Meet The Special Guests of #BLESSED!

As you know the #BLESSED Lao New Year Dinner Pop-up is happening this Saturday with our friends #IEATLAOFOOD. In addition to delicious food, great company and the blessings of Lao culture we've invited a few friends of ours to come speak on all the great things they're doing for their communities - which is essential ours if you really think about it. Meet our #BLESSED Special Guests: Channapha, Naroen and Ben.

Channapha Khamvongsa is founder and executive director of Legacies of War, an organization that seeks to address the problem of unexploded ordnance in Laos, to provide space for healing the wounds of war, and to create greater hope for a future of peace. Legacies has successfully advocated for an increase in U.S. funding for bomb clearance in Laos, from an annual average of $2M in 2008 to nearly $20M in 2015. She has written and spoken widely about the secret war in Laos and its aftermath and has appeared in the New York Times, Democracy Now!, and CNN. She was born in Vientiane and came to the U.S. as a refugee at the age of seven.

K. Naroen Chhin, is a native of Philadelphia, and a community organizer with 1Love Movement and the Southeast Asian Freedom Network, and a board member of the Philadelphia Northwest Neighborhood Advisory Committee. Appointed by Mayor Jim Kenny to serve on the Community Police Oversight Board, he is a frequent speaker on the intersections of the prison and deportation systems and has testified and advocated towards many levels of government, from the City Council of Philadelphia to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Naroen conducts trainings and presentations on these issues for various community groups, including the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, Temple University Asian Student Association, and the Boat People SOS youth leadership program, and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania in its Asian Studies program. He is committed to social justice and social change through community empowerment and grassroots community building.

Benjamin Miller has been working in the Philadelphia restaurant industry for the past 7 years. Along with his wife Cristina Martinez, they run South Philly Barbacoa, which began as a lunch cart and has since opened as a storefront restaurant. In addition to serving authentic Mexican lamb tacos - Cristina's specialty - SPB provides a space for conversations about the restaurant industry's immigration workforce as a show a solidarity between the undocumented worker and chef. Ben and Cristina have also started hosting pop-up dinners to raise awareness for those unable to work legally in the U. S. Donations will go into a now-forming non-profit organization to advance the work restaurant owners and workers are doing on behalf of all undocumented people in the hopes of utilizing the power that the restaurant industry has economically, socially, and politically, to have conversations that will lead to change.

Come meet our special guests this Saturday at #BLESSED. Cocktails start at 6:30, with dinner starting at 7PM, all taking place at the Asian Arts Initiative. Tickets available here.