Aram Sei would like to express its solidarity and support to our fellow members of the Asian American community. We strongly condemn the attacks against AAPI members in our community and we would like to join hands to end this harassment.
May being AAPI Heritage month it is important to acknowledge that in an increasingly diverse nation, AAPIs stand apart as one of the most diverse communities. Generations of AAPIs have helped develop and defend the United States, often in the face of tremendous racial and cultural prejudice. Despite these difficulties, these men and women struggled, sacrificed, and persevered to build a better life for their children and all Americans. This observance gives us the opportunity to honor, recognize, and celebrate the rich diversity, leadership, and enduring empowerment of all Asian American and Pacific Islanders, and their dedicated service and contributions to the betterment of our nation.
As part of our community engagement initiatives, we had a series of webinars last year to help raise awareness about BLM. As a result of these efforts, Aram Sei partnered with organizations to support sustainable growth within the black community. In continuation of these efforts and in light of the recent hate crimes against Asian Americans in the United States, Aram Sei is organizing a webinar series to educate and engage our communities on the history, current issues and arrive at a way forward, individually and collectively, in support of AAPI.
Anu Natarajan our esteemed well wisher, former Vice-Mayor of Fremont has graciously consented to moderate these panel discussions in support of AAPI members. Anu has tremendous experience in the areas of public, private, political and non-profit sector. She is also a passionate leader who initiates changes by working with diverse community groups.
Session 3: Guiding the Next Generation
The third session, scheduled for June 26th, is designed as an interactive workshop for today’s youth. It aims to increase awareness about AAPI issues among teens. The workshop will be led by:
Dr. Joanna Thompson, Director of Office for Multicultural Learning at Santa Clara University, with the help of three Aram Sei Youth volunteers. Dr. Thompson has helped create workshops at SCU that are a mix of information sharing, audience participation and a “Call to Action” at the end so that participants can apply their learnings to their day-to-day lives.
She will be supported by our youth volunteers Lillian Yu and Sadhvi Narayanan.
Lillian Yu is a 10th grader currently attending Lynbrook High School. She is very passionate about STEM topics, particularly Computer Science and Machine Learning. She has conducted and written a research paper on Artificial Intelligence while attending the Summer Research Academies at UCSB during the summer of 2020. She is also very dedicated to volunteering and giving back to communities around the world. For the past 2 years, she has volunteered for an online reading club for middle school students as a mentor, leading discussions on classic literature works and analyzing biases in news articles. Combining these two passions, Lillian and Sadhvi, another teen host of the webinar, founded Innoventure, an organization whose mission is to deliver STEM content to under-resourced children around the world. They developed a curriculum and taught an introductory python course to under-resourced children in India for 8 months over the course of the 2020-2021 school year and are looking for opportunities to expand and reach out to more passionate or underprivileged kids. Lillian continues her volunteering journey at Aram Sei and is very excited to spread awareness in the AAPI community.
Sadhvi Narayanan is a rising junior at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California. Sadhvi’s interests include computer science, mathematics, Indian classical dance (Bharatanatyam), running, and baking. She is also the co-founder, along with Lillian, of an organization called Innoventure, established to teach and deliver STEM courses to under-resourced children from all over the world. Sadhvi strongly believes that every child, no matter their circumstance, should be given the opportunity to follow their passions! When not studying or volunteering, Sadhvi loves to spend time with her family, travel, watch movies, play with her younger sister, and entertain her 9 month old labradoodle puppy. Sadhvi is really excited to work with Aram Sei on the AAPI Youth Webinar, and she hopes to make a positive impact in the lives of the AAPI community.
Maya Sriram is a 14 year old entrepreneur, studying at Basis Independent Silicon Valley. Maya started her first business selling hand-made mini notebooks for a small profit and running summer camps for kids in her neighborhood. She generates new ideas at home, at school and seemingly at all times in between. She’s a uniquely talented public speaker, musician, stand-up comedian and has won several coding, math, science, speech/debate and spelling competitions at a national level. She’s also a party planner and has hosted many parties for multiple occasions. She was a part of the National Junior Honor Society and tutored peers on various subjects. She
earned the President’s Volunteer Service Award Bronze Medal.
[PAST Sessions] Session 1: History & Current Challenges
The first webinar scheduled for June 5,3PM, PT, focussed on the history and inbuilt diversity in the Asian Community, current legislation supporting AAPI and how we can collectively impact legislation as we move forward. The recording from this session is on the right. Panelists for this Webinar include:
Ms. Carolyn Russell is the Executive Director of A Safe Place based in Oakland, CA. Ms. Russel has led the growth of A Safe Place for over 35 years from its first beginnings. She has expanded services and integrated a wide range of community education and outreach initiatives, including Cal Works for low income survivors, cultural responsiveness for communities of color.
Parag Mehta, Senior Vice President at Mastercard, where he leads the company’s efforts to advance sustainable and equitable economic growth around the world as Executive Director of the company’s Center for Inclusive Growth. He has spent the past 20 years working to advance justice, inclusion and human rights through political activism, public service and now philanthropy.
Sarita Kohli, President & CEO of Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI). She has been responsible not only for the operations of AACI’s behavioral health and wellness programs, but also with helping set the strategic vision for AACI, ensuring financial viability and revenue generation, and creating new business opportunities
Monique Hill is the EVP Chief Commercial Credit Officer at Bank of the West, and has spent over 40 years previously with its parent company BNP Paribas in a number of responsibilities around the world. She has also been the Executive Sponsor for the Asian Pacific Resource Group of the Bank for the past few years, helping promote social and cultural awareness as well as mentoring for ethnic and gender diversity within the bank’s employees. Monique was born in Saigon, Vietnam and relocated with her family in France as a pre-teen in the late sixties. She has a full life experience of navigating gender and ethnic minority dynamics privately and professionally in various countries and cultures.
[PAST SESSIONS] Session 2: Challenges and A Path Forward
The second webinar on June 12th, 3PM, PT will focus on learnings from BLM, civil rights movement, laws & legislation on Affirmative Action and what the cultural shift to a truly multicultural US of America entails. On this Panel we will have:
Manjusha P. Kulkarni (“Manju”, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON), a coalition of over forty community-based organizations that serves and represents the 1.5 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County. Manju also serves as a Lecturer in the Asian American Studies Department of UCLA. In March 2020, Manju co-founded Stop AAPI Hate, the nation’s leading aggregator of COVID-19-related hate incidents against AAPIs.
Supervisor Otto Lee, Santa Clara County District 3, a Bronze star recipient, an impeccable record for public and community service. He served on the Sunnyvale Planning Commission and was then elected to serve on the Sunnyvale City Council from 2003 to 2011, including one term as Mayor. He achieved real results on pressing issues and was a leader on environmental causes. He passed the city’s single-use plastic bag ban, installing solar panels on city buildings, encouraged commercial development projects to build with higher green LEED standards and helped raise awareness on climate change.
Louis Chicoine, Chief Executive Officer Abode Services has helped the organization become the leading provider of housing and services to residents experiencing homelessness in Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Napa counties. During his tenure, Abode has grown from a local “start-up” with one shelter serving 66 adults and children into a regional organization that owns and operates hundreds of supportive housing units and provides services to more than 9,100 adults and children each year.
Beckie Masaki has worked in the field to end gender- based violence for over 30 years. She co- founded Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS) in San Francisco, and served as the founding executive director for over twenty- one years. She is also a movement maker in the Move to End Violence (MEV). Beckie is committed to make her best contribution to the movement for race + gender justice as part of a critical interconnected network of intergenerational, diverse leaders in a new era of shared leadership, shared power, and co -creation.