Spotlight
The AAPI Leaders Forging a Healthier, Safer New York
Meet four AAPI grantees that are giving back with solutions tailored to their communities
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month is well underway, and in 2024—as with every year—we’re proud to support dozens of AAPI-led and focused organizations supporting communities throughout New York.
AAPI people are the fastest-growing racial group in New York, as well as one of the most diverse. While they may face many of the same healthcare challenges as other New Yorkers, access to care and resources can be especially difficult due to language barriers, cultural complexities, and more.
Because of this, we’re committed to grantmaking for organizations that recognize these inequities and address with them programs tailored to the communities they serve. Read on to discover four organizations reaching AAPI New Yorkers with essential healthcare interventions and empowering them to lead happier, healthier lives.
Sakhi for South Asian Survivors
Sakhi for South Asian Women addresses the complex needs of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean survivors of gender-based violence. We work with Sakhi through their Economic Empowerment program, where survivors can access skills trainings, career planning and counseling.
When people can’t meet their basic needs for employment, housing, or food, it impacts their overall well-being. Sakhi for South Asian Women helps survivors address these essential needs so they focus more on improving their health.
Chinese American Planning Council
The Chinese American Planning Council (CPC) is the country’s largest Asian American social services organization, serving Chinese, immigrant, and low-income communities in New York. Since 2024, we’ve supported their Strong and Wise program, providing mental health services to older AAPI adults in Brooklyn.
Mental health is an often overlooked aspect of physical health, and can be especially compromised for communities with specific cultural or linguistic needs. But through this program, CPC serves older adults with care tailored to them so they can live longer, healthier lives.
Community Inclusion & Development Alliance, Inc.
Community Inclusion & Development Alliance, Inc. (CIDA) serves children and families with disabilities, language and cultural barriers, and socioeconomic challenges. We’re proud supporters of their AGES Program, which enhances the independent living capacity of adults with disabilities and helps caregivers develop individualized community living plans.
CIDA is led by Dr. Young Seh Bae, a Korean immigrant and parent to a child with a disability. A distinguised Asian-American leader, Dr. Bae’s work has had an outsized impact on multiple priority populations to empower the the AAPI community at large.
Asian American Federation
The Asian American Federation raises the influence and well-being of the pan-Asian American community. We currently support their “Changing Minds, Changing Communities” project, bringing culturally competent mental health services to Asian Americans in New York.
The project’s goal is to ensure that anyone who needs it has access to mental health support in the language they are most comfortable with, provided by professionals who are deeply familiar with Asian cultures. This type of culturally responsive support helps decrease mental health stigma overall, addressing the unqiue needs of the AAPI community and breaking down barriers to care.
Read here for a report by AAF that aims to address the gaps in research on the challenges to getting mental health care by gathering feedback from Asian Americans in New York City.
These organizations represent just a few of the AAPI-focused nonprofits and community groups that Mother Cabrini Health Foundation has the privilege to support. For a full list of our grantees, please click here.
Happy AAPI Heritage Month!