Hmong American Partnership

About Us

Hmong American Partnership (HAP) is an impact-driven organization that takes full advantage of its cultural and effective management strengths to connect with and passionately serve the Hmong community. HAP has enjoyed significant growth within the last 18 years, providing important and needed services to new Hmong refugee and immigrant families through employment services, education and training, youth and family services, and, most recently through elder services. Currently, HAP provides services to over 3,000 individuals per year, and indirectly reaches several thousands through its partnerships and activities. HAP is known throughout the local metro community, as well as nationally, for providing creative, culturally-relevant approaches to connecting with and supporting Hmong in Minnesota.

HAP’s current programmatic goals are to:

• Support Hmong refugee and immigrant adults achieve self-sufficiency for themselves and their families by gaining English language skills, computer and life skills, effectively utilizing program support such as child care and transportation, and to maximize job placement and job retention assistance.

• Continue to adequately support Hmong refugees coming from Wat Tham Krabok refugee camp in Thailand to acculturate and maximize new opportunities.

• Support Hmong youth to achieve social and academic success, increase their opportunities for learning, provide positive avenues for them to connect with the larger Hmong community, and to prevent their involvement with delinquent activities.

• Empower Hmong families in crisis to move toward healing from serious family conflict with hope and life management tools.

• Assist Hmong elders to remain living independently in their homes through access to appropriate services and opportunities that prevent them from becoming isolated.

Why We Need a New Website

We hope you will consider Hmong American Partnership a solid candidate for the F1 Overnight Website Challenge. The reasons are that the current website is outdated, does not reflect our current capacity, and is underutilize. For example Hmong American Partnership (HAP) is long-established and has become the “first call” resource for many agencies and professionals. Calls and requests for information now surpass several hundreds per week from local and national sources for information about services, issues, or just about anything relating to Hmong people. We’d like a website that can better serve and provide immediate resources to stakeholders twenty-four hours a day.

Your consideration is important to our stakeholders because currently our website does not humanize us, does not connect us with our stakeholders, nor reflects our core values. As you may already know, HAP is a result driven organization, taking full advantage of our cultural and management strengths to connect and passionately serve the community. We strive on program innovation and quality human services, compassion and accountability, and with your assistance we can create a web presence that reflects those qualities and values.

We hope you will consider us a solid candidate because we are in the process of seeking a vendor to redo our website. As a participant, we might be able to use the new design to seek additional funding to maintain the website. Lastly, we think our needs will provide a fair amount of challenges to our programming partner. We hope they will embrace the challenges ahead and definitely reap the reward of making a tremendous difference for us and our stakeholders.

Hmong American Partnership Website Objectives:
To create a web presence that reflects Hmong American Partnership’s innovations, values, and services that connect and promote an online community of informed stakeholders.

Design Components:
1. Professional
a. Solid first impression
b. Grabs hold of audience and keep them

2. Humanize
a. Welcoming color scheme
b. Pictures
c. Feature story area
d. Submit question
e. “Click Here” to chat or have a staff returned call.

3. Effective and ease of navigation.
a. Dropdown menu bar
b. Easy to maintain and update (e.g. Macromedia Contributor)
c. Easy to make financial contribution
d. Easy signup form for volunteer opportunity

4. Interactive and stimulating activities
a. Hmoob Teen magazine area
b. Kids area
c. Survey
d. Fun facts
e. Random quotes
f. Mailing list
g. Job search at Minnesota DB

5. Video/Audio
a. HAP informational audio and video
b. Registered users post/sharing positive and educational video.
c. Audio stream ready for future radio show.

6. Resource area
a. Job posting
b. Volunteer opportunity
c. Scholarship
d. Link to resources
e. HAP HND presentation
f. Hmong facts
g. Downloadable form and job application

7. Auto headline news generator
a. Asian Pacific Islanders, immigration, health, and education.

8. Community Area
a. Community Calendar (authorized users can update)
b. Community forum for registered users

9. Sponsorship
a. Space for business sponsorship (banner, etc.)

Visit our website

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Messages From Supporters

When the judges choose which non-profits will be selected to participate in this year's F1 Challenge they will take into account testimonials from beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, board members and other

I have been serving as a board member for Hmong American Partnership for the past five years and see the organization has made it through many challenges over the years. Technology has been an ongoing challenge. Hmong American Partnership serves more than 2,000 individuals a year through job placement services, English language classes, computer skills training, tutoring and mentoring for youth, support services for elders, and the creation and dissemination of public health information. HAP is also a nationwide source of information on Hmong culture and activities. Every day the agency's staff receive numerous emails and phone calls asking for more information on our services. A new, more interactive website will help to effectively communicate HAP's goals, programming areas, and resources to a nationwide audience as well as to our community stakeholders.

Keo Chang, Board of director, Donor

HAP is a great place for Hmong and Non-Hmong people -bringing the mix of cultures and issues to the greater community. The current website doesn't reflect this same openness that our organization does -HAP is a great resource to our program participants seeking info on services and classes, to our youth who share and create the Hmong Teen magazine, or to the general public seeking more information about Hmong culture- and we'd like that presence on the web, too. The agency is very open and welcoming to both cultures and people of diverse ages, educational background, and walks of life. I'd like to see the website really be the portal for information and resources that bridge both Hmong and non-Hmong stakeholders' interests.

Sida - voln and donor

I love Hmong Teen and would love to see other teens exploring our bi-cultural identity to share their lives thru HAP and it's website. What is Hmong? I am, and I'm the next generation -one that needs the internet and still needs the space to come together with other Hmong people. :P

tinigirl - beneficiary

I am a community member who is aware about the issues in my community and understand that HAP has services to serve my community. However, when I go on the HAP website, there really isn't information there to let me know about the statistics of people being served and etc, or testimonials from the community. I feel that HAP would benefit greatly from a website update because with technology booming, many people will be utilizing the internet and searching for services from HAP through online usage. And quite frankly, HAP's website is very dull and dead. It doesn't reach out to me and if I really needed the services that they are providing, I might just skip over it because of its vagueness. HAP is really a strong organization in the Hmong community and the website does not reflect that. I hope HAP will be chosen because they really need the help now at this time of transition for their organization.

Amy Xiong, community member

On behalf of Concordia University, Southeast Asian and Hmong Culture and Language Programs, I am writing to express our support of Hmong American Partnership and its programs which have joined together with our programs for the benefit of Hmong children and youth. Our university has been in partnership with HAP over the years and appreciate the positive growth in literacy, language and cultural expertise among those who participated when we shared programming. The opportunity for the two programs to work together helped to supply students with a lower number of children to staff members, which a provided more direct instruction and modeling for the students, assisting them in speaking, reading and writing in English and Hmong, assisting students in becoming bilingual, bicultural and bi-literate, a means of building social competence and resiliency. The opportunities to learn and teach traditional crafts, dance and storytelling, as well as deepen personal relationships with other Hmong individuals who have grown up in Wat Tham Krabok or in the United States, proved to be both educational and energizing. It has been such a privilege to work with HAP staff.

Sally A. Baas, Concordia University, community partner

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Hmong American Partnership
1075 Arcade Street
Saint Paul, MN 55106

Our Mission

Hmong American Partnership's mission is to help Hmong grow deep roots in America while preserving the strength of our culture.