Boat People SOS is the nation's largest Vietnamese-American 501(c)3 nonprofit organization devoted to Vietnamese-American civic and political activism. It is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia

Falls Church, Virginia

The City of Falls Church is an independent city in Virginia, United States, in the Washington Metropolitan Area. The city population was 12,332 in 2010, up from 10,377 in 2000. Taking its name from The Falls Church, an 18th-century Anglican parish, Falls Church gained township status within...

. BPSOS' mission is to "empower, organize, and equip Vietnamese individuals and communities in their pursuit of liberty and dignity." Through their 18 branches in large urban centers such as Orange County, Houston, and Atlanta, and in small communities such as Springfield (MA), Bayou La Batre (AL) and Biloxi (MS), BPSOS provides a web of services to support individuals, families, and communities. For the past 10 years, community outreach has been one of the key areas of investment for BPSOS.

BPSOS has experienced significant growth and positive media, especially with Pamela Constable's article in the Washington Post on 2008 October 21. On 2008 December 6, BPSOS volunteer and former (1996–2002) board member Anh "Joseph" Cao

Joseph Cao

Anh "Joseph" Quang Cao is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2009 until 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party. In April 2011, he announced he will be a candidate for Attorney General of Louisiana in 2011, however in September 2011 he pulled out of the race.He was the first...

 became the first Vietnamese-American to be elected to Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

.

Origin

Founded in San Diego and Songkla Camp, Thailand in 1980 as Boat People S.O.S. Committee, in their early days they conducted voluntary rescue-at-sea missions, rescuing over 3,300 boat people stranded in the South China Sea as they fled Vietnam. Later, in response to pirate attacks against Vietnamese boat people in the waters of Thailand and Malaysia, they collaborated with the Thai Royal Navy to fight pirates and bring refugees to safety.

Early Development

More than a decade after the Vietnam War, the world has mostly forgotten the tragic end of the Vietnam War and many nations no longer welcomed the boat people. Under the reign of the Vietnamese communists, more people sought ways to escape in search of freedom but were not welcome anywhere. According to the report of United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees, one third of Vietnamese boat people died at sea by killings, storms, illness,and food shortage. A total of approximately 250,000 men, women, and children of all ages. Boats were being pushed back out to the seas, and those few survivors who reached shores were put into detention centers.

In 1990, responding to major shifts in US and international policies towards the Vietnamese boat people, BPSOS moved their headquarters from San Diego, California to Falls Church, Virginia and launched Legal Assistance for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers (LAVAS) to provide legal aid and advocacy for Vietnamese boat people seeking refugee protection—close to 20,000 boat people were resettled to the U.S. thanks to this effort. By 1997 many Vietnamese people were either repatriated or had settled permanently in the U.S. BPSOS has since focused on advocacy and direct services to strengthen the growing Vietnamese community's ability to reach self-sufficiency.

Present Status

When most boat people were either repatriated or resettled, they shifted their focus to domestic programs for Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in communities all across America. In 2005 and the years that followed, the Katrina Aid Today (KAT) recovery program was a catalyst for their work in the Vietnamese-American communities of the Gulf Coast. As a direct result of working with KAT, a national consortium of organizations under the guidance of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, they founded branches in Bayou La Batre, New Orleans, and Biloxi. Many of the tens of thousands of Vietnamese Americans living in those areas were poor even before Katrina struck. Working as case managers through KAT, they boosted many families from misery to self-sufficiency through programs to rebuild everything from homes and bank accounts to social networks. In the course of more than two years following Katrina, the BPSOS KAT teams assisted close to 4,000 families, securing them $16.5 million in assistance, placing 850 into homes, and referring 265 to jobs; built capacity for 12 faith-based and community organizations to serve hurricane victims, including raising over $200,000 to support their activities; and established a system to disseminate news and information directly to some 5,000 Vietnamese households via the press, radio, and television. While working on KAT, which wound down in the spring of 2008, they kept our focus on providing services to seniors and working families. Programs such as the Road to Independence Through Savings and Education (RISE) have provided job counseling, financial workshops, assistance with opening bank accounts, and other vital services to Vietnamese immigrants. Other initiatives, such as the Seniors and Trauma Survivors Empowerment Program (STEP) and the Health Awareness Program for Immigrants (HAPI) have tackled the challenge of moving Vietnamese Americans from being underserved populations to health-conscious advocates of preventive healthcare.

BPSOS Houston

BPSOS' operation in Texas was established in Houston in 1999 to serve the then third largest Vietnamese population in the United States. Today, over 100,000 Vietnamese immigrants and refugees in Houston and surrounding areas form the second largest Vietnamese population in the U.S. WIth only two staff at their founding, BPSOS' operation in Texas has grown to be the largest and fastest growing BPSOS branch office in the country. They provide a web of wrap-around services to address a variety of needs in the community, including disaster preparedness and response, financial literacy, health prevention and awareness, services for seniors and crime victims, immigration and naturalization services, and ESL and citizenship classes. Our organization also acts as an advocate in the community by providing case management, legal representation, community outreach and individual and group peer support.

Media

With millions of dollars invested and applying state-of-the-art social marketing strategies, BPSOS' media and outreach capacity is unsurpassed. No single organization disseminates information to the Vietnamese-American community via so many channels: both online and in print, both by radio and by television, through direct mail and face-to-face contact.

BPSOS produces a monthly-bilingual newspaper called Mach Song/Life Stream. They publish several blogs which are updated daily, and are a regular collaborator with Vietnamese-American Television and Vietnamese Public Radio through their Mach Song Media operation. BPSOS radio shows air on Saigon Houston Radio, Little Saigon Radio, TNT, etc. They have a weekly hour-long talk show on VAN-TV, the only Vietnamese-language television program in Houston. Machsongmedia.com hosts an archive of all media content; in excess of 100,000 hits have been tracked for the radio component. Used as both an educational tool and a voice or the community, Mach Song Media programs reach thousands of Vietnamese households across Texas and in 20 cities across the country.

Disaster Services

The hurricane Ike legal and case management team began identifying clients by leveraging their satellite offices located in Harris and Galveston Counties. The case management team consisted of approximately 44 full-time case managers. The Disaster Case Management (DCM) program was awarded by Neighborhood Centers Inc. and Lutheran Social Services Disaster Response, both subgrantees of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission's long term disaster case management pilot project. As part of their responsibilities, the Disaster Case Management team canvassed the Texas Gulf Coast for Vietnamese residents in need of recovery assistance.

Legal Services

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, staff attorneys worked with partner organizations such as Lone Star Legal Aid, Houston Volunteer Lawyers Program, Mississippi Justice Center, Asian American Bar Association and others to organize and implement six legal clinics which served nearly 300 people across the Gulf coast.

Similarly, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike BPSOS' staff attorneys served clients with disaster-related legal needs and participated in a legal clinic organized by Lutheran Social Services Disaster Response and Catholic Charities. Working closely with case managers, the Disaster Legal Aid team ensured access to legal services for under-served Vietnamese and Asian individuals through a culturally and linguistically competent approach.

Origin

In February 2008, responding to an alarming level of human trafficking in Southeast Asia, BPSOS, in partnership with the International Society for Human Rights, the Vietnamese Canadian Federation, and the U.S. Committee to Protect Vietnamese Workers, launched The Coalition to Abolish Modern-day Slavery in Asia (CAMSA) project. BPSOS is active in tackling the global explosion of human trafficking, especially in the realm of labor exports. Slashed wages, grueling working hours, ill-treatment, and deception are all everyday challenges faced by a new generation of Vietnamese working overseas.

Mission and Aim

CAMSA's mission is to rescue and protect trafficking victims, punish traffickers through economic and legal measures, and pressure the governments of the source and destination countries to enact and enforce anti-trafficking laws and policies. CAMSA’s anti-human trafficking campaign has three focuses:

• Rescue and protect victims;
• Punish traffickers through economic and legal means; and
• Pressure the governments of the source and destination countries to enact and enforce anti-trafficking laws and policies.

CAMSA collaborates with other organizations to open offices in countries with a significant Vietnamese population. The purpose of these offices is to develop resources locally, and to help Vietnamese in danger of being a victim of human trafficking. In April 2008, the first CAMSA office was opened in Penang, Malaysia. So far this office has handled 30 cases of varying sizes, assisting some 3,000 guest workers. BPSOS is currently spearheading fundraising efforts to open other CAMSA offices in the region. Each individual office will have the capacity to help thousands of victims of exploitation or trafficking.

Activity

BPSOS first became involved in the issue of human trafficking through the Daewoosa Case. In 1999, over 200 Vietnamese and Chinese workers were tricked into paying thousands of dollars each in order to travel to work in a sewing factory on the island of American Samoa. Each worker was promised $408 per month for wages, plus free food and housing. However, once there, the workers were beaten, confined to the factory, barely fed, and forced to live in filthy conditions while the employer kept their travel documents. They worked hard to bring media and government attention to this case of human trafficking. After the US government prosecuted Daewoosa, BPSOS along with other service providers came to the aid of the victims. Daewoosa survivors are now legally in the US and are being helped to receive the benefits of immigration relief, health care, education, and employment assistance by our Victims of Exploitation and Trafficking Assistance (VETA) program.

In February 2008, BPSOS came to the aid of over 170 young women employed by W&D Apparel, a Taiwanese firm operating in Jordan. Fed up with being cheated out of wages and forced to work 16-hour days, the workers went on strike for several weeks. Despite the use of brutal force by factory guards and the police to break the strike, they persevered. Since then, international pressure from BPSOS, the State Department, and members of the US Congress has helped them return home, as they wished, with a measure of dignity.

As a founding member of the Coalition to Abolish Modern-day Slavery in Asia (CAMSA), BPSOS has since worked with Esquel Malaysia to successfully resolve disputes over wages and working conditions at that firm. The latest firm to receive the focus of CAMSA’s concerns is Polar Twin Advance, a high-tech firm in Penang. That case was resolved with financial assistance to the workers concerned, and their safe return home. As of Winter 2008, CAMSA has intervened in several cases, positively affecting a total of nearly 3,000 Vietnamese guest workers. With these accomplishments under their belt, they are moving forward, mindful of the key lesson learned from taking on foes like the South China Sea and Hurricane Katrina.

Defending Refugee Rights

As a continuation of their work under Legal Assistance for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers (LAVAS) in the 1990s, BPSOS continues to defend Vietnamese victims of persecution including those still in Vietnam and hundreds of Vietnamese who successfully fled to neighboring countries. BPSOS currently collaborates with legal aid and human rights organizations, UN agencies, and US and other embassies in Southeast Asia to promote refugee protection policies, provide legal assistance to victims, and advocate for expeditious resettlement. High-profile cases successfully assisted by BPSOS include Pastor Nguyen Lap Ma, Pastor Nguyen Nhat Thong, Ven. Tim Sakhorn (Buddhist monk) and numerous dissidents.

Monitoring Vietnam's Country Conditions

BPSOS works with a large number of human rights organizations to monitor the developments in Vietnam in different human rights areas, including labor rights, religious freedom, freedom of association, freedom of the press, prison conditions, etc. BPSOS works with International Human Rights Society to maintain the list of dissidents arrested since August 2007, when the on-going massive government crackdown started. Information collected is published in the annual Vietnam Country Report, which is distributed to members of Congress, relevant Administration agencies, and human rights organizations. BPSOS frequently participates in Congressional hearings on Vietnam and prepares briefs for US officials on issues relating to Vietnam.

For an explanation of the term "boat people" with respect to refugees from the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, see the "Vietnamese boat people" article.