SOUTH ASIAN YOUTH ACTION SAYA INC
54-05 Seabury Street, Elmhurst, NY 11373 www.saya.org

---

Organizations Filed Purposes: South Asian Youth Action, Inc. (SAYA) is a 501(c)3 youth development organization in New York City for students ranging in age from from first-graders to college students. Established in 1996, SAYA is South Asian-focused, inclusive and committed to connecting youth from all backgrounds to opportunities. SAYAs mission is to foster a strong sense of belonging in youth, and to provide them with tools to thrive academically, professionally, and personally. Most SAYA participants are recent immigrants who face challenges that can hinder their chances to be academically successful, graduate high school, and go to college. SAYAs holistic and comprehensive services include free leadership and identity development; academic support -- particularly through college access and success programming; career exploration; and sports, arts and STEM activities. SAYA provides an accessible, safe, and culturally affirming space for youth, offering mentorship beyond the classroom so they become engaged comm

Our mission is to foster a strong sense of belonging in youth and provide them with tools to thrive academically, professionally and personally.

Between July 2018 and June 2019, over 1,500 youth attended SAYA programming across ten locations. This population included elementary, middle, high school, and college students in nine schools throughout Queens and Brooklyn, and at our Elmhurst-based community center. During this period, our participants made strides in multiple areas, including college success, leadership skills, and critical social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies that have shown to have a long-term positive impact. During this school year, a sample of SAYA youth were surveyed to measure the impact of our programming. Compared to 60 similar organizations, our community center programming was highlighted by our evaluation partner as a stand out program due to the gains made by youth in several SEL competencies, including Belonging and Problem Solving. Our youth showed an average increase of 23% in Problem Solving, meaning they can better identify, plan for, and solve problems, and a 19% increase in Belonging. The completion of the year also brought the graduation from college of our first cohort of scholarship recipients. Of our participants across all four years of college during this school year, 97% were on track to graduate within five years, compared to the national average of 59% in six years. In addition, 90% of surveyed high school seniors stated that over half of what they knew about college came from attending SAYA.SAYA continues to provide leadership programming to our youth, and in the 2018-19 school year introduced our Young Womens Leadership programming to our elementary school sites. Through improv and other activities, these young people are building skills such as confidence, resiliency, and collaboration. By providing gender-based programming to our younger participants, we help them own and amplify their voices so they can successfully advocate for themselves and others in the future.

---

---

Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202021549349300012_public.xml