Boston Harbor Outreach to Non-Traditional Audiences

Objectives:1) To target information on the Boston Harbor cleanup toward non traditional audiences, such as minorities and low income groups.2) To use the most efficient and effective vehicles to reach those groups.3) To prepare an outreach compaign to educate those groups and provide them information how they can further reduce pollution.Methodology:The project, which will be funded beginning in 1993, will be in two stages: 1) using a workshop format, get information about Boston Harbor to groups that are natural information resources for the audiences we seek. We plan to target representatives from Community Action Programs (CAPs), which are well known for their informal, personal relationships with their constituents, many of them low income and minorities. 2) The second stage will involve using the contacts we will have formed to identify further ways to reach non traditional audiences. Rationale:Many of Boston’s urban poor and minorities are affected by the Boston Harbor cleanup and depend on the environment for recreation uses. Yet many are unaware of their impact on the environment. Our goal is to help educate these groups about their impact on the environment and what they can do to further prevent pollution of the harbor. The project also meets state needs in the recent communicator’s task force draft report that Sea Grant “needs to consider how to include in its audiences those people most at risk: minorities, women and the poor.”