 |
|
|
|
|
Vision 2000 group has civic goals in sight
New director to help increase participation
By GEORGE MOORE
In an effort to increase civic participation among Asian Americans, the Vision 2000 Foundation has hired Anna Wang as its first full-time executive director.
The Cupertino-based nonprofit organization, now in its fourth year of existence, wants to expand its programs, and the hiring of Wang last month is the first step in doing so.
Because of low voter registration numbers and weak political power among Asian Americans, the foundation's first goal was to establish an internship program, which grew so large it was in need of a director.
"In the past, [the program] was entirely volunteer-driven," Wang said. "My hiring shows its commitment to increasing the size of the program and its expansion to other areas."
Wang, a Saratoga resident, attended Lynbrook High School and recently graduated from Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. She is in the process of following up with last summer's interns to learn about their experiences and has also contacted their supervisors to judge whether the interns were.
The organization placed about two dozen interns this year, selected from a pool of 50 students, the majority working in local offices of California State Assembly members and Santa Clara County supervisors. Six of them interned in Washington, D.C., and one of the goals of the foundation is to increase that number.
Wang said she is trying to make connections with other local Asian American organizations to form joint internship and voter registration programs. She is also visiting local college career centers in an effort to inform students of the program.
"In the past, most publicity was spread by word of mouth, not through formal relationships," Wang said.
The interns have primarily been from the South Bay--last summer's consisted of high school students from Lynbrook, Monta Vista and Mission, as well as college students from Stanford and UC-Berkeley.
Wang said the foundation's hope is for the students entering the program to choose political science as a possible career, but the main goal is to expose the students to the value of public service, to give insight as to how the government is run and its various career opportunities.
Ben Hu, a Cupertino resident, is a senior at The Harker School in San Jose and was the only high school student who interned at Washington, D.C.--working in the office of Congressman David Wu of Oregon.
"I felt it was a great experience," Hu said. "I witnessed everything from the hurried voting of the congressmen to the vast amount of research done by legislative assistants."
Currently, 40-hour internships are only offered during the summer, but Wang is still trying to establish some guidelines and strategies as to how the organization wants to proceed now that there is a person devoted to running the foundation full-time.
Wang attended UCLA for her undergraduate work and performed many hours of community organizing, voter registration, citizenship workshops and precinct walking, giving her the background needed for some of the programs the foundation would like to implement. She would also like to organize candidate forums or debates, so the foundation's target group will be active participants in the whole civic process.
"We are a nonpartisan group, but we want to at least have some discussions, pro or con on governmental issues," Wang said.
More information can be found by visiting www.vision-2000.org or contacting Anna Wang at 408.252.4180.
|
|
|
|
Cupertino, California Since 1947
