Khmer Health Advocates

29 Shadow Lane
West Hartford, CT 06110
860.561.3345 phone
860.561.3538 fax
MFS47@aol.com email
http://www.khmerhealthadvocates.org website

Area of Interest:
Organization - Health services

Primary Ethnic Community Served:
Cambodian

Description:
Khmer Health Advocates (KHA) was founded with a mission to care for the health needs of survivors of the Mahandorai (the Cambodian holocaust), and their families. The KHA torture treatment program is one of the first programs for the torture victims in the United States. As the only Cambodian health organization in the United States, KHA provides care for people in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, and advocates for survivors across the nation.

Khmer Health Advocates was founded in Connecticut in 1982 by Theanvy Kuoch, a Cambodian woman survivor, and three American nurses, Mary F Scully, Irene Bjorkland, and Lynn Kirby who worked in refugee camps in Thailand. KHA was founded to address the critical health needs of the thousands of Cambodians who had fled a decade of war, starvation, and torture in their homeland, and had arrived as refugees in the United States. Traumatized and suffering from multiple health problems, the refugees needed special help to cope with life in their new country and new language, and to begin the process of healing. KHA's Cambodian and American professional health workers stepped in to provide care to individuals and their entire families, in the Khmer language, and in a culturally sensitive manner.

Staff:
Theanvy Kuoch - Executive Director
Mary F. Scully - Programs Director
Sovathdy Ouk - Multimedia Program Director
Monirak Chhun - Telemedicine Project

Submitted by:
AIA Staff

New - 10/01/04