With support from the California Arts Council, Vietnamese American Non-Governmental Organization Network will invite Van-Anh Vo to further develop her project “MEKONG—The Water’s Tales,” a multimedia project highlighting the music and life along the Mekong River, through a workshop series joining Southeast Asian diasporic communities in Northern California, exploring the crucial perspective of those who now live far away from but are still connected to and affected by their Mekong origins.
The VANGO Network has four interconnected primary goals aiming to improve our collective ability to assist Vietnamese Americans people both in Vietnam and in America: Capacity Building, Interorganizational Communications & Community Awareness, Advocacy, and Partnership. Essentially, VANGO Network brings organizations together find common ground and support each other to reach their overlapping goals in servicing the disadvantaged communities, especially by providing capacity building workshops in a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to health-promotion and protection, music and arts workshops, early childhood education training, nutrition and wellness, education & career development, financial planning and budgeting, and many more. Not only do these collaborations help to develop skills and provide easily accessible resources for participants, but also they help to bolster common heritage ties between Vietnamese both in Vietnam and in America, which inspires more action.

