Dear SAPHA colleagues,
I hope your year has been off to a great start! I am greatly honored to be elected as your President to work with both the continuing and newly elected board members of SAPHA. I would like to thank our immediate past President and Vice President, Yousra Yusuf and Shipra Singh for their incredible leadership, as well as our outgoing members who have been an integral part of the board: Saman Aziz, Supriya Misra, Nehanda T., Gayatri Malhotra, and Paroma Mitra. A huge welcome back to our continuing board members, Akanksha Arora, Trushna Rao-Nadig, Anto Paul, Aisha Bhimla, Namrata Madoor, Hema Karunakaram, and Anita Balan. Thank you for your dedication. And finally, I extend a warm welcome to our new board members: Naveen Shoaib, Ayesha Azam, Swati Rayasam, Afrida Faria, Payal Sawhney, Harini Padmanaban, and Mushira Khan.
Over the years, SAPHA has contributed to advocating for the health priorities of the South Asian community, fostering collaborations with stakeholders addressing South Asian health issues and communicating knowledge and gaps about South Asian health. In the past few years, we’ve accomplished a great deal: we’ve conducted webinars, workshops and social media campaigns and published articles highlighting relevant health issues to the South Asian communities and were awarded a grant through the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA) and Tides (Tides Healthy Democracy Fund) for COVID-19 education and outreach to the South Asian Community. We are grateful for your collaboration, encouragement, and engagement with us to advance our mission to promote the health and well‐being of South Asian communities in the US. With your continued support, we can achieve more in 2022.
On behalf of the Board, I strongly encourage you to share your ideas on how we can serve you and invite your colleagues to join us, as a committee member, future Board member, or an attendee for one of our many upcoming events.
I am honored to be serving in this position. Together with the board, I look forward to advocating for our mission and building long‐lasting partnerships for our community. As always, if you have any questions please reach out to us at: saphaboard@gmail.com.
We look forward to hearing how we can be of help to you!
Wishing you all the very best in health, happiness and success in 2022.
With gratitude,
Samira Khan, MPH
President, South Asian Public Health Association
