Today we’d like to introduce you to Bao Nguyen, Elena Tran, and Anhlan Nguyen.
Bao, Elena, and Anhlan let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Vietnamese Culture and Science Association promotes excellence in education, leadership and skills development through culture and science.
Our organization encourages multi-generational and cross-cultural collaborations. We foster civic participation in the mainstream and Vietnamese America. Starting with 14 members in 1990, VCSA membership has increased to more than 650 by 2017 with the headquarter based in Houston, and seven other local chapters established in Texas, Minnesota, California, Washington DC, Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, BC, Canada. VCSA established its first Community Center in Houston to deliver year-round programs and services benefiting the local Vietnamese-American community.
In the last twenty-six years, VCSA has had an excellent track record of community service and continuing support for community leadership development among young people. In October 2002, VCSA was recognized as the Runner-up of the National Independent Sector Leadership Award (offered by Independent Sectors Inc., a national federation of national organizations from across the country, based in Washington DC.) for its commitment to community service and leadership development for the younger generations of Vietnamese-Americans.
In July 2007, VCSA received the Golden Wave Award offered by Little Saigon Radio and Viet Tide Magazine based in California and Texas, as the Most Outstanding Community Organization for the Vietnamese American communities in Texas. In 2015, VCSA received the Outstanding Community Organization award by the Vietnamese American Medical Association in Greater Houston area.
Today, with a budget of approximately $200,000 annually, it delivers more than 10 services and programs to serve its community yearly in Houston, Texas. These figures speak of countless hours and efforts that its members and volunteers have contributed year after year.
Every year, VCSA delivers four major projects:
• Annual National and North American Youth Leadership Development Camp, “Camp Len Duong.” The camp was organized by a team of 60 volunteers who spent about five months to plan for the program and then 4 days at camp to execute the plan. They contributed 6000 hours to plan and implement the camp every year. In the past thirteen years, this camp has helped more than 3000 young adults (age range 18-25) to sharpen their leadership skills and to become leaders in their local cities.
• Annual Youth Excellence Recognition Luncheon program to recognize local Valedictorians and Salutatorians who are Vietnamese-Americans from local high schools.
• Annual Vietnamese Tobacco and Obesity Prevention Youth Summit to create a healthy environment for Vietnamese children from age 6-16 to participate in a one-day event teaching and training them about tobacco prevention and nutritional related topics. The event attracts about 150 – 200 kids of age range 6-16 and more than 90 volunteers including the parents. The program has been delivered successfully in partnership with the Museum of Natural Science of Houston in the past six years. In 2009 and 2010, it was held at Stafford Primary School.
• Mid-Autumn Children Festival: VCSA has successfully partnered with the Children’s Museum of Houston to organize the Mid-Autumn Children Festival in the past six years. The purpose of the event is to feature the beauty of Vietnamese culture to all children in Houston and to create an opportunity for collaboration among many different youth groups in the City.
The Houston VCSA Center also provides the following services:
• Free translation service for parents when conferencing with schools. Volunteers arrange this service as needed.
• Free Tax filing service for low-income families: offered for the first four months in the year and free of charge to all low-income families.
• Health Awareness and Health Promotion workshops
• Financial Literacy Educational workshops for professionals and business owners.
• Vietnamese Language Classes for young adults and students. There is normally one or two classes per year, each class serves 10 – 15 students.
• Vietnamese Literature and History Classes: offered once a year during the summer, each class has about 10 – 15 students.
• SAT Classes to train students to pass the SAT exam.
These programs are currently delivered by the VCSA center in Houston on a regular basis. We currently have one program coordinator and two part-time staff from the Work Study partnership with the University of Houston. The organization relies heavily on our pool of volunteers which consists of 15 active Board members (Board of Directors and Executive Board) and approximately 80 volunteers for different programs and activities (30 volunteers who are students, 20 volunteers who are young professionals, and 30 volunteers who are adults and/or parents).
Has it been a smooth road?
We are a volunteer-based organization so sometimes we have lots of volunteers, but there were times when we were lack of staff who can man the center and open to the public as regular as we would like to.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We are one of the most well known non-profit organization in the Vietnamese American communities around Texas and across the United States and Canada, especially with our flagship program “Youth Leadership Development camp Len Duong” that has been running annually in the past 20 years (since 1998)
VCSA is known for our core values: Education – Culture – Leadership – Excellence and Volunteerism.
In 2016, we celebrated our 25th anniversary of serving the local communities in Houston, Austin, and Dallas, Texas and also nationwide and in Canada.
What sets us apart is that VCSA invests in developing leaders for the future. Our youth leadership program has trained more than 5000 young adults and college students and helped develop more than 300 community young leaders in the past 20 years.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Houston is the BEST city to start your business, especially if you can serve a diverse population. Houston has become the most diverse city in the United States (bypassing New York) in 2016 with its truly diverse and vibrant community with the largest influx of refugees and immigrants from around the globe.
We are very proud to live here in Houston, Texas and so long as your business is promoting something that can be appreciated among all different cultures and diversity, you will be thriving here.
Contact Info:
- Address: 13080 Bellaire Blvd Suite G – Houston, TX 77072
- Website: www.vcsa.org
- Phone: 281-933-8118
- Email: vcsa@vcsa.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vcsaorg/
- Other: www.lenduongcamp.org
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