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About Our Organization

Who We Are ?

We are a mission-driven nonprofit & digital destination that inspires young Vietnamese Americans looking to make a difference through our programs and digestible content on the entrepreneurship, social activism, and pop culture.

 

We know that young Vietnamese Americans care and want to make a difference, but their lack of resources and current systems of education aren’t enabling them to do so. VAD is meeting them where they’re at and creating programs and informative content that actually resonate with them.

Vietnamese American Development

Our Story

Let’s rewind to the summer of 2011

Hopping off the plane was a wide-eyed Vietnamese guy thrilled to call Houston his new home. Having lived in Vietnam for the past 26 years, I was excited to move to the U.S. — a curious country I vaguely knew as my second home. 

I soon learned that the suburbs of Houston would not be as kind to me as I had hoped. My university experience was riddled with incidents of hate and discrimination — not from peers my age but from trusted Vietnamese American adult figures and relatives. My experiences in my predominantly white community told me that my immigrant identity was not welcomed in the Vietnamese American community. At that time, Vietnamese American faced negative stereotypes and were often unfairly portrayed as passive and lazy by other communities and mainstream media. I recognized that Vietnamese American community had unique challenges and opportunities.

Fast forward to January of 2023.

Seeing American people in other communities join hands, organizing rallies to empower their fellow people nationwide. No longer was my goal to live in passive assimilation; I instead sought to step boldly into my own identity to gather Vietnamese Americans together as a community where young Vietnamese Americans could come together and collaborate as a united force to make a meaningful impact. In a world that glorifies individual success, we easily forget that our greatest power lies in our ability to come together. How can we reclaim the power of the collective without losing our sense of self?

And so I turned to the nonprofit sector. I founded VAD in the hopes that my dream might resonate with someone — anyone.
 
To my surprise, people began noticing VAD and asked to join the cause. I was ecstatic. We soon blossomed into something greater than I could have ever imagined: we expanded beyond event planning, creating a network of programs, a blog, a podcast, a newsletter, a community, countless viral digital campaigns, among other impactful initiates.
 
Today, we stand as an organization with over 20 core team members, 3 programs, and 3k social media followers — but more importantly, a safe space all Vietnamese Americans can call home.
 

Our Team

We are building a diverse team of thought leaders, problem solvers, and doers from different backgrounds combining deep professionalism with passion and purpose, all working to deliver transformational change in the community.