Doan Thi Nam-Hau

Dr. Doan Thi Nam-Hau has distinguished herself as a teacher and an inspirational leader advocating for peace, social justice and educational equity. Over thirty years, she has been working, through educational and cultural exchanges, to improve the understanding and mutual respect between cultures in the hope of building trust, tolerance and peace among peoples.

Nam-Hau’s early work focused on film as a form of historical and cultural documentation. She served as a media consultant in several film/television productions including the Oscar winning documentary Hearts and Minds. In 1985, she was the field producer and of the KCBS documentary Viet Nam: Ten Years Later which received the Emmy and Golden Mike Awards as Best Documentary in 1985. As a community coordinator and later an executive director of the Asian- American Voluntary Action Center, Nam-Hau initiated and conducted workshops and training that broadened the cultural awareness and understanding among the diverse communities in Los Angeles.

In 1993, Nam-Hau founded CHEER – Culture, Health, Education and Environmental Resources – for Viet Nam, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoting its efforts to improve the quality of life and education of underprivileged children in Viet Nam and to further the understanding between Vietnamese and American peoples through educational and cultural exchanges in the hope of building trust, tolerance, and peace among peoples.