Asian Outreach Unit
Greater Boston Legal Services - 030078
Abstract Number: 030078
April 2003
Greater Boston Legal Services' Asian Outreach Unit (AOU) provides culturally sensitive legal services to the Asian community in the client's own language. AOU provides assistance in housing law, domestic violence and family law, employment law, benefits, health and disability and immigration law. In addition, AOU also works with community groups on workers' rights, land use and community control issues in the Greater Boston Asian American community by supplementing the community's skills with legal expertise in its pursuit for justice and democracy. In 1972, a small group of law students established AOU, which was originally known as the Chinatown Outreach Project, as a part-time legal clinic that provided services to the growing Chinese community in Boston. It became a part of GBLS in the mid-1970s with a staff of one attorney and one paralegal. In recognition of the changing demographics of the Asian American community, the Chinatown Outreach Project was renamed the Asian Outreach Program in1990 and became a full unit within GBLS in 1999.
AOU maintains its flexibility to respond to emerging community needs by collaborating closely with the Harry H. Dow Memorial Legal Assistance Fund (Dow Fund), with AOU's staff serving on the Board of Trustees of the Dow Fund. For example, in response to the rising domestic violence fatalities within the Asian American community in the early 1990s, the Dow Fund raised funds and implemented the Asian Battered Women Project to provide comprehensive legal assistance to immigrant Asian women who are victims of domestic violence. In 1996, AOU again collaborated with the Dow Fund to launch the Asian Immigrant Rights Initiative to provide legal assistance and information to the Asian immigrant communities adversely affected by the welfare and immigration reform. The Asian Immigrant Rights Initiative gave rise to the Cambodian Outreach Project, a Dow Fund project that was modeled after AOU, which is currently housed with the Merrimack Valley Legal Services. In addition, the Dow Fund provides the critical financial support for the student interns placed at AOU, who help expand AOU's language capacity. AOU in turn provides the training ground for the next generation of public interest lawyers and activists. Currently, the AOU staff and interns have language capacity in Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghaiese, Toisanese and Vietnamese. The longstanding partnership and symbiotic relationship between AOU and the Dow Fund has allowed AOU to stay innovative and responsive to changing times. For more information on the AOU, visit GBLS' website at: http://www.gbls.org/.
Contact Information:
Zenobia Lai
Greater Boston Legal Services
197 Friend Street
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: (617) 371-1234
Fax: (617) 371-1222
Email
Additional Information:
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