About Us
ACHI is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping African refugees and community members gain access to resources and programs not easily sourced to them.
We work with low-income, refugee, and immigrant communities, and through our work, we have found that most of the problems facing these communities are complex, challenging, and different depending on an individual’s journey of life, cultural background, linguistic and educational level.
Almost all refugees and immigrants go through considerable challenges during their initial resettlement as a form of cultural shock and linguistic barrier. Since there is no adequate resettlement assistance, many go into stress and depression in some cases, suicidal or taking lifelong survival jobs below the poverty level. For some, unfortunately, fate is to become dependent on warfare assistance. The combination of the above challenges and other domestic issues has a direct consequence on the health well-being of individuals in this population, which also causes substantial health disparities.
ACHI believes that it is possible to overcome most of these problems with the effort of understanding the cultural and linguistic background of these communities and establishing trust as a basis before providing any competent appropriate services. Thus, the work of ACHI depends on the principles that
- Understanding and eliminating cultural and linguistic barriers CAN empower individuals to adjust to their social environment easily while developing a healthy lifestyle.
- Through evidence-based practices, develop confidence, trust, and capacity that individuals will be able to seek help for their self-development.
- Working with our partners through a comprehensive referral service to connect our clients to available services.
- Educational programs for health and skill development can help engage clients to maintain a healthy lifestyle and become self-sufficient.
Our ultimate goal is to help clients develop early intervention and prevention of coping mechanisms. Through the process, ACHI also engages in various activities that eliminate bad behavior and reduce stigmatization and fear of all forms that are the core causes hindering healing, prevention, and progress. ACHI prioritizes public and mental health needs filling the gap in public available services.
Some of our Programs include:
- Information and referrals: This is the first step for each of our clients, where we perform a thorough client needs assessment. Based on the client’s specific needs, we provide the necessary information, orientation, and referral or recommendation to other service programs in our organization or other local partnering organizations.
- Social support system: In this program, we attempt to connect clients with similar needs through a social support system. The program uses the group’s native cultures and language with a firm confidentially policy we impose to protect our clients’ privacy. As we know, most refugees and immigrants go through a traumatic journey before entering the USA due to war, abuse, illiteracy, and cultural differences. The support system is crucial for most of our clients to overcome several of their challenges or obstacles and understand how to safely navigate their new environment and become self-sufficient. If needed, clients will also be referred to counseling and social work services as needed. We form a social support system as needs arise in various age categories seniors, women, parental, professional, and youth.
- Public Health education programs: Health education is any combination of learning experiences designed to help individuals and communities improve their health by increasing their knowledge or influencing their attitudes. Some of the specific regular educational programs include fitness classes, nutrition education, and chronic illness education.
- Family and parenting programs: Connecting parents of young children with resources for educational aids, affordable health coverage information, and family support systems.
- Immigrant Elderly and Mindful Aging project: Elderly immigrants and refugees, despite their vulnerability to several diseases and other socio-economic issues, are often left out. Our Elderly and Mindful Project entertains various activities pertinent to our elderly immigrants to lead and experience a healthy and independent life. Some of these activities include weekly nutrition and fitness classes, cultural and linguistic appropriate socialization, and free community produce and serenity gardening conducted in partnership with our partner organization.
- Vocational training: Coordinating and sponsoring volunteer-led classes including native language teaching for children, cooking classes, professional meetings, senior programs, computer classes, and others.
Our Core Values:
- Positive outlook and hope in life
- Confidentiality
- Excellence in Service
- Mutual Respect
- Inclusiveness
- Cultural diversity
Mission and Goals:
ACHI’s unique approach is to provide culturally and linguistically sensitive social support systems and services. The primary goals are:
- To promote physical, mental, and social well-being
- To develop early coping mechanisms for any cultural shock, mental and other stress-related problems
- To provide support for quick resettlement and integration into their new community.
- To provide prevention and intervention awareness outreach and education to reduce health disparities within the community.
Volunteer:
Our Organization is heavily dependent on many generous and humanitarian volunteers in its operation. We continually recruit volunteers in all aspects of the operation of the organization including social media interns, web developers, accountants, case managers, translators (African Languages), public health educators, counseling and clinical health professionals, and others.
If you would like to have a short or long non-profit experience working with a diverse community, please contact us with a brief introduction of you and your interest. We will get in touch and follow up with you with more detailed information.
Our Partners and Sponsors
