International Community Health Services supports COVID-19 safety with…Minecraft!
By Stacy Nguyenjournalist, designer and community member
International Community Health Services (ICHS) is a nonprofit community health center that provides affordable health services to anyone in need. They serve thousands patients each year at several locations in our region.
ICHS was founded in 1973, at a time when low-income immigrants living in Seattle’s Chinatown International District (CID) did not have access to health care providers who spoke their language. A group of community advocates saw this need for culturally appropriate medical services in our neighborhood and organized to start the Asian Community Health Clinic, which grew and expanded over the years, adopting its current name. , ICHS, in the 1990s to reflect the diversity of the communities he had come to serve.
Today, ICHS continues to be an anchor for culturally appropriate health care – and it has also become an important advocate and voice in our community. In the area of public safety, ICHS has supported COVID-19 related awareness and education for IADC residents and community members during the pandemic, which includes hosting community meetings, developing and distributing information resources, building coalitions with other agencies and organizing face-to-face contacts. health services.
A really cool thing that ICHS has also done is organize two virtual youth summits September 25 and October 2, 2021 to educate and engage over 150 young people, ages 11-19, around COVID-19 vaccines and how to keep our communities safe – via Minecraft!
Minecraft is a game where people can explore and build worlds. Minecraft mini-games, created by the University of Washington Minecraft Club, were played during the summit. Besides being fun, these mini-games also contained information about COVID-19, vaccines and encouraged group discussions.
In addition to its youth summit, ICHS also distributed COVID-19 test kits to community organizations, vaccinated people at the Little Saigon Street fair, held mobile resource fairs in Seattle parks, and more so over the past year.
How to give ICHS some love
Contribute to their Bloom campaign
As we all know, health care is expensive! Organizations like ICHS, which provides over $1,000,000 in free, low-cost health services for patients who otherwise could not afford them, are so important to have in our community. Support their work by donating to their Bloom Campaign.
Volunteer at one of their upcoming events
ICHS needs volunteers to help with many of its community events! Connect with them via their contact form. (There is a toggle option where you can select “Volunteer” as the reason you want to log in).
Follow them on social networks
Find and follow CISH on social media to keep up to date with the latest happenings. They are on it instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtubeand LinkedIn.
This blog is part of our Support Your Neighbors in CID series, which spotlights amazing people in Chinatown’s international district, nominated by their neighbors for their cool and impactful work around community safety.
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