Arab Cultural & Community Center

The Arab Cultural and Community Center (ACCC), founded in 1973, is a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting Arab art and culture and enriching the lives of the Arab American community. We achieve this by providing culturally-focused social services and by promoting cross-cultural events open to all residents of the Bay Area and beyond. The ACCC a leading resource for social services and referrals for Arab American communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is the only agency in Northern California providing domestic violence and sexual assault education and prevention programs, as well as intensive case management and mental health care in Arabic for Arab and Muslim survivors of domestic violence.

With an Arab population of approximately 185,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area, the ACCC provides essential services to a community that has been historically neglected and underserved because of language and cultural barriers. Since 2002, the ACCC has expanded the social services programs yearly to provide this increasing immigrant population in San Francisco with necessary basic services such as: free ESL classes for women; computer classes in Arabic; parenting classes; nutrition classes; legal and health referrals; housing and job searches; immigration assistance; intensive domestic violence/sexual assault case management and prevention; cultural competence training to law enforcement, social and health care providers; youth empowerment; youth education and after-school homework assistance.

We present concerts, community events and educational programs such as panel discussions and town meetings in our center in San Francisco’s Forest Hill neighborhood. In addition, we arrange and co-sponsor cultural events across the Bay Area, culminating in our annual Arab Cultural Festival in October. In 2010, we held the festival in San Francisco’s Union Square for the first time and were delighted to welcome more than 100,000 attendees. We look forward to an even more exciting event in the years to come!