The Town of Chapel Hill has been awarded a $375,000 grant from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation in support of our Building Integrated Communities (BIC) Initiative. BIC is a collaborative community planning effort with the Town, residents, community organizations, and UNC-Chapel Hill, that aims to understand the experiences of immigrant and refugee residents and to develop recommendations and strategies for the Town that support the integration, well-being, and leadership development of immigrant and refugee residents in Chapel Hill.
“We are thrilled to have this support from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation to continue advancing the Council’s equity and inclusion goals by making Chapel Hill a welcoming and inclusive community to immigrant and refugee residents,” said Sarah Vinas, Director of Affordable Housing and Community Connections. “This funding will allow the Town to build on the progress we have made over the last few years, in collaboration with our community partners, to break down barriers to access and build leadership among our diverse immigrant and refugee residents. We appreciate the ongoing partnership with UNC-Chapel Hill’s Institute for the Study of the Americas through BIC.”
The grant funding will be used to continue the Town’s implementation of the BIC Action Plan, including hiring a full-time staff position focused on BIC implementation, developing paid engagement and leadership opportunities for immigrant and refugee residents, developing a bank of community interpreters to support residents who speak languages other than English, conducting staff trainings with community partners, and more.
Since launching the BIC initiative in 2019, highlights of the Town’s progress in implementing the BIC Action Plan have included: creating and implementing a Language Access Plan, working with affordable housing providers to expand their eligibility criteria to serve more immigrant and refugee residents, establishing a liaison to welcome and guide immigrant and refugee residents serving on Town boards and commissions, conducting a variety of multi-lingual community outreach and engagement efforts with immigrant and refugee residents, and holding trainings for Town staff on language access and other topics.
For more information about BIC and our progress with the initiative, see our Implementation Update or contact Sarah Vinas at svinas@townofchapelhill.org.
