Originally published in the June issue of RIM Monthly Newsletter, by our partners at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
The Afghan immigrant and refugee community is fairly new to the United States having begun immigrating here as of Fiscal Year 2010 as a direct result of an agreement between the US Government and Afghanistan to provide Special-Immigrant Visa’s (SIV’s) to Afghan nationals working with the US Government, and populations recently affected by the crisis in Afghanistan. Formed by a group of public health practitioners, educators, and community leaders with the common goal of advocating for the needs of the growing Afghan immigrant population, Afghan Health Initiative (AHI) is a community-based organization that provides culturally and linguistically appropriate health communication services to Afghan immigrants in South King County, Washington.
As a result of language/cultural barriers, systemic inequities, and structural racism, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted Afghan immigrants and refugees in King County. As a trusted resource in the community, AHI utilizes the NACCHO-RIM grant to implement preventative and mitigative services to the Afghan community in Washington.
Navid Hamidi (Executive Director and co- founder of AHI) credits the key to the organization’s success to forecasting and managing the community needs, which feed into data, systems, and services within the major programs at AHI, such as, Health and Wellness, and Family Programs, Youth Resiliency, and Case Management. Read more about the organization.