My relationship with AAJA began in high school, when I received a scholarship to pursue my dream. After 17 years as a professional journalist, I’m proud to still be part of the AAJA family and am passionate about helping others discover the transformative experiences, opportunities and relationships AAJA and its community can offer.
The AAJA-Asia chapter has grown tremendously in the last few years and as a national board representative, I want to be an advocate to ensure that our members’ interests and priorities are represented at all levels of the organization. I’m interested in working on membership and fundraising activities to help strengthen AAJA for the future.
I’d like to work closely with our chapter leaders to offer more programming that would benefit members at various stages in their careers. Now that AAJA-Asia has developed into one of the larger chapters, the next phase should include fundraising to allow us to offer programs members need and want. AAJA played such an important role in my early career and I’m keen to reach out to young journalists to give back, perhaps through a robust scholarship program. Last year I was involved with planning discussions of the Hong Kong conference and have ideas to make it even better this year.
K. Oanh Ha, Hanoi – candidate for National Board Representative