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Mission Statement
AMIGOS is a school and community partnership
designed to strengthen the community’s ability to communicate with non-English speaking youth and their families to
improve educational outcomes.
Program Background- Roosevelt Middle School located in the south end of the City serves as the magnet school for students whose first
language is not English. Roosevelt Middle School has a population of 768 students and for 267 of them English
isn’t their first language. Communication challenges, assimilating into a new community, and staggering
poverty leads to significant challenges for young people trying to be successful in school. Many of these
young people are influenced by the negative forces on the streets. Drugs, Crime and Violence often seem
viable options. The AMIGOS program seeks to provide alternative options and positive youth development experiences for young people
in New Bedford. Unfortunately, there is a significant unmet need for translation and general communication with many non-English
speaking families connected to the school. Very few staff can effectively communicate with foreign speaking
families so problems that might be simple to fix with the right communication often take hours and end in negative outcomes
for non-English speaking students and their families. AMIGOS recruits, trains and manages caring bi-lingual
adult volunteers to assist with translation, general support and afterschool programming on a daily basis when school is in
session. The project began in early April with funding from the Massachusetts Service Alliance and Commonwealth
Corp. The Center located at Roosevelt Middle School opened during National Volunteer week 2009.
The project has successfully
connected non-English speaking families with bi-lingual volunteers from the community to address academic, behavioral and
other needs. AMIGOS is building a sustainable volunteer driven program that can be expanded to serve the
other middle schools in the district. The committee believes that by establishing the center, not
only will there be better communication for non-English speakers, but there will be increased opportunity such as additional
afterschool program opportunities, improved familial engagement leading to better scholastic outcomes.
If you would like more information or would like to volunteer for the program please contact
us at 508-910-2515.
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Bring Our Community Together One Child at a Time
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