Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations

The Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations (uNAVSA) ( _vi. Liên Hội Sinh Viên Việt Nam Bắc Mỹ Châu) is a non-profit, community-based organization founded in 2004 as a means for Vietnamese youth organizations from across North America to network, share common resources, and collaborate with one another on youth-related and philanthropic work.

History

During the Third International Vietnamese Youth Conference in 2003 in San Diego, there were initial talks for creating a network of Vietnamese Student Associations in North America modeled after the Federal Vietnamese Students Association of Australia. Through a collaboration of the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California along with the New England Inter-Collegiate Vietnamese Student Association, the first North American Vietnamese Student Associations (NAVSA) conference was held in the Summer of 2004 in Boston, and with that NAVSA was born. Only with the second conference in 2005 in Chicago, was the name of NAVSA changed to The Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations (uNAVSA) to better reflect that nature of this organization as a union.

Conferences

The first conference was held from July 2,2004 to July 4,2004 at Emerson College in Boston. The second conference was held in Chicago as a joint-conference with the Vietnamese Interacting as One conference in July 2005. The third conference was held from July 13,2006 to July 16,2006 at the San Jose State University in San Jose. The 2007 conference will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from July 26,2007 to July 29,2007.

Collective Philanthropic Project

The "Collective Philanthropic Project" (CPP) was introduced with the second conference in Chicago as a means for having all uNAVSA organizations collaborate on one single project each year. Through a presentation, discussion and subsequent vote, a Vietnamese non-profit organization should be selected from a panel to be the recipient of uNAVSA's CPP project, and in 2005, the inaugrual CPP recipient was the Anti-Human-Trafficking organization VietACT. In 2006, the Catalyst Foundation was selected as the CPP recipient.

See also

* List of Vietnamese American Groups
* Mid-Atlantic Union of Vietnamese Student Associations
* Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California
* Vietnamese Student Association
* International Vietnamese Youth Conference

External links

* [http://www.unavsa.org Official uNAVSA Website]
* [http://www.cpp2007.org/ Official CPP Website]
* [http://www.thsv.org/filelist.aspx?folderPath=VideoAlbum%2fFirst+North+American+Vietnamese+Student+Associations+Conference+(2004) Videos of the first conference in Boston]
* [http://www.thsv.org/thumbs.aspx?folderPath=PhotoAlbum%2fFirst+North+American+Vietnamese+Student+Associations+Conference+(2004) Pictures of the first conference in Boston]
* [http://www.thsv.org/filelist.aspx?folderPath=VideoAlbum%2fNAVSA+VIA-1+Conference+2005 Videos of second conference in Chicago]
* [http://www.thsv.org/thumbs.aspx?folderPath=PhotoAlbum%2fNAVSA+VIA-1+Conference+2005 Pictures of the second conference in Chicago]