NPT (Nashville, TN)
With the My Source Community Impact Awards for engagement, Nashville Public Televison is being recognized for their project, Nashville Public Television's Next Door Neighbors Project.
Despite its reputation as the home of country music and bastion of traditional Southern culture, Nashville is a true immigrant melting pot. It ranked first in the number of new immigrants arriving from 1991 to 1998, and today has the largest community of Kurdish refugees in the country. Tennessee itself ranks fourth in the growth of Hispanic residents and is home to significant Somali and Sudanese communities. NPT recognized that Nashville was at a crossroads as local government, business and social service organizations grappled with the integration of foreign-born populations into the economy and culture of the city. Through their Next Door Neighbors project, NPT created three documentaries profiling the immigrant experience (Hablamos Español, Somali and Little Kurdistan, USA), sponsored community screenings and panel discussions, created a website to stream the programs and encourage online discussion, and worked with local corporations to use the programs in diversity training.
Video
