As we noted in an earlier post, there are four AAPI organizations who made the finals of the Chase Community Giving challenge. With a chance to win as much as $1,000,000, each group was asked to submit a new "big idea". The Center for the Pacific Asian Family, the vital non-profit based in Los Angeles, has enlisted some pretty big guns to help promote their big cause: ending domestic violence. Thanks to the help of super Hollywood producer, Teddy Zee, CPAF has recruited the likes of Sandra Oh, Lisa Ling, Laura Ling, Tamlyn Tomita, Rosalind Chao, Sheetal Sheth, David Choi, Far East Movement, Wong Fu Productions, Priscilla Ahn, Van Ness Wu, Kaba Modern, Seriouslyand others to the promote their cause through a series of videos.

Check out the videos here: http://www.teddyzee.com/cpaf/ or ttp://www.youtube.com/user/cpafpsa

And don't forget to vote here: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/890329

As I said, CPAF is a great organization and they really deserve to win. So make sure you vote by the deadline, January 22nd. Here is their full proposal in case you wanted to know more.

The Issue

One woman is beaten every 15 seconds in our country. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injuries to women between the ages of 15 and 44. One in five women have been sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Up to 60 percent of Asian and Pacific American women experience domestic or sexual abuse in their lifetime, and are the least likely to report the abuse. It’s happening to our families, our mothers, our sisters, our children, our friends. Chances are you know someone victimized by domestic violence or sexual assault. Since the economic downturn in 2008, domestic violence has been on the rise. With cutbacks in state funding, non-profits like CPAF are forced to turn away more callers trying to flee a violent home. With your vote, CPAF proposes to fund a Multi-Lingual CALL CENTER to support emergency shelters and rape crisis centers to stretch their resources to serve more survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. Many domestic violence shelters are counting on you to vote for CPAF!

The Plan

Currently, each of the 20 domestic violence shelters and 6 rape crisis centers in Los Angeles County run their own 24 hour hotlines. One joint hotline would benefit all of us, but we do not have the resources to plan for and develop a sustainable joint HOTLINE. With your vote, CPAF will invest in developing the technological and programmatic infrastructure to handle crisis calls for all partnering agencies, in over 30 languages, at CPAF’s Multi-Lingual Call Center. CPAF will extend the hotline services to include ONLINE CHAT to make services more accessible to survivors. CPAF will also establish VIDEO CONFERENCING capacity at partnering agencies, which will allow bilingual staff based in CPAF’s Call Center to provide multi-lingual services throughout Los Angeles County. Materials, including multi-media productions in various languages, will be collected and developed to be shared with partnering agencies and larger community through an ONLINE LIBRARY.

The Outcome

CPAF’s goal is to end domestic violence and sexual assault. Instead of using the funds to temporarily grow our programs, we want to invest it in developing sustainable infrastructure to increase our community’s capacity to support survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. It would be far more efficient and would make everyone's resources stretch further to join together technologically as one Call Center responding to crisis calls. Video conferencing, online chat and online library all leverage technology to share and maximize our limited resources. During the first year, we will identify and engage key stakeholders to develop a blueprint of the Call Center. We will then test a small pilot Call Center with 4 to 5 agencies and make adjustments the the plan as needed. During the second third years we will gradually add 3 to 5 agencies each six months. At the same time, we will establish the Americorp Vista program to sustain the Call Center beyond the Chase grant.