Center for Pan Asian Community Services

The Center for Pan Asian Community Services is a private, nonprofit organization. Founded on the belief that “people need people,” it is the oldest and largest organization in the southeastern U.S. to focus on issues and concerns of Asian Americans, especially women, children and lowincome families. The center’s mission is to promote selfsufficiency and equity for immigrants, refugees and the underprivileged through comprehensive health and social services, capacity building and advocacy. The agency provides services through 12 departments, including social services, transportation, housing, legal and education. Some of these are featured below.

Health programs strive to reduce health inequities in Asian/Pacific Islander communities through targeted health education, promotion and outreach services. The programs include:

Hepatitis B education, outreach and screening. HIV testing and prevention. Asian breast care. Substance abuse prevention. Affordable Care Act assistance.

The Georgia Team Empowerment Coalition harnesses the cultural and linguistic skills necessary to engage and empower Asian/Pacific Islander and Latino communities to prevent and reduce the use of alcohol, tobacco and other substances among youth. The Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Project focuses on reducing abuse of alcohol and other substances in Asian/Pacific Islander and Latino communities. The project provides education and prevention strategies (such as parent workshops, compliance checks and healthy habits curriculums) to immigrants and refugees in Clarkston, Doraville and Chamblee.

The HIV Testing, Prevention and Counseling program uses collaboration, outreach, social marketing and condom distribution to prevent HIV transmission and infection among high risk individuals. Free and confidential HIV screenings are provided at the agency’s main office and outreach sites in metro Atlanta.

The Pan Asian Women’s Empowerment and Resources program offers comprehensive, linguistically appropriate services to help Asian/Pacific Islander women and their families live violence-free. The program: (1) uses community mobilization, education and outreach to create an environment where domestic violence is not acceptable; (2) provides direct services that are linguistically and culturally appropriate for survivors; and (3) collaborates with other organizations and individuals to end violence.

The Senior Wellness Program provides culturally sensitive recreational activities and culturally accurate congregate meal programs to older adults from underserved and limited English proficient ethnic communities. Activities include group exercises, line dancing, singing classes, Asian barrel drum classes, and arts and crafts. There are programs for Burmese, Korean, Chinese and Bhutanese seniors. The Cosmo Health Center is a federally qualified health center that provides care for medically underserved communities. It offers primary care, pediatric, OB-GYN, behavioral, dental and immigration screening services, regardless of ability to pay. Cosmo facilitates access to quality health and wellness care through services such as transportation to appointments and interpretation by health navigators.

Interpretation and translation services are available to other organizations. The staff speaks almost 20 languages, including Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Nepali and Burmese.

For more information, visit www.cpacs.org or call (770) 936-0969.