about us

In Cantonese, Yik Oi means “Abundant Love”, and abundant love is the foundation upon which Communities As One is built on.

Communities as One (CAO) is a 501(c)(3) Community-Based Organization (CBO). Its founding in 2020 was inspired by Grandma Yik Oi Huang’s death: to be a catalyst for healing and racial solidarity; to transmute crisis into opportunity; hate into abundant love. Since then, CAO has been advocating and building programs for wholeness and wellness, to counteract the traumas of separation and violence. 

CAO is one of 40 organizations to have received US Federal grants from the American Rescue Plan in support of AAPI communities and survivors of gender-based violence and sexual assault. We partner with values-aligned organizations, such as the National Organization of Asian Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence (NAPIESV) and the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence (API-GBV), to create culturally specific programming, like Move the Qi, Daoist Internal Neigong for AAPI, Wellness Wednesdays, and more.  

Mission

Communities As One (CAO) fosters reconnection, hope, and peace after violence through culturally specific programs that empower healing for individuals and communities. We unite diverse communities to share cultural practices and ancestral healing traditions via food, movement, and land stewardship, emphasizing reciprocity with each other and the Earth.

Vision

CAO envisions a future where all communities thrive and are grounded in embodiment, connection, and abundant love. We strive to make our shared ecosystem healthier and whole by centering and prioritizing healing. We advocate for peace and unity rather than separation and violence in the world.

 values

  • We are all on a healing journey. We believe all individuals are deserving of patience and empathy, love and compassion, understanding over judgement. We believe in an expansive vision of inclusion that embodies human dignity and the inherent worth of every human being. We do this by nurturing and cultivating relationships at the speed of trust.

  • We stand in solidarity for all those who struggle for peace and self-determination. We commit to our individual and community power to achieve a liberated future.

  • We believe all of us share responsibility for one another. We take care of each other. Community engagement empowers and informs us towards our goals - to thrive together. We are committed to centering community in everything we do.

  • Stagnancy creates disease. We believe through movement and internal cultivation, we can impact each other and the world through the pursuit and practice of being our most authentic and vibrant selves. 

  • We believe in the power of storytelling and community healing to be places of learning and collective transformation. We all have the power to alchemize pain into freedom and ease, transform hurt into peace and love. It takes a loving community and intentional container to support this kind of alchemy for us to have better relationships to ourselves, each other, and the earth.

our story

- Yik Oi Huang Art Collage: Rosanna Chang

On January 8th 2019, my 88 year old grandmother Yik Oi went out for her morning stroll and was brutally attacked by a black youth at the playground across the street from her house and left to die. We found her in a coma. Unable to speak or move, she survived for a year in the hospital under the great care of doctors, nurses, family and friends. 

I was turning 35 and had just entered a period of personal and spiritual transformation. At the time, I believed this was an opportunity for truth and reconciliation within the greater community. “Why are we all living in fear of one another? Pitted against each other?” This felt like an opportunity to listen to each other and transform what I was feeling, what my family was feeling, into something positive, into love and unity.

I spoke about Yik Oi’s legacy, her name translating to “Abundant Love”, how she easily befriended strangers on the street with just an open-hearted radiant smile. I held events with the intention to turn pain into purpose by building solidarity across communities. People came to listen and rallied to show their support for Grandma’s recovery. 

However, nearly a year later, Grandma succumbed to her injuries and passed away on January 3rd, 2020. 

In response to this overwhelming act of violence, Communities as One (CAO) was born. We are determined that Grandma’s legacy be a catalyst for healing and uniting our communities.

In late Feb 2020, COVID began and there was an explosion of anti-Asian violence. CAO created a campaign called “Asians Belong” to embrace our stories and our existence and to say that we have been here, we are not going anywhere, we belong here and we will leave a better world than we found it.

As of May 2022, after 2 years of campaigning and coalition building, Communities as One successfully led the effort to change the name of Visitacion Valley Playground to Yik Oi Huang Peace & Friendship Park. On June 15, 2024, we held a name-unveiling celebration with great fanfare. We hope this naming and recognition from our community and the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commissioners embodies our collective vision of fostering a community free from violence and grounded in healing and compassion.  

As of May 2023, Communities as One joined over 40 organizations, both nationally and locally, in an effort to provide culturally-specific, community-based support for survivors and advocates of domestic violence (DV) and sexual assault (SA) from AA+PI communities across the U.S. and Pacific. 

Communities As One is proud and honored to be a recipient of the federal grant from the American Rescue Plan. Together, we are advancing an inclusive vision of healing and resiliency. We are committed to providing tools to feel strong, resilient, whole, and healthy in mind-body-spirit, we encourage a world of love, compassion, solidarity for all.

Thank you for being with us on this journey.

- Sasanna Yee, Executive Director of CAO