Our Story
New Light Wellness serves Southeast Asian families and communities impacted by deportation across borders and across seas by nurturing trust, collective healing, and reunification.
In July 2024, New Light Wellness has emerged and become its own organization with the leadership of CoFounder and Executive Director, Elijah Chhum. This organization is fiscally sponsored by Philanthropic Ventures Foundation.
A project born from the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants during 2019’s #PardonRefugees campaign alongside impacted families, elders and trusted coalition partners like Asian Prisoner Support Committee, New Breath Foundation, Asian Law Caucus and Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity - New Light Wellness will continue to serve impacted individuals and families deported and living in Cambodia.
“The past 6 years were transformative and gave my life meaning. I am honored to have learned our Khmer language from our elders and to be shown our cultural and ancestral rituals. I am grateful to be given the opportunity to work alongside stewards, pillars and visionaries of our Bay Area communities. A special thank you to CoFounder Kanley Souet-Pich and colleagues Peejay Ai, Chanthon Bun, Mory Chhom, Louije Kim, L. Sok, Patricia Zambrano-Rojas and J. Fu for you dedication to this project. And for those reading, a big hug and thank you for supporting me with your grace, kindness and faith.” - Elijah Chhum
The 1.5 generation, Cambodian children born in genocide and refugee camps, are the survivors of traumas and were resettled into U.S. systems of violence making them most vulnerable to the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline.
Cambodian communities have endured nearly 50 years of family separation due to U.S. involvement in the Southeast Asian wars and presently over tens of thousands of refugees will be impacted by deportation. To deepen the healing process New Light Wellness strives to create brave spaces, empower narrative change, and offer wrap-around resources steeped with language access and cultural humility.
New Light Wellness shines a light on the stigma of incarceration, detention and deportation and uplifts community driven modalities of healing where all people impacted by the traumas of deportation receives wellness support. In the next two years, we strive to establish a presence in Cambodia and co-create wellness ecosystems with the guidance of our impacted individuals. We will also launch an impacted leaders fellowship and workforce development program.
We stand to keep families together and reunite communities. We believe everyone deserves a second chance and to be seen in a new light.
Join us and support New Light Wellness!
Meet Elijah
Elijah Chhum
Executive Director and CoFounder
*photo by Jean Melesaine
Elijah Chhum is CoFounder and Executive Director of New Light Wellness. Out of the transformative Bay Area and statewide organizing, he has helped build Southeast Asian defense and lead against deportation to keep families together. He is passionate about researching and uncovering modalities of intergenerational healing that is steeped in trauma informed care, decolonized mental health, and frameworks that uplift ancestral wisdom and centers joy. As a child of Khmer genocide survivors and a queer organizer born and raised in Minnesota, Elijah wields the power of his identities in his community building, creating innovative models for advocacy and wellness within the most vulnerable refugee and immigrant communities.
Rediscovering his ancestral roots, he has joined Oakland’s Khmer New Year and Bay Area Pchum Ben planning committees to foster intergenerational healing and to preserve Khmer traditions and culture. His own healing journey has led him to practice mindfulness at Buddhist silent meditation retreats. Elijah is a reentry and first generation student who received his bachelor’s degree in Ethnic Studies from the University of California - Berkeley. He is a proud uncle and grand uncle of 8 niblings and his happiest moments are singing, dancing and playing in nature with his loved ones.