Congrats Class of 2013!
For over 32 years, The Cambodian Family has helped thousands of Orange County’s most vulnerable members of society achieve greater health, knowledge, success, and happiness. Our success is largely due to the partnerships we have with our funders, other community organizations, volunteers, and staff members that have dedicated many years of their lives to the mission of our agency. Over the years, we have successfully managed more than $25 million of public and private funding and have established deep roots in our community.
Our agency and its leadership have received numerous awards for service to the community at the local and national level. Some notable accomplishments include being honored with the DOJ’s Gould-Wysinger Award for outstanding work in preventing delinquency, recognition as a model program in two federal publications, and more recently, having our current youth program director win the 2009 CA Peace Prize.
The Cambodian Family believes that obtaining higher education is the key for the members of our community to develop the knowledge, skills, and desires for creating health and well-being in their lives. It is the motto for our agency and for everyone that walks through our doors.
The mission in our Plan Ahead Youth Program is to help youth develop their vision for the future and to attain the skills to turn their vision into reality.
For over two decades, we’ve made a positive impact on the Cambodian community in Santa Ana, both directly and indirectly.
Based on the 2000 Census, only 33% of Cambodians aged 25 and older in Santa Ana continued their education after high school. In the 2010 Census, we see a huge increase to 56%.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Cambodian high school drop out rates were high, resulting in many of them dropping out of school, joining gangs, or getting pregnant. We attribute this to many different factors including but not limited to: lack of role model, language barriers, and lack of support. Our agency decided to take a proactive role in getting Cambodian youth off the street and engaged in positive activities such as tutoring, mentoring, cultural classes, and higher education awareness.
By promoting higher education and setting high expectations for our youth, we encourage a mentality of “can-do” rather than “can’t do.” For over twenty years, our Youth Program has actively mentored and encouraged hundreds of youth to stay in school and finish high school. With the commitment and care from our dedicated staff, our students are now aiming higher. A high school diploma is no longer the end goal but the beginning of their higher education.
With this amazing feat, we are proud to share and congratulate an alumni of The Cambodian Family Youth Program and our dedicated volunteers who have gone on to achieve their college degrees and take the next step in creating a positive impact in their community.
