Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness invests $385,000 to promote culturally-centered strategies to improve mental health

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 10^th, 2023

(Philadelphia, PA) – The Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness is pleased to announce that it will invest $385,000 in 11 organizations that promote mental health and emotional wellbeing among immigrant communities in Greater Philadelphia. These organizations represent the fourth cohort of Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness grantees. Since its inception, the Community Fund has invested more than $1million in immigrant communities in Greater Philadelphia to promote mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Organizations receiving $50,000 grants include:

• African Family Health Organization (AFAHO) for their Reducing Environmental Stress Together (REST) Program
• Immigrant Rights Action for their From Volunteer Led to Immigrant Led program
• La Puerta Abierta for their Supporting Holistic Wellbeing of Newcomer Immigrant Youth program
• Puentes de Salud for their Building Community-Centered Mental Health Capacity program
• VietLead for their Our Roots Our Youth program

Organizations receiving $30,000 grants include:

• New Sanctuary Movement for their Accompaniment and Immigrant Leadership Development program
• New World Association of Emigrants from Eastern Europe for their Uniting for the USA program
• Project Libertad for their Jovenes Fuentes program

Organizations receiving $15,000 grants include:

• Alianzas de Phoenixville for their Clinical Trauma Counseling program
• Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia for their From Raids to Resilience: The Refugee Journey to Healing in FDR Park program
• Coalition of African Communities (AFRICOM) for their Integrated Approaches to Improving Black Immigrants’ Access to Health Services program

In addition to grant dollars, grantees also received stipends to participate in a Community of Practice, where they will have the opportunity to build relationships, share their work, and learn from one another.

“Our immigrant communities face unique challenges to accessing mental health programming but it is a critical component to emotional well-being,” says Heidi Roux, Executive Director of Immigrant Rights Action, a grantee of the Community Fund. “Through prioritizing and funding programs addressing this need, the Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness is equipping us to ensure this basic building block to wellness is met so we as a community can all thrive.”

The grantees were selected through a participatory grantmaking process, designed to alter traditional philanthropic giving by elevating voices of individuals who are not typically at the decision-making table. A community-based Decision Making Group reviewed the applications and allocated grant dollars from a pooled fund. Decision Making Group members were nominated by the Advisory Board, whose member organizations include ACANA, AFAHO, HIAS PA, La Puerta Abierta, Nationalities Service Center, SEAMAAC, and The Welcoming Center.

“I am honored to have served as a member of the Decision-Making Group for the Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness for this cycle,” says Moumena Saradar, Wellness Coordinator with Nationalities Service Center and member of the Decision Making Group. “The group worked with determination, full responsibility, and compliance, given the importance of this task and its positive impact on the immigrant communities. Throughout sessions, group members carefully evaluated each application and analyzed how it aligns with the Community Fund mission and goals. It was a heartwarming, touching, and wonderful experience to be part of a process where funding was allocated to outstanding projects/programs to promote immigrant and refugee mental health and well-being. I am looking forward to seeing the ripened fruits that will result from the amazing work of each organization serving their communities.”

The Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness is supported by a group of funders who have shown their commitment to community participation and the emotional health of immigrants and refugees by investing in this approach.

“Supporting this fund means not only supporting the emotional health and wellbeing of immigrants and refugees, but also investing in communities to have agency in the funding process,” says Dr. Jill Bowen, Commissioner of the City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. “We’re proud to participate in this work and to advance this model of community participation in the grantmaking process.”

The Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness is supported by the City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, Douty Foundation, Scattergood Foundation, Patricia Kind Family Foundation, and the Paul D. Schurgot Foundation. The Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness is facilitated and administered by the Scattergood Foundation.

For more information, please contact Caitlin O’Brien, Director of Learning and Community Impact, at cobrien@scattergoodfoundation.org.

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The Scattergood Foundation believes major disruption is needed to build a stronger, more effective, compassionate, and inclusive health care system – one that improves well-being and quality of life as much as it treats illness and disease. At the Foundation, we THINK, DO, and SUPPORT in order to establish a new paradigm for behavioral health, which values the unique spark and basic dignity in every human.