VietLead

VietLead received support for its holistic programming for Vietnamese and Southeast Asian communities in Philadelphia, including direct services, education, advocacy, and community organizing initiatives. Through programs ranging from intergenerational urban gardening to youth leadership development and immigrant rights defense, VietLead fostered cultural preservation, civic engagement, and collective power-building. Funding supported the organization’s efforts to address immediate community needs while advancing long-term wellbeing, resilience, and equity for immigrant and refugee communities.

VietLeadʼs Our Roots Our Youth program received a grant to engage Vietnamese and Southeast Asian youth to develop emotional and political capacity for transforming communities through political education, community building, and leadership development. Programming included context-based learning and hands-on experiential learning to guide youth to think more deeply about the social, emotional, and historical connections with each other and their communities.

VietLead received a grant for its Our Roots Our Youth program, which engaged Vietnamese and Southeast Asian youth from low-income refugee and immigrant backgrounds in Philadelphia and Camden through leadership development, political education, and community-building programming. Through culturally grounded workshops and hands-on learning experiences, youth explored the social, emotional, and historical connections between their identities and communities while reconnecting with traditions rooted in sustainability, cooperation, urban agriculture, and cultural cooking. The program fostered resilience, cultural pride, and collective empowerment among Southeast Asian immigrant youth.