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Who We Are

The South-East Asia Center (SEAC) is a community-based, educational and social service organization building bridges of understanding and cooperation between peoples of Old and New World cultures.

SEAC serves some of the most culturally diverse immigrant neighborhoods in the United States, with over one hundred different languages spoken by residents within its borders. SEAC's uptown-Edgewater home base is also one of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago, with some forty-three percent of Uptown children and twenty-six percent of Edgewater children living under the poverty line. Many of the immigrants and refugees served at SEAC come from rural societies where education and literacy are scarce commodities..

SEAC's 30+ staff and over 100 volunteers provide material, cultural, emotional, and educational aid to over 8,000 of the needy each year.

Although the programs at the South-East Asia Center are funded through grants with city, county, state, and federal governments as well as through private donations, but without the 100+ volunteers who work on everything from office tasks to classroom teaching, SEAC would not be able to provide the wide range of services to our rapidly expanding immigrant communities. We hope that you will be able to devote some time to volunteering in one or more of out programs. We look forward to working with you and promise that the satisfaction, involvement, and community connection that is possible with the people you help will more than compensate for your time.

Our Staff and Languages
South-East Asia Center (SEAC) specializes in building inter-ethnic bridges. We serve peoples from China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia & the Philippines, as well as neighboring South Asia, N.E. Asia, and immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America immigrants and native-born Americans of all ancestries.

South-East Asia Center promotes mutual understanding and cooperation. Staff speak major Chinese dialects, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi, Gujarati, Korean, Japanese, Thai/ Lao, Russian, Latvian, German, Spanish, French, as well as other languages.

  • Cantonese: Hien, San, Fanny, Run-Hao, Kitty, Quynh
  • Chow Cho: (Trieu Chau): Chung
  • Fukienese: Lin
  • Hak Ka: Pin
  • Indonesian: Pin
  • Khmer: Chung
  • Malay: Pin
  • Mandarin: Hien, San, Run-Hao, Fanny, Dr. Qin, Lin

  • Russian: Lucy, Zuzana
  • Slavic Languages, e.g., Czech, Slovak, Polish, Bosnian, Serbian: Zuzana
  • Spanish: Lucy
  • Tagalog: Gloria, Ofelia
  • Tibetan: Tsering
  • Vietnamese: Hien, San, Long, Quynh

Special Thanks...Our staff at South-East Asia Center(SEAC) would like to thank Madeleine Kim for the design and development of our website.

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SEAC does not discriminate in admission to programs or treatment of employment in programs or activities in compliance with the Illinois Human Rights Act; the US Civil Rights Act Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act; the Age Discrimination Act; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; and the US and Illinois Constitution.

Copyright ©2004 South-East Asia Center. All rights reserved.