three overarching goals: programming, advocacy and community organizing.
- The Interchange Institute
A not-for-profit research organization established in 1997 whose mission is to promote dialogue and facilitate understanding between people who move to a new country and their new communities. They conduct research on the process of intercultural transition, produce publications to assist newcomers to the U.S., design and deliver specialized cross-cultural training workshops, and train and consult to professionals in the field.
- Parent to Parent
A community-based, non-profit organization which has provided education, support, and networking opportunities to Winchester parents since 1982. The organization seeks to enhance family communication, increase parents’ understanding of their child’s development, and strengthen the relationship between family and school.
- Greater Boston Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
PFLAG promotes the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, their families and friends through: support, to cope with an adverse society; education, to enlighten an ill-informed public; and advocacy, to end discrimination and to secure equal civil rights. Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays provides opportunity for dialogue about sexual orientation and gender identity, and acts to create a society that is healthy and respectful of human diversity.
- Primary Source
Primary Source promotes history and humanities education by connecting educators to people and cultures throughout the world. In partnership with teachers, scholars, and the broader community, Primary Source provides learning opportunities and curriculum resources for K-12 educators. By introducing global content, Primary Source shapes the way teachers and students learn, so that their knowledge is deeper and their thinking is flexible and open to inquiry.
- The Public Conversations Project
Their mission is to foster a more inclusive, empathic and collaborative society by promoting constructive conversations and relationships among those who have differing values, world views, and positions about divisive public issues.
- Tolerance.org
Tolerance.org is a principal online destination for people interested in dismantling bigotry and creating, in hate’s stead, communities that value diversity. (Read more about how we define “tolerance.”) Through its online well of resources and ideas, its expanding collection of print materials, its burgeoning outreach efforts, and its downloadable public service announcements, Tolerance.org promotes and supports anti-bias activism in every venue of life.
- United for a Fair Economy
UFE is a national, independent, nonpartisan, non-profit organization. UFE raises awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart. They support and help build social movements for greater equality.
- VISIONS, Inc.
VISIONS Inc. is a nonprofit enterprise that provides training and consultation to organizations, communities and individuals seeking to achieve greater effectiveness in a multicultural setting. The unique, research-based VISIONS training model helps to overcome barriers to communication, relationship building, and organizational development caused by cultural misunderstandings and misapprehensions.
- Wellesley Centers for Women
For more than 30 years, the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) has been a driving force — both behind the scenes and in the spotlight — promoting positive change for women and men, girls and boys. WCW brings together an interdisciplinary community of scholars engaged in research, training, analysis, and action. Our groundbreaking work is dedicated to looking at the world through the eyes of women with the goal of shaping a better world for all.
- The Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston
The Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston works to eliminate housing discrimination and promote open communities throughout our region.