Collective Philanthropy Project

The creation of the Collective Philanthropy Project (CPP) originated during the second uNAVSA conference in 2005, in conjunction with the Vietnamese Interacting As One (VIA-1) Conference. The concept of an annual philanthropy campaign came when youth leaders and professionals were in search of a vehicle to  further drive uNAVSA’s mission of developing leaders and regions, networking and a unifying voice outside the conference.

The CPP is an initiative for Vietnamese-student and community organizations to collaborate and partner with in working toward a charitable cause. The idea was to create momentum for a collective national effort under one philanthropic campaign. The CPP campaign assists North American Vietnamese non-profit organizations or philanthropy organizations to better achieve their mission through collective and collaborative partnership with uNAVSA and its constituent groups.

uNAVSA

The Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations (UNAVSA) is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan, community-based organization founded in 2004.  Grounded in the leadership and personal advancement of Vietnamese youth, we are dedicated to the development of tomorrow’s leaders in the Vietnamese Community.  We serve to represent the collective Vietnamese youth voice as the national umbrella organization for Vietnamese youth-based groups.

VAHF

The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation celebrates and promotes our pride as Americans of Vietnamese descent. The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation provides opportunities for Vietnamese American individuals or organizations to contribute to the betterment of the American society and Vietnamese American community through the understanding of our unique history and heritage.

500 Oral Histories Project

I. An Overview

After taking over South Vietnam, the Vietnamese Communist government burned books, re-wrote history, and imprisoned many writers, educators and intellectuals. We not only lost our homeland–we lost our history, our heritage, and our identity.

For several reasons, South Vietnam did not receive enough media coverage during the war. Unfortunately, the situation was not much improved after the war ended. Even today, despite a presence of 2 million Vietnamese Americans in the US, our story continues to be marginally covered in printed and visual media, especially textbooks. Furthermore, most of the information that is available to the public is misconstrued.

The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation (VAHF) was founded in 2004 with the goal of restoring our lost identity. The aim is to improve awareness about Vietnamese Americans, by collecting, preserving, promoting, and celebrating Vietnamese American history and heritage. The best sources of history are the Vietnamese Americans who are living witnesses. Therefore, the oral history is the best method to capture these experiences. Unfortunately, many witnesses who were alive during the war are nearing 60 years of age and older, so we must do it quickly and diligently before the history gets lost in time.

II. Goal

Our mission is to collect five hundred (500) truly courageous and inspirational personal stories of success and struggles of Vietnamese Americans who have risked their lives to escape communist oppression to find freedom and then toiled tirelessly to find financial success and happiness for themselves and for their families in the United States. Their first hand stories told in their own words and from their personal point of view will be shared with their children as well as other groups of Americans. We will publish these stories in an anthology to be used by teachers and professors in their teaching of Vietnamese American history as well as American history. In addition, we will share these stories by hosting seminars and providing exhibits of these stories at community centers and academic institutions throughout the country. Finally, we will send copies of the anthologies to libraries throughout the country as well as post them on our website to give students and educators an opportunity to read and share these stories.

© 2009, Vietnamese-American Heritage Foundation