Civic Empowerment

About Civic Empowerment

VietLead is proud to bring two important civic empowerment programs to our community when many social, political and health problems reached a boiling point in our collective consciousness due to the historical COVID-19 pandemic. 

VietLead’s LaPhieuTuDo (Freedom Vote) located in Philadelphia, PA and Camden Action located in Camden, NJ are Civic Empowerment programs that focus on lifting up and expanding local, collective, democratic practices in the Black, Brown, and Vietnamese communities.

VietLead believes that electoral organizing is a key strategy to build power in our communities and achieve healthy, sustainable, and just communities. We incorporate a multi-pronged civic engagement strategy to advance environmental justice that includes voter education, innovative voter engagement methods and coalition building.

In Pennsylvania, VietLead is part of PA Voice, a partnership of 30+ organizations working together to expand power for communities of color. These are Pennsylvania’s fastest growing communities, but are significantly under-represented in local and state elected office. 

In Philadelphia, VietLead is one of the members of the Alliance for a Just Philadelphia working to build and support The People’s Platform. We work with our partners to call city leadership to allocate resources and reinvest back into the communities.

We are also one of the founding members of API PA Power Caucus, a group of like-minded civic empowerment power houses in Asian Pacific American communities working toward mobilizing over 345,000 self-identified Asian Americans living across Pennsylvania for federal, state, and local elections and beyond.   

In New Jersey, our work includes leadership development, voter engagement through local issues, and building power to make change. Although Camden is majority Black and Latinx, the voter turnout for Camden City is historically around 46 percent; which is low compared to the State average at around 72 percent. Hence, Camden Action recognizes that one of the focuses of our program should be around voter turnout (GOTV) with voter education around issues and the use of public land and funds impacting the Camden residents. 

Even though Camden voter turnout is low, Camden organizing is very robust. There are many existing groups and organizations that we would like to work with: Camden Education Association, Camden County Chapter of the NAACP, City Girl Ambitions, and the MyEastCamden Coalition. For the 2021 Primary Election Camden Action was partnering with these groups to host the first ever Mayoral Candidate Forum.