STATEMENT OF NAME CHANGE

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April 5, 2024 

Dear Friends, 

We at Viet Vote are announcing that our organization name will change to Viet Voices.  

Since late 2017, Viet Vote has been dedicated to strengthening the Vietnamese community in San Diego in every aspect of civic duty. We work to build a community voice, leadership, meaningful relationships through civic engagement and partnerships. Our consistent outreach into our community has increased the voter engagement in our Vietnamese community. 

When COVID-19 spread through the world, we saw our Vietnamese community in San Diego was also being affected by the lack of resources and programs and this gap was magnified by the pandemic. Our organization recognizes that our work needs to expand to include programs and services to bring about the equity that is much needed for our community. Our people need resources to thrive. 

Our team recognizes that providing voter’s education information and connecting our community to programs and resources can go hand in hand with each other and do not have to be exclusive to one another. When there are needs for our community, we can expand our work to fill in those gaps. After multiple meetings with our Board and staff members, we feel that our new name Viet Voices will reflect this expansion of our work and the fundamental purpose of our organization: serving our communities.

The name change of our organization reflects the growth of our organization. Who knew a volunteer group formed in late 2017 with a sole mission of providing voter education to our community members to encourage them to exercise their voting power would grow into a non-profit organization with staff and a board and expand our work into programs and services for our community. This growth in itself is an accomplishment but it is also the beginning of our work in building our community power for the Vietnamese community in San Diego. As we turn to the page for this new chapter, Viet Voices will continue to amplify the voices and needs of the underserved Vietnamese refugee and immigrant populations. We emphasize more research, development, and advocacy that illuminate the ongoing precarity and economic hardships our community faces, which have historically been invisible in local policies. 

Our new name, Viet Voices, is a celebration - Today, we ask you to join us in this new chapter of community building.