The South Asian Council for Social Services, a community-based nonprofit assisting the South Asian community, has received a $700,000 grant from the OneCity Health Innovation Fund to implement its project, Culturally Responsive Collaborative of Queens (CRCQ).
OneCity Health selected eight community partners to receive funding from its $5 million Innovation Fund to implement programs that will reduce avoidable hospitalizations, improve community health outcomes, and address food security, health literacy and other factors that impact people’s health.
In collaboration with Voces Latinas, Polonians Organized to Minister to Our Community, The Young Women’s Christian Association of Queens Inc., the grant funding will serve the diverse needs of hard-to-reach populations to increase health literacy outcomes and connection to critical healthcare services, according to a SACSS news release.
This collaborative effort aims to bridge the health disparities by promoting health literacy and increase access to healthcare by connecting individuals to health insurance or culturally competent primary care provider, it added.
“We are thrilled with this award that will ensure the health and well-being of our communities. We believe that this encouragement from OneCity Health will serve as a strong step towards the realization of the DSRIP mission,” Sudha Acharya, Indian American executive director of SACSS, said in a statement.
In collaboration with Queens nonprofits Voces Latinas, Polonians Organized to Minister to Our Community (POMOC) and The Young Women’s Christian Association of Queens, Inc. (YWCA), the grant funding will serve hard-to-reach populations.
The $5M Innovation Fund was open to all OneCity Health partners, which includes more than 160 community-based organizations, hospitals, physician practices, pharmacies, behavioral health practitioners and others. OneCity Health encouraged partners to collaborate and submit joint applications, and ultimately received 41 applications from 55 partners.
SACSS was founded in 2000 with a mission to empower and integrate underserved South Asians and other immigrants into the economic and civic life of New York. We assist individuals and families in the areas of healthcare access,senior services, civic engagement, and other benefits. We provide basic and advanced English and computer classes. SACSS runs the first South Asian food pantry in New York. All of our programs are free and are provided by culturally competent staff members who speak 11 South Asian languages (Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Nepali, Tamil, and Telugu) Creole, Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish and English.