Malden Employment Readiness Project (MERP)
GWC initiated MERP according to its successful collaboration--the Working Connection Project, with Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston and The Career Place, a Woburn based One Stop Career Center serving Malden. The three entities joined force with funding from the ETA of U.S. Department of Labor from 2001-2003 creating a pilot project to remove barriers of the limited English speaking residents in the TriCity area to access the federally funded One Stop Delivery System in the region. As a member of the TriCity Workforce Development Task Force, a project of the TriCity Community Action Program, Great Wall Center strived to raise awareness of the challenges the diverse local residents face in the workforce systems; and gained new insights of the needs of the local isolated and unserved immigrant populations. It laid down an alternative approach to address issues of the low income residents who are mostly immigrants with limited English proficiency LEP.
MERP's mission is to address systemic barriers Asian job seekers faced in the area and build capacity to work more collaborately with the area workforce development specialists. MERP is also a member of the TriCAP sponsored workforce advocacy group, the TriCity Workforce Development Task Force and participated in the Access Workgroup sponsored by the Metro North Regional Employment Board.
Photo: Working Connection project staff-- Rooshey Hasnain Cindy Tsui of the
Institute for Community Inclusion and Kay Ng of the Great Wall Center on a
video segment.
From left: Richard Cheng(GWC), Bill Kiernan (ICI), Mr. Wong (Community Member)
Kay Ng(GWC), Ann Rolie(Career Place), and Kathleen Summer (U.S. Department of Labor)
MERP
MERP, previously known as the Working Connection Project at ICI, originated from a LEND fellow* Cindy Tsui in 2004. She laid out the approach of this project targeting the Asian populations who have been unserved, due to barriers to access local employment readiness services. (* LEND stands for Leadership Education of Neuro-developmental disabilities sponsored by the Boston's Children Hospital and the ICI)
MERP provided employment readiness services for the underserved and unserved Asian populations including, but not limited to, the following:
linked with the One Stop Career Center's database
assisted One Stop providers to help clients placed on jobs or training
offered weekly bilingual intake registration for LEP clients
offered bilingual orientation to the One Stop systems
conducted bilingual job readiness seminars: resume preparation, interviews skills, job search skills, computing and online skills, learn about employment cultures in the U.S.
reached out to Malden's community organizations to increase capacity;
Malden's Asian residents have a long history of traveling to Boston for this type of service. As the local population grew drastically in the past 10 years, the demand for employment assistance in Boston has increased. Malden residents experienced more barriers to access employment assistance in the city.
Great Wall Center's employment readiness project is oriented towards the unserved and underserved populations challenged by disabilities, limited English proficiency and underrepresentation in the existing contexts--service systems and community in Malden. Great Wall Center seeks to stimulate increase awareness of inequality and isolation of the targeted population and address system issues by knocking on doors of various stakeholders. It mobilized volunteers and organizations to support its cause.
In our opinion, change in the workforce system to help the unserved population is quite possible, when culturally trusted, committed, competent staff is employed, consumer is empowered, partnership with workforce professionals in the local district is available, and last but not least, respectful and timely communication is facilitated.
The "bottomline" is the superb ethics and competence of individual worker involved would make a difference and likely produce the required access, stimulate creativity and synergy from the clients and collaborators, that altogether translated into good result. All of these factors contributed to the success of MERP that we are proud to be a part of.
With board member Rooshey Hasnain looked on,
Kay Ng, an architect trained in Australia and a volunteer while she lived in Massachusetts, was being
recognized by board president Al Wing for her excellent service for Malden residents through the
Employment Readiness Program (MERP)
Celebrated Friendship Over Dim Sum--A Little Bit of Heart