CAA Parent Leaders met with Laura Lai (right), wife of late-historian Him Mark Lai, to hear how she became a community activist with her husband after immigrating from China as a young girl.
CAA’s leadership development project has been renamed and restructured to reflect the need for developing grassroots leadership across San Francisco. Formerly known as the Visitacion Valley Parents Association because it began in that neighborhood seven years ago, the project is now called CAA Parent Advocates and has expanded to include Chinese immigrant parents from other neighborhoods who want to improve their children’s schools, advocate for educational equity, and engage other Chinese immigrant parents.
Parent participants enroll in a five-session training program to learn about current social issues in their community and, specifically, issues within the San Francisco Unified School District. They meet other immigrant parents to build their support network. After graduation from this training program, parents can apply to be Peer Leaders, a group that learns more deeply about social movements and who apply their learning at school hearings and rallies. The following year, they can apply to be Alumni Leaders, who are parents with advanced social justice training and experience. The Alumni Leaders gain campaign leadership skills while teaching new parent participants. To learn more about CAA Parent Advocates and how to get involved, visit our website here.
