Our latest OFP peer learning call featured Helena Wong from CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities. Helena shared her perspectives and experiences on building collective leadership, cross-generational community involvement in their organization, and their work on intersectional issues in the NYC context.
(We’ll be posting additional insights, reactions and learnings from our guest & participants… so stay tuned!)
CAAAV was founded by Asian women in 1986 as one of the first to mobilize against anti-Asian violence in NYC. CAAAV focuses on institutional violence affecting immigrant, poor and working-class communities such as worker exploitation, urban poverty, police brutality, INS detention / deportation, and criminalization of youth…
CAAAV’s programs include the Chinatown Justice Project, Women Workers Project, and the Southeast Asian Youth Leadership Project. A volunteer-driven organization, CAAAV builds community capacity to exercise self-determination. CAAAV helps contribute to a unified strategy for a broader multi-racial and multi-issue movement for social change. Learn more about their work at http://www.caaav.org
As the current Acting Co-Director, Helena joined CAAAV in high school and was hired as an organizer in 2003. Since then, she has led the Chinatown Justice Project’s work to create the Chinatown Tenants Union and win justice for tenants displaced by gentrification and unlawful landlord practices; worked with members and the Urban Justice Center to publish “Converting Chinatown“; and developed leadership and skills of immigrant youth in community organizing.
