festival

News from the Community Liaison

Posted Fri, 09/18/2009 - 09:44
Author: 
Raman Sandhu, Community Liaison

Welcome, readers! First, I would like to introduce myself to you: my name is Raman Sandhu and I am the Community Liaison for SAHELI. I am very excited to be in this position and look forward to meeting and working with you and your communities! If you ever have any questions, feel free to contact me at 512.356.1565 or at rsandhu@saheli-austin.org.
SAHELI has been busy in the community this year and is continuing on that trend. Here’s a glimpse into a few events we have worked on:

•    In March, we hosted the first Keep Austin Spicy Asian Food Festival held at the Fiesta Gardens. This event benefitted SAHELI, SafePlace, and Capital Area Food Bank. We had over 100 people volunteer and over 2000 people attend, making this first time event a big success.

•    In May, we hosted a South Asian Health Fair at Reagan High School. Free medical screenings were provided along with social services information relating to crime victim resources. We were able to provide crime victim resource information to 72 people.

•    In June, we hosted a Chinese Health Fair with the assistance of  that Chinese Society of Austin and the Network of Asian American Organizations. It was held at Murchison Middle School, and 220 people attended this fair and received crime victim resource information.

•    During the rest of the summer, we were busy preparing items and brainstorming with different leaders in the Asian communities about future events and collaborations. In addition, we had booths at various events in the community, such as at the Indian Community Center’s India’s Independence Day Celebration event that was held in August at the Akins H.S. Auditorium and also at student fairs held by the University of Texas at Austin and St. Edward’s University.

Keep Austin Spicy Chinese Health Fair

Also, I am excited to report that we are in the midst of a very important campaign called “There Is Always a Helping Hand”, funded by the Department of Justice, Office of Crime Victims. This is a public awareness campaign that seeks to provide crime victim resources to underserved communities in the Austin area. SAHELI will focus on increasing knowledge of victims’ rights and services within the Asian immigrant population in Central Texas. This information will be in English as well as in Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Hindi. Stay tuned for more information!
So as you can see, we have been working hard in your communities and are looking forward to continuing and strengthening this effort. But in order for this to happen, we will continue to need the help of – you guessed it – you! We appreciate all of the help you already offer, such as volunteering your time with translating documents, researching information, attending events, or helping to advocate for victims of domestic violence. Our communities are an important part of our lives; it’s the group of people we turn to during the good times and the bad. Together, I know we can continue to help victims of domestic violence get the help they need and also increase awareness of the prevalence of domestic violence in Asian communities. With your help, I look forward to accomplishing this and much more!

Thanks!
Raman Sandhu, Community Liaison

Volunteer Spotlight

Posted Fri, 09/18/2009 - 09:43
Author: 
Vinnie Luu, Volunteer Coordinator

SAHELI has had an abundance of help over the year, and at this time, we would like to say a special thank you to a handful of those hard-working volunteers:

volunteer

•    Earlier this year, at the Keep Austin Spicy Asian Food Festival event, we had well over 100 volunteers help us with this fundraiser. In particular, a special thank-you goes out to An Nguyen, Randy Ung, as well as to the family members of the staff; who were all such a tremendous help and were present from sun up to sun down, running around the grounds doing what was needed as it came up.

•    For our interpreter services, we have over 75 volunteer interpreters who cover over 24 languages. Anjali Lal, Divya Tuteja, Kyeonghee Jang, Lai Tran and Lang Hoang particularly stand out due to their willingness and promptness in doing translation work for us in addition to interpreting.

•    This past year Serena Chen was SAHELI’s Counseling Intern. She helped in a number of ways with direct services, with interpreting and translating services, and with general office work.

•    The helpline relies on the help of dedicated advocates, and a big thank-you goes out to Shaku Desai and Maria Huang for their continued help.


Thank you to these volunteers and all the others who have helped us throughout the year! We could not do the work we do without the help that you give us.

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