Thank you to everyone who attended the 9th Annual ADAPT Community Health Symposium on Friday, October 3 at the Emerson College Bill Bordy Theater! Nearly 70 community leaders and advocates, researchers, and clinicians convened to discuss past and present-day examples of community resilience and advocacy to advance community health and well-being in the face of adversity.

Erin Gibson (Executive Director, Tufts CTSI), Dr. MyDzung Chu (ADAPT Director, Tufts CTSI), and Dawn Sauma (ADAPT Community Co-Chair and Executive Director, Asian Taskforce Against Domestic Violence) kicked off the event with opening remarks that grounded us in this year’s theme — Rooted in Resilience: Looking Back to Look Forward. In her remarks, Dr. Chu reiterated ADAPT’s commitment to serving our communities in Chinatown and Greater Boston through community-engaged partnerships, research, and education.

Panel 1 – Looking Back: Grassroots Movement Building 

Panel moderator Angie Liou (Executive Director, Asian Community Development Corporation) opened the discussion with ACDC’s history of creating and preserving affordable housing and thriving neighborhoods in Chinatown and Greater Boston. A panel of local community leaders and activists, namely Dr. Jean Wu, Dr. Michael Liu, Leverett Wing, and Sothea Chiemruom offered unique perspectives and success stories from past coalition movements in Chinatown, Lowell, Medford, and statewide. These movements built visibility for Asian American communities and enabled collective action in politics, academia, and public health. Their insights illuminated the importance of building cross-community coalitions, uplifting each other’s stories, and training the next generation of students and leaders.

Panel 2 – Looking Forward: Innovative Strategies

The themes from Panel 1 continued to resonate, as co-moderator Ben Hires (CEO, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center) opened Panel 2 with the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center’s origins in community advocacy and responsiveness to local needs, including work to address problem gambling and provide trauma-informed mental health care. Co-moderator Dr. Alice Tang (Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine) underscored the importance of community-engaged research and trust-building – lessons that she shares with her medical and public health students. Multidisciplinary panelists Dr. Pata Suyemoto, Dr. Cindy Liu, Dr. Wilson Cole, and Rev. Dr. Dieufort Fleurissaint shared current challenges impacting their work and communities, as well as what resilience looks like in response. Across both panels, our speakers emphasized the importance of storytelling, allyship, and building cross-sector, cross-community coalitions.

Thank you to the ADAPT Symposium Planning Committee, ADAPT partners, and the CTSI Professional Education team for organizing this year’s Symposium!

See below for photos from the event

While this event was not recorded, recordings and resources from past symposia are published on Tufts CTSI I LEARN.