Program areas at VAI
Community care program - vai's elderly homecare program serves seniors in cook, dupage, cane and will countries. Multilingual Vietnamese, chinese,and arabic homecare workers provide care for homebound seniors, such as with daily tasks and household chores. In fiscal year (fy) 2023, vai provided care for over 325 seniors and employed 266 homecare workers. Vai provided 4 trainings for hca with topics of vaccine education, sexual harassment prevention,dementia and senior healthcare. In addition to homecare services, vai provided provided information and ppe for covid-19 protections, including vietnamese-translated materials with information as to how to lower the risk of exposure for clients and workers.
Vai's youth program provides year-round services for culturally diverse youth, ages 5-18, from an after-school program to all-day summer youth program. As a part of our programming, we offer academic support, mentoring, and enriching experiences that foster personal growth and connection. While continuing to observe covid-19 precautions, vai provided programming to 30 students in its after-school program and over 40 youth during the summer months. As a part of its programming, vai co-hosted workshops for students youth on topics such as emotional intelligence, black history month, and social justice issues.
Vai provides public benefits assistance through its immigrant family resource program (ifrp), immigration legal services, and new americans initiative (nai). We provide legal services to low-income, limited english speaking immigrants, refugees, and asylees and their families needing assistance with matters related to immigration and family law. Vai served 618 families in immigration services and in applying for medicaid, snap,and unemployment through ifrp. In addition to services, vai hosts community education workshops to inform and empower community members around relevant issues, such as public charge, civic engagement, census, and how to apply for citizenship.
Adult education - the adult literacy program provides english (esl) and citizenship instruction to limited-english-proficient community members, preparing them for their naturalization interviews with uscis and to improve their capacity to communicate in english. In fy'23, the program provides options for on-line learning and expanded services to approximately 223 learners with esl and citizenship instruction provided by 60 volunteer teachers. The program also expanded to dupage and will counties, such as a partnership with joliet public library to refer vai services to new immigrant population. In addition to on-line learning, limited inperson instruction was provided at vai offices in chicago and carol stream, including oneon-one instruction at the bezazian public library in chicago.