Developing Education Initiatives for City’s Young Mexican Immigrants

Brian Harkin for The New York Times Advisers with a group called Mexican-American Youth Advising Students at a meeting in Manhattan in 2011. The group tries to help Mexican students stay in school.

The numbers alone were stark and worrisome: About 41 percent of all Mexican immigrants 16 to 19 years old in New York City have dropped out of school, according to census statistics â€" more than double the rate of any other major immigrant group and more than four times the city’s overall rate.

In addition, only about 6 percent of Mexican immigrants 19 to 23 years old who do not have a college egree are enrolled in college â€" a small fraction of the rates among other major immigrant groups and the native-born population.

These statistics highlighted some immigrants’ advocates’ long-held worries regarding the city’s fastest growing immigrant population. The figures’ publication in an article in The New York Times in November 2011 provoked a groundswell of responses both in and beyond the Mexican diaspora.

Officials at Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, based in New York City, were among those moved by the article to act.

“It just struck a chord,” Gary Hattem, president of the foundation, explained i! n a recent interview. “It resonated with me very strongly as a New Yorker.”

Last October, the foundation convened a meeting of several dozen representatives of community organizations that work with the Mexican immigrant population in New York. In a conference room at the bank’s headquarters â€" with panoramic views of downtown New York, the harbor and beyond â€" community organizers, academics and others brainstormed about the most dire needs, educational and otherwise, in the Mexican diaspora.

With notes from that meeting, foundation officials created an initiative designed to improve the educational and economic achievement of the Mexican population in New York City, with an emphasis on children and their families.

The foundation’s plan imagines networks of nonprofit organizations that help to establish and promote educational programs in neighborhoods with large populations of residents of Mexican descent. The plan also seeks to promote civic engagement in the Mexican diaspora./p>

“The city’s Mexican immigrant community has little civic representation; there are no public officials who directly and vocally advance solutions to their needs,” the foundation wrote in a description of the project. “As such, this initiative will further support nonprofits and communities to assume that role and responsibility.”

In January, the foundation issued a request for proposals, seeking applications for three-month “planning grants” of $5,000 to $10,000. The foundation plans to award 8 to 10 of the grants. Of those projects, the foundation will choose three to five for “implementation grants” of $75,000 to $150,000 a year, and they will be renewable several times.

“The premise of this effort is really about grounding this work in neighborhoods with high concentrations of Mexicans and bringing to bear the strengths of this community,” Mr. Hattem, the foundation president, said. “We can be a social engineer.” He added, “As a philanthropy, we’re! in a pos! ition to take a risk and test some ideas.”

By last week’s deadline for the planning grant applications, the foundation had received 17 proposals involving 45 nonprofits as well as City Department of Education schools and the City University of New York for networks in all five boroughs.

“The response exceeded my expectations,” Nicole Rodriguez Leach, a vice president of the foundation, said in an e-mail on Friday. “Very exciting!” The foundation plans to announce the grant recipients this month.

“It is a finite population,” Mr. Hattem said of the Mexicans and Mexican-Americans the initiative is aiming to help. “So we do have an opportunity here to watch a population and hopefully change its trajectory.”