Boston Alliance for Community Health

Initiatives and Activities

"When you add us all up, BACH's membership is in the thousands. Some of us are from the neighborhood and some of us are from an organization. We may not always agree on everything, but in the end, we all want the same thing: safe and healthy communities."

Community Grants

This past year we were able to make a total of nearly $200,000 which accounts for half our annual budget. At last year’s annual meeting, we announced the four organizations to which the Community Investment Committee awarded grants to work on some of the strategic issues identified in the MAPP report…and a year later we can report on the excellent work they did

Youth Hub

  • Using a participatory action research model, YouthHUB focused on youth employment opportunities in Dorchester through a series of Youth Cohorts, workshops, coaching, peer leadership and employer and community support activities. This resulted in 100% of participants obtaining a job. They are now talking with Mattapan United about replicating this approach in that neighborhood.

JP Tree of Life/Arbol de Vida

  • Focusing on bus transit equity and its connection to community health, this coalition with its partners, JP Racial Justice and Equity Collaborative, Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center, Codman Square Health Center, CCHERS, Alternatives for Community Environment (ACE) and On The Move Boston worked to engage community health center leadership in understanding that poor transportation impacts health by limiting access to food, work, worship, school, community, beyond limiting access to healthcare appointments. Eleven health centers participated in surveying 928 respondents gathered very useful information including the need for more frequent and on-time buses.

CCHERS

  • The Center for Community Health, Education, Research, and Services, provided three training intensives on health equity, social determinants of health, and advocacy skills…one for teens, one for staff and board of community development corporations and one for coalition and other community-based organizations.

NOAH

  • Neighborhood of Affordable Housing in East Boston (NOAH), partnered with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council on a place-making project which was a year-long process of public visioning to improve the health and walkability in highly traffic impacted communities of color. Through a photo-voice project in the Eagle Hill neighborhood of East Boston, and a survey of 400 residents conducted by NOAH’s Youth Research Organizers, they developed a plan for the redesign of the Clark Square intersection culminating in a demonstration of traffic calming and open space reclamation and a Dia del Maiz (Day of Corn) harvest festival in this heavily Central American neighborhood.