With a folding chair, a fold-out table, a phone and a how-to-start-a-nonprofit book, Nahla Kayali founded her organization in 1998 that helps refugees and immigrants access the services they need.
More than two decades later, Access California Services has grown to become a “village of services” that helps more than 13,000 people a year start new lives here and find jobs, learn new skills and languages and get mental health support.
And that folding chair is in her office in the nonprofit’s new home in Anaheim, which is being celebrated with a grand opening today, Sept. 9.
The new building, which the city provided, has more room than Access California Services’ old offices near Little Arabia, offering space now for a community center and future expansion.
“It was a challenge, of course, it was a challenge,” Kayali said of getting the new location lined up and moved into. “We feel like we were renting a home, but now we’re buying a home. This is a home for everyone.”
The nonprofit offers direct social services to immigrants and refugees, primarily from Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian communities, and provides a guiding hand for navigating through life’s challenges in a new area. They “welcome people from all over the globe” to get social services in Anaheim, Kayali said.
“Access California Services, through Nahla Kayali, really created a space for everyone to receive support, wellness and a sense of belonging,” said Rida Hamida, the vice chair of the Refugee Forum of Orange County and executive director of Latino Muslim Unity.
Kayali, 66, grew up in Damascus, Syria, as a Palestinian refugee, and came to the U.S. when she was 16. “I saw Hollywood and the freeways,” she said, “and I was going crazy that I want to be here, and I made it.”
Later, going through a divorce and having to navigate obtaining social services, Kayali said she “started thinking where do other people go like me, that they are…
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