The City of Somerville has released a survey of women's needs aimed at identifying and addressing the needs of Somerville's female residents.
In a press release dated April 5, Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone and the Somerville Commission for Women announced that the results of the community-wide survey will be used to make a new action agenda for women's issues.
"We want the city government and other community organizations to be more responsive to women's needs and the best way to achieve that is by getting input directly from the community," Curtatone said.
The survey asked women for their age, what language they speak at home, the number and ages of children that live at home, and which neighborhood they live in. It also asked residents to check off 10 items they are interested in from a list of potential future projects, classes and community groups.
In May, the Women's Commission will issue a final report called the "Somerville Status of Women," which will present the culmination of the survey's results.
An ad-hoc steering committee run by the Women's Commission will meet in May and June to use the report to prioritize the identified needs of respondents, create an action agenda, and pair local agencies and organizations with the agenda. It will also set a timeline for the agenda and define an issues platform for the Women's Commission.
The kinds of programs that the committee will choose have yet to be determined. "The survey will tell us that. We will get a better gauge of what women in the survey are lacking, of what they need," Somerville City Hall spokesperson Lucy Warsh said.
Warsh also said that the survey is instrumental in reviving the Women's Commission, as it has been relatively inactive these past few years. "We want to get the Commission back and running in the community," she said.
Sonja Darai, the Executive Director of the Commission since last September, said she is enthusiastic about the body's purpose.
"Its mission is to act as a centralizing force in the City of Somerville to eliminate prejudice and discrimination against women because of their status as women or as minority women," Durai said.
The Women's Commission is funding the survey from its revolving account, which contains money raised by the commission to pay for programs or activities that adhere to its mission.
The survey is available through the end of this month at government offices, non-profit organizations and businesses throughout Somerville. Women can also find it at the Market Basket on Somerville Avenue on Wednesdays and Sundays.
The Women's Commission hopes to reach about 500 women. In addition to English, the survey is being released in Portuguese, Haitian Creole and Spanish. "We want to hear from everybody," Warsh said.
Several groups were involved in designing the survey. The key actors were the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMass Boston, the Cambridge Health Alliance, the Institute for Community Health and Tufts' sociology department.
