Brain Trust | Andrew Chang - Nunchi Health

​A Brain Trust is a 1-hour group brainstorming session where experts from the RIVET ecosystem provide feedback and advice on a challenge or initiative that a social innovator is working on.

Dr. Andrew Chang is building culturally rooted mental health care for communities long overlooked by traditional systems. After arriving in Los Angeles as an unaccompanied minor, he witnessed immigrant youth struggling in silence with stigma, isolation, and care that didnʼt reflect their lived experience, patterns he later saw repeated in clinics as a physician.

In response, Andrew founded Nunchi Health, a nonprofit that centers immigrant and minority youth as leaders in healing. Rather than a top-down clinical model, Nunchi trains young people to lead culturally grounded healing circles, workshops, and campus programs rooted in peer support and identity.

Since launching in 2023, Nunchi has supported over 16,000 students from 35+ countries, achieved a 92% engagement rate, trained hundreds of peer facilitators, and demonstrated measurable improvements in anxiety and self-reported mental health. With strong word-of-mouth growth and a waitlist of 500+ students, Nunchi is scaling a youth-powered mental health ecosystem where healing grows from within communities.