Overview

The Union of North American Vietnamese Students Associations (uNAVSA), a non-profit, non-partisan, community-based organization, was founded in 2004 as a means for Vietnamese youth organizations from across North America to network, share common resources, and collaborate with one another. Our primary members are the leaders and staff of Vietnamese Student Associations (VSAs) at college and university campuses in North America, as well as regional umbrella VSA groups, but we also draw from our network of relationships with young working professionals.

The long term vitality of any community depends on healthy, active organizations that educate, inspire, and mobilize their constituent members. This is true for vast nations, this is true for your local city, and this is true for the overseas Vietnamese community. And in order for these organizations to successfully harness the community’s passions and energy, their leaders must be empowered with the appropriate knowledge, wisdom, and management skills.

uNAVSA is dedicated to fostering fundamental leadership and management skills to make individuals and organizations more effective throughout the Vietnamese community. If you are looking to strengthen membership and activism of your VSA, or if you seek to hone your personal leadership skills, uNAVSA provides a forum and network to learn from the brightest emerging Vietnamese American and Vietnamese Canadian leaders.

Servicing the Vietnamese community in North America, uNAVSA works as an umbrella organization and collaborates with both regional groups and individual student associations to conduct events and projects encompassing the North American continent. To these ends, we organize conferences focused on leadership, cultural identity, and community issues and we coordinate collective philanthropy projects that involve member groups across the continent.

As our community matures and hands off leadership to a second generation, we share in a tremendous challenge to maintain and reinforce our positive values while dismantling many of the divisive barriers between us. But hand in hand, we can and will empower tomorrow’s emerging leaders – uNAVSA’s mission is to build lasting networks that will help do just that.

Our Role in uNAVSA

• The uNAVSA Northern California Division Facebook Group
  
• The members of the uNAVSA Council of Regional Representatives (CoRR), elected by their region's delegation, are part of UVSA's Executive Board (often appointed).
• Our largest involvement is with the Collective Philanthropy Project (CPP) and the uNAVSA Conference.