Mission & History
Our Mission
HOPE exists to improve the quality of life and to increase the number and range of opportunities for low-income and Latino individuals and families in Massachusetts.
History of HOPE
The Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation, Inc. (HOPE) was established in 1971 by community activists, human/social services workers, academics and other professionals “to advocate, plan, develop, facilitate, coordinate, operate, and evaluate educational, health/human/social services, and community advancement programs to benefit Massachusetts’ Hispanic/Latino residents” (1971 HOPE Articles of Incorporation and Founding Documents).
Since 1971, HOPE has added an array of innovative programs and services in the fields of education, health, employment, technology, leadership development and civic engagement. We also provide training, technical assistance, consultation and evaluation services, as well as incubator support services, shared office facilities and fiscal agent management services to colleague nonprofit organizations (i.e. Boston Child Care Alliance) and grassroots groups (i.e. Inner-City Child Care Professionals Network). Numerous public, private and nonprofit entities frequently use HOPE facilities for meetings, conferences and special events.
HOPE operates program offices in Boston, Lawrence and Springfield. The HOPE Boston office houses the organization’s central administration and fiscal operations functions. HOPE employs 25 full-time and four part-time employees, retains human resources on a consultant basis and utilizes numerous volunteers.
Program Histories
Educational Opportunity and Access Services and Advocacy
HOPE has served Hispanic youth in Boston since its inception in 1971, beginning with the first research to document the alarmingly high rates of truancy among Latino students in the Boston Public Schools (“Children in the Streets,” 1973). In 1976, the U.S. Department of Education selected HOPE as a direct grantee to provide TRIO Talent Search in the Boston Public Schools (to identify and encourage youth to stay in school, graduate high school and attend college), which expanded in 1990 to also serve students in the Lawrence Public Schools, expanding there once again in 1998 to also include GEAR UP college-readiness services to low-income “first generation” college-bound youth. In both Boston and Lawrence, HOPE has designed and pioneered innovative after-school and summer programs, in order to provide key “wraparound” services, including mentoring, tutoring, service-based learning, job skills training, job placement and internships.
HIV/AIDS-related Track Record
In 1987, HOPE was the first Latino organization in Massachusetts to convene a statewide conference to focus on the impact of HIV/AIDS on the state’s Latino community. This led to HOPE’s sponsorship of the Latinos/as Living With AIDS Coalition at HOPE in 1988, which eventually led to the formation of El Centro de Apoyo Pedro P. Zamora in 1991, a peer support center for Latinos living with HIV/AIDS, funded by Ryan White CARE Act funds. Since 2/1/04, Centro Zamora has provided monthly networking meetings, weekly congregate meals and weekly gender-specific and joint peer support group sessions for Latinos and Latinas living with HIV/AIDS.
In 1990, as a sub-contractor to the New England Research Institute (NERI), HOPE designed and initiated an 18 month community-based AIDS prevention program among Latino youth, a group at high risk of HIV infection.
The summary results of an evaluation were published in the December 1994 American Journal of Public Health, suggesting that the concern that providing adolescents with condoms and information about condoms promotes promiscuity and increases sexual activity is not justified: “The multifaceted community intervention was designed (by HOPE) to increase HIV/AIDS awareness and to reduce the risk of HIV infection by increasing the use of condoms among sexually active teens, included both the promotion and the distribution of condoms. Intervention activities, which were conducted by specially trained peer leaders, included workshops in schools, community organizations, and health centers; group discussions in the homes of youths; presentations at large community events; and door-to-door and street corner canvassing and outreach. The canvassing included distribution of a kit that provided condoms and pamphlets on how to use them, as well as data and information about local resources for testing, counseling, referral and medical care. Condoms were also freely available at the intervention office and at all intervention activities. Project messages (“Muestra Tu Respeto” and “Cuida Tu Vida,” among others) promoting the use of condoms were disseminated throughout the intervention neighborhood, via radio and television public service announcements, posters in local businesses and public transit facilities, and a quarterly newsletter (Perspectivas de Jovenes/Teens’ Views) produced by the peer leaders. The campaign used a variety of channels for the distribution and promotion of condoms, as well as other project messages, ensured relatively easy access to condoms and rather pervasive saturation of the project messages in the target neighborhood”1
Evaluation of the intervention (by NERI - with research grant R01HD25026 funds from the National Institute of Child Health and Development, of NIH) consisted of a longitudinal comparison of probability samples of Latino youth from the intervention city (Boston) and a comparison city (Hartford, CT). “The evaluation provided no evidence to suggest that the availability of condoms increased sexual activity or promoted promiscuity in the target population of Latino adolescents. Adolescents in the intervention city who were not sexually active prior to the intervention were no more likely to become sexually active than those in the comparison city. In fact, male respondents in the intervention city were less likely than those in the comparison city to experience the onset of sexual activity. Among teens who were sexually active by the end of the intervention, the number of sexual partners and the frequency of sex in the previous 6 months were no higher in the intervention city than in the comparison city. Indeed, female respondents in the intervention city were less likely than those in the comparison city to have had multiple sex partners.” 2
From 1991-1992, HOPE received funding from the Office of Minority Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to continue its HIV prevention group-level interventions for youth (PODER LATINO) and its accompanying group-level component for parents (PLENA), and to conduct a community assessment and then design a community-level intervention (CUIDA TU VIDA CONTRA EL SIDA). In 1992, this grant was transferred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which funded HOPE until 1997 to provide HIV prevention services.
Since 1997, HOPE’s HIV Prevention Services have been funded primarily by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (to design a social marketing campaign targeting young Latina women: Latina: Cuida Tu Vida Contra El SIDA) and the Boston Public Health Commission, with local support from the AIDS ACTION COMMITTEE of Massachusetts, the United Way of Mass Bay and individual donors. Since 1992, HOPE has also received Ryan White CARE Act Funds to support peer support services to Latino men and Latina women living with HIV/AIDS through the HOPE Centro de Apoyo Pedro P. Zamora, which HOPE established in 1994 with the authorization and blessing of the Zamora family.
In 1994, HOPE’s executive director spoke about HIV Prevention to Inner-City Latino Youth to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, at a national hearing on Youth At-Risk, which summarized the leading edge work that HOPE was innovating.
HOPE has also been contracted by the state and city to provide technical assistance and evaluation services in support of the statewide HIV Community Planning process and the Ryan White CARE Act Councils.
1 p. 1953 “Does the Promotion and Distribution of Condoms Increase Teen Sexual Activity? Evidence from an HIV Prevention Program for Latino Youth”. D.E. Sellers, S.A.McGraw, J.B. McKinlay: American Journal of Public Health, December 1994, Vol 84, no.12
2 p. 1957, American Journal of Public Health, December 1994
