February 9, 2021

Friday, February 12, marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year.

It is traditionally a time of gathering with family. Because of the pandemic, Lunar New Year celebrations in the U.S. and around the world will look different this year. CPAF wishes you a safe and healthy new year.

This year’s zodiac animal is the Ox, widely regarded as strong, loyal, and steadfast.

This watercolor was painted by one of CPAF’s clients, who shares her inspiration for creating this artwork:

"In December of 2020, I started wanting to paint this picture for the year of the ox, 2021. I wanted it to be a symbol of looking forward to the new year for myself and all of us. I think a lot of people will agree that 2020 was a tough year, and for me too, 2020 was a very hard season.

I was only able to get through the season with the help of the angels God has put on my path, and CPAF is one of them. I am so grateful for my experience while receiving services at CPAF, and everyone who helped me here. So I decided to give this painting to my case manager to show my appreciation.

I love painting watercolor. I think the snowy background was inspired by the photos of East Asian calendars I used to look at when I was a child. I had fun painting the ox too, the messy fur of the ox was interesting to paint.

I hope the year 2021 is a brighter year for all of you, and wish everyone to stay safe. Thank you for viewing my painting.” - Client

Using art therapy for healing and self-care is a valued practice at CPAF for clients, participants, and staff. We will be sharing more examples of artwork in upcoming newsletters, social media posts, and the first-ever CPAF zine!

February also marks:

Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month:

Check out the portfolios of youth advocates between the ages of 13-18 who have been learning more about root causes of violence in their communities through CPAF’s Rooted Leadership Project!
Visit our social media throughout the month to discover how you can be a better ally to teens.
Bystander intervention training organization, Hollaback!, developed these social media safety guides that are useful for teens and adults.

Black History Month:

It’s been a little more than 6 months since a staff-led Racial Justice Committee (RJC) was formed at CPAF. During that time, RJC has finalized its mission statement and continued to guide CPAF in putting equity at the center of CPAF policies and practices. For instance, RJC has convened all-staff conversations about mental health, and has recommended concrete steps to support staff mental health needs. We will be conducting a follow up survey to the one staff completed last June to measure our progress and evaluate our priorities. We want to keep our momentum as we wait to move forward with our organizational audit.

Upcoming Events:

Want to support CPAF and enjoy a night out? WE Drive-Ins has partnered with us to donate 20% of tickets and concessions sold during their run of Minari between 2/11 and 2/25. Tickets must be purchased using the promo code Charity-CPAF0221. Visit wedriveins.com to get your tickets before they're sold out or check out https://nurturingchange.org/calendar/movie-fundraiser-minari for more information.
CPAF is hosting an online Decoding Language & Culture workshop on Friday, March 12th from 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM. Whether you’re a monolingual English speaker who relies on interpretation to work with the community, a multi-lingual advocate who provides services in-language, a volunteer or staff-member who provides interpretation for clients or are someone who deals with cross-cultural communication in your daily work, this workshop will facilitate discussion, problem-solving, and skill-building around improving language access within the API community! To register or get more information, email racheld@cpaf.info.

Extended CPAF Family:

We love our volunteers and have been grateful for the creative ways they’ve found to support CPAF clients during the pandemic! Watch a clip of one of the recorded activities a volunteer made for clients’ children.
We wanted to offer a special shout out to NATWA (North American Taiwanese Women’s Association) for their ongoing support of CPAF, including funding a DV survivor scholarship and coordinating a chapter fundraising campaign with CPAF as the beneficiary. We should also thank NATWA for providing the gentle nudge we needed to bring back the CPAF newsletter from its pandemic-caused hiatus. A NATWA member (and loyal CPAF newsletter reader) told us they missed the newsletter. So we brought it back! We hope you are enjoying reading it as much as we are enjoying sharing CPAF news and happenings.
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Thank you for your support of CPAF’s mission and for being part of this community.

A Lunar New Year Wish