Home > MAPS Historical Background

The Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers (MAPS) is a private, non-profit, community-based organization that has provided a wide range of health and social services to Portuguese speakers and other residents of eastern Massachusetts since 1970. The agency offers a variety of programs that break down language and cultural barriers to health and social services, education and economic opportunity.

MAPS in its present form was created in 1993 by the merger of the former Somerville Portuguese American League (SPAL) and Cambridge Organization of Portuguese Americans (COPA). COPA and SPAL had served area Portuguese speakers separately for many years prior to the merger.

Both COPA and SPAL began as storefront operations working on shoestring budgets with very small staffs and a cadre of dedicated volunteers. COPA focused on social services such as English as a Second Language and citizenship classes, information and referral services, immigration assistance, family life counseling and programs for youth and the elderly. SPAL began in the same fashion but branched out during the 1980s to include a variety of health services. Efforts initially focused on substance abuse and AIDS prevention, and the agency won a state Department of Public Health award for its AIDS Program in 1989.

In 1991, SPAL and COPA formally affiliated and hired an Executive Director, Victor Do Couto, to run them jointly. The agencies merged in July 1993 to become MAPS. Goals included improving service provision, ending program duplication, and unifying the many segments of the Portuguese-speaking community in eastern Massachusetts.

Evolution of MAPS Office Locations

  • Agency offices are located in the heart of the Portuguese-speaking communities of Cambridge, Somerville, Boston, Lowell and Framingham.
  • The Somerville and Cambridge offices operate at the former sites of COPA in East Cambridge and SPAL in Union Square, Somerville.
  • The agency opened its first Boston office in Allston in 1995 to serve the large and growing Brazilian population in that neighborhood.
  • The agency expanded its service area northward in 1997, opening its new Lowell Office at the urgent request of the city’s Portuguese-speaking community.
  • In 1999, the Lowell and Allston offices moved to new, larger locations to accommodate program expansion. MAPS celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Lowell Office in 2007.
  • In 2001, MAPS opened a fifth office in Upham’s Corner, Dorchester to better serve the Cabo Verdean community of Boston. We celebrated the office’s 10th anniversary in 2011!
  • Facing major budget cuts, MAPS scaled back its Somerville Office hours to night-time, by appointment only, beginning in 2004.
  • A new MAPS Framingham Office opened on a part-time basis in early 2006 when the agency began providing HIV/AIDS services in the MetroWest area. In June 2008, the agency signed a lease for a new office suite on Union Avenue in Framingham that is larger and more accessible for disabled clients than the old office.
  • In 2011, a much-needed update of the MAPS Cambridge Office entrance and reception area took place, making the building more accessible, energy efficient and safe for after-hours use. Renovations were funded by refinancing the building mortgage.
  • MAPS moved its Allston Office down Cambridge Street to an updated and more accessible office in Brighton in the fall of 2012.
  • In 2013, the Lowell Office was updated, while the Somerville Office was refurbished and poised to expand hours and services once more due to increases in funding for a variety of programs.

21st Century Leadership and Vision

MAPS began a new era on August 23, 2000, when the Board of Directors appointed former Deputy Executive Director Paulo Pinto as Executive Director. Victor Do Couto, Executive Director for more than eight years, left on March 31, 2000 to head the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. He was honored for his many important contributions to MAPS’ formation and growth over the years.

MAPS entered the 21st Century having achieved most of the goals set forth by its leaders in a 1995 five-year Strategic Plan. The agency’s “Vision 2000″ called for the agency to be a “strong, financially healthy, multi-sited organization, leading empowerment efforts among our constituencies statewide, by offering comprehensive services within an active community capacity-building framework.”

A new five-year Strategic Plan was completed in the fall of 2001, calling for increased services to youth and elders, expanded advocacy and community development, and continuing to strengthen the agency’s finances in response to the nationwide economic difficulties. Following that plan, and with the support of several major donors as well as Merrimack Valley Elder Services, MAPS opened a new Senior Drop-in Center at the Portuguese American Center in Lowell in 2003 to begin serving the many Portuguese-speaking elders of the Lowell area. It was the first step toward building a comprehensive Lowell Elder Services Program similar to the one offered by MAPS in Cambridge. Later, in 2005, the highly successful center was turned over to its funding group to be run by volunteers from within the community.

In a major effort to build community capacity, MAPS joined with Suffolk University during the first decade of the new millennium to initiate a Certificate Program in Management of Health and Human Services. The program graduated 11 professionals in its first year alone and more in its second year.

Other community-building efforts have included collaborations with the Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce, the Brazilian Women’s Group, Brazilian Workers Center and Cape Verde Cares, with MAPS providing various types of expertise and assistance to help those nonprofit organizations.

In 2006 MAPS was honored to be included in the Massachusetts Catalogue for Philanthropy as an example of excellent in Human Service provision!

Funding Sources

MAPS is supported by government sources and the United Way, as well as individual donors, corporations, foundations, special event fund-raisers, direct mail appeals and third-party billings.

The largest annual fundraising event is the MAPS Awards Gala, when the agency honors key individuals who have provided outstanding support for the agency and/or the communities we serve, or who serve as role models for Portuguese speakers. The Gala has developed into an elegant, black-tie-optional event that raises upwards of $100,000 per year and brings together hundreds of community members and leaders, business people, elected officials, and others who support MAPS’ mission.

In October of 2002, the agency started an Endowment with an initial major gift from former Board member Robert J. Perry. The Endowment has continued to grow, and offers a variety of different funds in which community members can invest. They can start new funds with a minimum contribution of $1,000.

As of the end of Fiscal Year 2013, after a decade of growth, the Endowment surpassed the $250,000 mark and was to begin distributing interest to key programs and services according to Fund guidelines and donor wishes.

In FY 2014, the MAPS organizational budget reached the $3 million mark for the first time in organizational history. Through recessions and funding vicissitudes, MAPS remains a fiscally sound and thriving organization blessed with caring, professional and seasoned staff, Board and volunteers who are dedicated to assisting our diverse service communities.

Services

MAPS was the first organization in the state to provide a full range of outpatient substance abuse services for Portuguese speakers, including the first program licensed by the state of Massachusetts to provide acupuncture detoxification services.

MAPS quickly became the region’s only major resource for comprehensive HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) education, prevention, outreach and services in Portuguese and Cabo Verdean Creole – first in greater Boston, and then expanding to MetroWest when MAPS obtained a new state contract in 2005 to begin providing HIV Prevention to high-risk men in the Framingham/Marlborough area. The MetroWest program targeted both Brazilians and Latinos, and led to the opening of our first Framingham office.

The agency’s health services expanded over the years to include chronic disease and cancer prevention, which targeted both adults and youth –most recently, Cabo Verdean children and teens in the Dorchester/Roxbury area. The Cabo Verdean Youth Program, serving teens and pre-teens, was the cornerstone of the MAPS Dorchester Office services for the first decade of the 21st Century.

Funding cutbacks forced MAPS to discontinue many of its clinical services including substance abuse treatment between 2003 and 2005, and to stop providing a highly successful Healthy Mind/Healthy Body Program for adult community members at risk for diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other chronic conditions.

In 2007, the organization increased efforts in the areas of Breast Cancer Prevention, Youth Wellness and Tobacco Prevention, and MassHealth/health insurance outreach and enrollment thanks to several new grants and contracts. Those programs served hundreds of clients each year until Fiscal Year 2012, when funding ran out and could not be renewed; but in FY 2014, MAPS was once again able to substantially increase health insurance and health care connections for its communities through new funding from the Commonwealth Connector.

The agency also provided Mental Health Services briefly but closed that program in 2004 when its service partner agency in Boston was no longer able to provide the required supervision.

Youth Services–which expanded in the middle of the first decade of the new millennium to include Cambridge, Allston and Lowell—were gradually curtailed as well due to changing priorities in the funding community. As the 2000s progressed, youth programming was once again limited to the Dorchester office and focused for a number of years on HIV prevention and education as well as promoting active lifestyles and healthy nutrition. Staff and volunteers also provided limited education and support to Cabo Verdean youth in other key areas.

In 2011, youth programming ended at MAPS when the last funding cycles came to a close. Since then, MAPS has referred many former clients and other youth to partnering youth organizations in the Boston area, while also advocating for additional culturally and linguistically competent youth services for all populations.

Also in 2011, the agency also began providing expanded HIV/STI Prevention, Screening and Referral Services for high-risk Portuguese- and Cabo Verdean Creole-speaking men through a new grant from the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention in parts of greater Boston, Brockton and several communities in between. At the same time, the state Dept. of Public Health began once again funding women’s HIV/STI prevention and screening services in the Cabo Verdean community of greater Boston. More expansion came in mid-2013, when the state Dept. of Public Health gave MAPS another new HIV/AIDS/STI services contract serving Portuguese and Spanish speakers as well as others in the North Shore area.

Social services have multiplied over the years from their base of Immigrant Social Services—now called Immigrant Integration Services—Child Protective Services, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), Citizenship Classes and Elder Services, to incorporate Batterer Intervention, Domestic Violence Prevention and Services; Family-Based Services for youth and families involved with the state Dept. of Children & Families (DCF, formerly DSS) due to abuse and neglect; and a wider assortment of educational programs at different times such as Lead Hazard Community Outreach, Energy Efficiency Solutions for Small Businesses, and Home Ownership Education, when funding was available.

In 2011, MAPS collaborated with several other community partners including the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center to launch a new multi-year Juntas Task Force Project—funded by the US Office on Violence Against Women of the Dept. of Justice—to increase community response to both domestic violence and sexual assault. For the first time, MAPS’ Domestic Violence Services Program staff were trained to assist women in our service populations who have been sexually assaulted. Since that time, MAPS has also deepened involvement in Jane Doe Inc.’s Massachusetts White Ribbon Day campaign combating violence against women, with Executive Director Paulo Pinto acting as statewide co-chair for 2012. The agency is a longtime Jane Doe member and partner.

MAPS continues to increase its community capacity-building and advocacy efforts in a variety of areas such as citizenship and immigration, HIV/AIDS, senior services, domestic violence and sexual assault. MAPS has always placed a high value on citizenship and voter registration/information services, which frequently have expanded considerably around Presidential elections or whenever major socio-political issues face the communities we serve.

Special Projects and Events

Over the years, MAPS has successfully planned and presented a series of conferences on issues important to the communities it serves. The first two, focused on the theme of “Healthy Mind: Healthy Body” issues, were held in 2002 and 2003 in Cambridge.

MAPS held its third major full-day conference, “Mulher-The Evolving World of Portuguese-Speaking Women” in 2008, at Simmons College in Boston. We also worked with a community committee in 2009 to plan and implement homem, an informative conference on Portuguese-speaking men’s issues. The conference was held in partnership with UMass Boston, the CPCU Credit Union, the Boston Portuguese Festival and our organizing committee led by Dr. Ana Nava.

International Symposium on Human Rights and Quality of Life of the Portuguese-Speaking Communities in the United States of America and Canada

MAPS, with support from the Government of the Azores and a committee of community leaders and educators, organized this special 2-day symposium attended by more than 120 professionals from throughout the Portuguese-speaking world, in the fall of 2011 in Cambridge.

US Census 2010 Advocacy and Assistance

For the 2010 US Census, MAPS partnered with many other community leaders and organizations to form a statewide Portuguese-Speaking Complete Count Committee (PSCCC) for Massachusetts. Our goal was to insure that every Portuguese speaker gets counted, and that no one needlessly fears filling out the Census form. The PSCCC launched a comprehensive outreach and education campaign across the state to inform community members about the importance of the Census and how to fill it out to best reveal the true size of the Portuguese-speaking population. This massive effort resulted in improved counts in many immigrant neighborhoods around the state.

As we move further into our fifth decade of service, MAPS continues to seek new ways to reach, inform and assist the Portuguese-speaking communities of Massachusetts.