By Collin Cunningham
(CLEVELAND) Asian Services in Action has been providing social and health services to Asian-Americans and Pacific Islander communities in Northeast Ohio since 1995, but the agency has recently redoubled its focus of bringing COVID-19 vaccines to AAPI communities with vaccine clinics.
Per Freshwater Cleveland, ASIA CEO Elaine Tso said the language barrier has made it more difficult to vaccinate the Cleveland and Akron residents that she serves compared to some others. Since March, the agency has been distributing the coronavirus vaccine through weekly clinics at its Community Health Center in Akron, which is a federally qualified health center.
“It’s based on an unfamiliarity with and not necessarily a huge amount of trust in formal lines of communication,” ASIA board member Brant Lee explained some AAPI residents' hesitancy to get the vaccine. “Some people come from countries where the government is not as benign. So, they might not trust those official sources of information as much. But they also may not have seen (that information) also, just heard rumors or whatever.”
Freshwater also stated that ASIA has organized trips of 10 to 15 clients who speak the same language to go to Cleveland's mass vaccination site at The Wolstein Center downtown. The goal was to help make the process easier for vaccine recipients as well as the translators at the Wolstein, who all spoke six different languages, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
3News reported on June 3 that ASIA has also been helping AAPI Ohioans gain access to mental health services as many Asian-American community members have felt more isolated in the region than normal in response to the pandemic and some of the Anti-Asian racism it has awakened.
"There's an enormous cultural barrier for the Asian community it's an extreme stigma to seek mental or behavioral health counseling," Tso told the station.
"When they hear from someone that looks like them and speaks their language, they're much more willing to say 'well if this person says it's OK for me to access counseling services and they are from my culture' then the patient is more likely to be receptive to that sort of service," she added.
ASIA's hard work will soon be rewarded, with Cleveland.com having reported on May 25 that Akron's GAR foundation, which awards grants to local human services organizations and programs, had given $50,000 to the agency to fund its continued work with Akron's population of Asian immigrants.