The National Cambodian Town Hall Meeting held on April 17, 2006 marked the first national meeting of members of the Cambodian community in the 31 years since refugees first arrived from Cambodia. This meeting was held using videoconferencing technology in five sites across the United States. The host site was the Cambodian Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial in Chicago, Illinois, and satellite sites were in Lowell, Massachusetts; Long Beach, California; Portland, Oregon and Farmington, Connecticut. Four hundred Cambodian community members and health experts from 12 states participated in the meeting.

The format of the meeting was a forum with a commission of eight experts on community and health issues facilitating the discussion with community members and health experts. The meeting lasted 5-hours and included testimonies from 40 Community members and experts on Cambodian health. Simultaneous interpreting was provided in 3 sites and the meeting was both videotaped and webcast.

The National Cambodian American Health Initiative is the health advocacy organization for the Cambodian Community in the United States. Members include Cambodian  organizations with a service area representing more than 50% of the Cambodian population in the United States. It was founded in 2003 to address the health crisis in the Cambodian community.

For more materials on the findings of the meeting, please refer to the additional documents below.

Additional Documents

Health Emergency in the Cambodian American Community: A SUMMARY REPORT
2006 Town Hall Meeting PowerPoint

Khmer Health Advocates (KHA) is an organization created to ensure appropriate access to healthcare is available to the Cambodian American survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide, along with their families. Based in West Hartford, CT, KHA provides treatment for those living in Southern New England, as well as advocating for survivors nationwide.