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LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Sonal
Ambegaokar, health policy attorney for the National Immigration Law
Center, is being honored by the South Asian Bar Association of Southern
California Public Interest Foundation for her dedication to
advancing immigrant access to health care. Ms. Ambegaokar will receive
the Foundation’s 7th Annual Public Interest Award during its
annual dinner, to
be held March 11, 2010, 6:30 p.m., at Union Station, Los Angeles.
“For years, Sonal has consistently worked to ensure that vulnerable,
low-income individuals, especially immigrants, can access basic health
care services,” said Fred Thiagarajah, president of the South Asian Bar
Association of Southern California Public Interest Foundation. “Her
work on behalf of the South Asian community in particular and the
immigrant community at large is tremendously important in this time of
economic uncertainty and anti-immigrant sentiment, and we are immensely
proud to count her as our colleague and ally.”
In her work with the National Immigration Law Center, Ambegaokar
analyzes federal, state and local policies affecting low-income
immigrants’ access to affordable health care, and she educates
policymakers and opinion leaders and makes recommendations concerning
those policies. Widely regarded as a national expert on immigrant
access to health care, Ambegaokar has been quoted by news outlets across
the country, including the Los Angeles Times, the San
Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post. Prior to
joining NILC, she served as supervising attorney of the Health Consumer
Center of Los Angeles, a project of Neighborhood Legal Services of Los
Angeles County, where she worked on local and state health policy issues
and managed a consumer hotline that served Los Angeles County residents
with health coverage and access issues.
Ambegaokar earned her juris doctor degree from the University of
California at Davis, where she was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr.
Public Interest Service Award, and her B.S. in business administration
from the University of Southern California. She served on the board of
directors of the Legal Aid Association of California and currently
serves on the advisory boards for the Health Consumer Center and the
California Pacific Ethnic Health Network.
The South Asian Bar Association of Southern California Public Interest
Foundation seeks to unite members and friends of the South Asian
community over a shared commitment to public service, recognize the
outstanding achievements of local South Asian lawyers and trailblazers,
and award grants to organizations and law students dedicated to serving
the public interest. To purchase tickets for the awards dinner, please
visit
http://www.sabasc.org/purchaseticket.php.
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