“As Community Outreach Coordinator for LiveOnNY, I work to provide culturally appropriate Clinical & Family Services to Chinese donor families and community education through different channels such as tabling events, media, and workshops.
When I worked on cases in the hospital, my role was to give emotional support to the donor families by listening to their concerns, answering their questions regarding to organ donation process, and connecting them with appropriate community resources and services. Donor families I worked with usually showed understanding and found comfort in the very tragic moments. Due to cultural beliefs, superstition and language barriers, this is an uncommon topic in Chinese community — death and end of life decisions are very sensitive to talk about.
Now, when I work in the community, I visit different community-based organizations including senior centers, schools, religious centers, and social service centers to open the conversations about organ donation. In the future, the LiveOnNY Multicultural Engagement team is planning to use media like newspaper articles, radio programs, websites, and social media to increase the awareness of organ donation in the Chinese communities.”
Story provided by AMAT.
