Shared Values: Health and Community

"Shared Values: Health and Community — Shaping Minnesota’s Future with New Americans," features the exciting community building work of nonprofits in the Twin Cities and around the state. The program explores how individuals and communities become more interconnected and healthier when there are strong social support networks and opportunities for people to work and bond together.  The DVD is available at no charge.

Viewers will meet some of Minnesota’s newest arrivals from Southeast Asia and Africa and join them as they learn about their new community. See what a Somali-led organization in Owatonna is doing to help newcomers and long-time residents better understand each other. The program also features the progress of a diversity coalition in Faribault to identify common goals across cultures and create visible, tangible community improvements that benefit all its residents.

"How well both immigrants and receiving communities are able to draw on their strengths and overcome the challenges will affect the health and vitality of the state, now and into the future," says Joan Cleary, vice president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation. "This program offers strategies for individuals and organizations to reach across cultures and build healthier, inclusive communities."

"Shared Values: Health and Community" is part of Healthy Together: Creating Community with New Americans, a foundation grantmaking initiative designed to reduce health inequities for immigrants and improve the health and vitality of the entire community. The foundation awards grants for projects that foster positive interactions and cross cultural understanding between newcomers and the receiving community, strengthen the capacity of immigrant-led organizations and their attention to health, and address social adjustment and mental health.

"Shared Values: Health and Community" is a coproduction of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation and Twin Cities Public Television.