Empowering Southeast Asian American communities throughout California
WHO WE ARE.
The SEAA Collaborative is made up of 15 Southeast Asian American-serving organizations across California. Our coalition collaborates and coordinates to ensure a collective SEAA voice on local and statewide advocacy toward education, health, and immigrant and refugee rights for all SEAA communities.
OUR PURPOSE.
We support and advance the following for SEAA communities in CA:
Increasing education attainment,
Advancing health equity through expanding access to affordable and quality health care,
Expanding pathways to citizenship and ending deportation, and
Increasing visibility of all SEAA narratives through data equity.
Partner Spotlight:
Centering Intergenerational Healing with Sreyneang Lim
Nine years ago, Sreyneang Lim was looking for an opportunity to feel connected to her Cambodian community–beyond the temple celebrations and community events of which she was a part.
She wanted something that would give her the opportunity to learn more about her heritage, and in turn, herself.
Her mom’s suggestion that she look into volunteering at the Young Women’s Group at Center for Empowering Refugees & Immigrants (CERI) would turn into a more than five-year journey of supporting CERI’s mission to offer mental health and social services to refugees and immigrants affected by war, torture, genocide and other life threatening traumas.
“Our elders have experienced so much, but they remain so resilient. They have overcome so many obstacles in life– from escaping genocide to restarting in a foreign country and trying to navigate through all of the systems. The Cambodian community that exists today is possible because of them and they are the ones that created this community. Without the Cambodian community, CERI would not exist.”
Meet the Cohort:
Launched in July 2024, the CA Policy Seeding and Leadership Cohort is a 9-month applied learning experience for staff at SEAA Collaborative member organizations interested in growing as advocates for their communities at the state level. As we look toward celebrating the SEAA community’s 50th anniversary of resettlement in the United States, the Cohort is guided by the question: How do we plant the seeds for new policy solutions or campaigns for Southeast Asian American (SEAA) communities to thrive in CA?
We thank the California Endowment for their support of the Cohort.