Organization
Cambodian Community of Massachusetts
The Cambodian Community of Massachusetts (CCM) was a mutual assistance association for Cambodian refugees, based in Lynn, Massachusetts, that closed in 2002.[1][2] Cambodians founded it as a nonprofit self-help organization, and it served refugees in Greater Boston and on the North Shore.[1] Writing in the Trotter Review, Shirley S. Tang called it the oldest Khmer American community organization in Massachusetts.[2]
History
Cambodian refugees and their supporters founded CCM as one of the first generation of mutual assistance associations encouraged by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. The coalition profile of the organization gives 1979 as the year it was established; the Trotter Review gives 1981.[1][2]
CCM served about 15,000 Cambodian refugees in Greater Boston and on the North Shore, most of whom had settled in Massachusetts in the late 1970s and the 1980s.[1] At the 2000 Census, the neighboring cities of Lynn and Revere had the fifth-largest concentration of Cambodian Americans in the United States.[2] It worked as a multiservice agency for one ethnic community, helping survivors of war and trauma in Cambodia adjust to life in the United States.[2]
In February 2002 CCM was still listed among the mutual assistance associations of Massachusetts, with Sareth Sak as its contact.[3] Its mainstream funders ended support for its operating budget in the early 2000s, and in 2002 it closed its doors to the people it served.[2][4]
Programs
CCM worked to help Cambodians become part of American society, with a focus on self-sufficiency, well-being and understanding between cultures.[1] Its staff offered counseling, job and housing referrals, translation and other human services.[2] For education and work, it ran English as a Second Language classes, helped people apply for citizenship, trained them in career development and job seeking, and placed them in jobs.[1][2] It also kept Cambodian culture alive through Khmer literacy classes and cultural events.[1]
CCM was a separate organization from the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association of Greater Lowell, which serves the Merrimack Valley.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Mutual Assistance Associations Coalition, CCM profile
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Shirley S. Tang, Diasporic Cultural Citizenship, Trotter Review (2010)
- ↑ Massachusetts Legal Services, Mutual Assistance Associations (MAAs) in Massachusetts (2002)
- ↑ Shirley S. Tang, Diasporic Cultural Citizenship, Trotter Review (2010), full text