Welcome to NAFEA 2011 Conference!!!  ស្វាគមន៍

On behalf of the NAFEA Board, I would like to welcome all of you to the joint NAFEA and NAAPAE 2011 Conference in Long Beach, California, where the largest Southeast Asian community in the United States resides.  We are excited for this education conference to be at such a significant location for this year.

NAFEA was founded as a non-profit national organization in 1979 with the help of volunteer executive board members.  These volunteers are recognized leaders from their field of expertise and from their respective communities.  NAFEA’s mission is to build, promote, support, and advocate for, the advancement of Southeast Asian Americans through education, networking and cross-cultural exchange.

The Conference is dedicated to advancing the "Future of Southeast Asian American Students and Communities in the New Education Era".  It is imperative that we all come together and make our voices heard.  We must engage in dialogue with our parents, our students, our community leaders, our social, health and employment service agencies, our teachers and school administrators, our policy makers, and our government.  This communication network will help build and reinforce the best quality education for our generation and future generations. It will ensure a world-class education for every child.

As President of NAFEA, I have come up with the following specific tasks, challenges, and strategies that individually, or as a group, we must achieve in order to build a healthy and equitable education for our SEA American and other ethnic Communities: (1) Get institutional/local and State support; (2) Secure incentive-based scholarship funds for our students; (3) Support our administrators and teachers to best understand and educate our students; (4) Ensure SEA American students are being provided the support needed to attend and succeed in higher education; (5) Partner, collaborate, and network with policy makers, State and Federal governments, business and private sectors, public and private schools, expert researchers in relevant fields, and SEA students and families; (6) Work on the needs shown by disaggregated data for Asian Pacific Americans; (7) Create incentives for SEA students to learn their own heritage, language & culture; (8) Build and secure funding for overseas abroad programs that cultivate heritage, language & culture; (9) Help to educate and retain the best trained professional teachers and staff; (10) Increase the capacity of our literature, language and cultural materials for SEA American students; (11)  Value, honor, and respect ourselves, our people, and our communities.

Once again, the board and I would like to thank you for coming. We wish everyone a wonderful time networking with new friends and reconnecting with old friends.  We hope you will learn and exchange information, knowledge, and ideas with one another.  Please share your thoughts with those around you.  Enjoy your time.

Best Wishes,
Mahalo and Aloha អរគុណ​​

Chhany Sak-Humphry

NAFEA, President

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National Association for Asian and Pacific American Education (NAAPAE)
National Education Association (NEA)
Asian Studies Graduate Society, California State University, Long Beach
National Cambodian American Organization (NCAO)
Center for Lao Studies (CLS)
Laotian American National Alliance (LANA)
Cambodian Association of America, Long Beach, CA
Cambodia Town, USA

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Cambodian Student Association, Long Beach, CA

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