As members of the Sakhi community and committed to the eradication of violence against women, let us use this momentum to push for change in our communities that reflects the needs of our own 99%.

As with the Occupy movement, it is clear that the time has come for concrete actions to be taken.  We must push for the kind of change we want to see.  At Sakhi, we are using this momentum to continue our work, strengthen our partnerships, ramp up our prevention programs and enable and support our communities.

Over the past year at Sakhi, we:

* Formed partnerships with the Anti-Violence Project for our staff to be trained on working with the LGBTQ community

* Expanded our scope of services to permit safe friends and family of survivors to attend some of our economic empowerment workshops, recognizing their similar isolation and vulnerability to violence

* Launched a teen dating violence project, for the first time ever reaching our youth – working with both boys and girls so that we can address and prevent violence

* Continued to reach previously unreached South Asians in New York City through community outreach activities

* Held our first Summit,  ‘Preventing Violence, Promoting Justice’ and brought together social justice leaders across movements to figure out how we can bring our collective voices and strengths to end violence against women

As the year ends, we already have plans to build on the energy surrounding the Summit and will host the first in a series of follow up events in February 2012 at the Barnard Center for Research on Women.

To join us in this collective work, please reach out to us at contactus@sakhi.org.

For the first time in Sakhi for South Asian Women’s 20-plus years, we will be hosting a game-changing conference for social justice leaders.

More than “anti-violence”, we are coming together to talk about what we are for: social justice in all of our communities.

Preventing Violence, Promoting Justice will provide the opportunity to explore and mobilize around the intersections between domestic violence, immigration, economic justice, health and other related movements for social justice between current frameworks, and toward building a movement rooted in our community values.

The goal of this convening is to build a stronger movement to end violence against women in the US by forging connections between related movements for social justice and to inform those movements of the implications of their work on survivors of violence and the need to include those voices in their policy and service work to:

• provide space and support for traditionally underrepresented communities and community-based organizations

that are women-ledto share information, network and leverage their relative expertise into a stronger movement

for social progress

• increase the amount of work being done to prevent violence against women through promoting the human rights

of women to healthcare, education, economic opportunity, and political and social participation

• promote the role of women as leaders and decision-makers in their communities in order to achieve lasting social change

• promote resilient, community-grown models of addressing violence against women across a dynamic spectrum of communities

• draw attention to the experiences, violations and structural barriers faced by women on the margins, to make visible

the continuum of violence and to promote accountability in responding to intersectional discrimination

“We are excited to create a space for partners and allied organizations across social movements to come together to explore the intersectionalities between the DV movement and related movements for social justice and how we can work together to promote the human rights of women.”

Tiloma Jayasinghe, Executive Director

Featured Speakers

Speaker Biographies

Alisa Del Tufo is the Founder and Director of Threshold Collaborative- an organization that uses narrative, community opinion gathering to develop place based solutions that privilege the voice of marginalized people. Having worked to end violence in the family for almost 30 years, Ms. Del Tufo has been the Founder and Director of CONNECT as well as one of the nation’s leading domestic violence agency; Sanctuary for Families.

Through transformative education, Ms. Del Tufo has pioneered programs that help batterers, victims, children, community members, service providers, clergy, and social workers examine and change the assumptions that perpetuate family violence. In this model, social welfare and criminal justice organizations support, rather than co-opt, the power of people to take charge of their problems.

Loretta J. Ross is National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective; a network of 80 women of color and allied organizations that work on reproductive justice issues. One of the first African American women to direct the first rape crisis center in the United States in the 1970’s, Ms. Ross also founded the national Center for Human Rights Education based in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2004, Ms. Ross was the leading force behind the ‘March for Women’s Lives’ – the largest protest march in U.S. history with more than one million participants.

Ms. Ross has been a speaker at numerous conferences focusing on human rights, reproductive justice, and sexual and domestic violence.  Currently, Ms. Ross is writing a book on reproductive rights entitled ‘Black Abortion’.

Karen Morgaine, P.h.D., is Professor of Sociology at California State University. She conducts extensive research on the intersections of Domestic Violence and Human Rights in the United States. Dr. Morgaine uses qualitative and participatory action research methodologies to examine power and privilege, particularly racial/ethnic privilege, in social movements. Her specific areas of interest include immigration; construction and framing of social problems; radical/progressive social movements; domestic violence and violence against women—policies and practice; human rights; transnational social movements; globalization and social movements; and poverty.  Dr. Morgaine has published her work in reputed publications such as the ‘Violence against Women Journal’, ‘Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare’ and the ‘Journal of Women and Social Work’.

Beckie Masaki, MSW, is the Associate Director of the API Institute on Domestic Violence of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum and has been a part of the movement to end violence against women for over twenty-eight years.  Ms. Masaki co-founded one of the first VAW programs in the nation that could meet the language and cultural needs of Asian survivors of domestic violence and trafficking, Asian Women’s Shelter in San Francisco, and served as the founding executive director for over twenty-one years.  Ms. Masaki has extensive experience in providing multilingual, multicultural services to domestic violence and trafficking survivors and their children, innovative program development, prevention, community building, policy-making, and institutional advocacy.

Lynn M. Paltrow, J.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.  She has worked on numerous cases challenging restrictions on the right to choose abortion as well cases opposing the prosecution and punishment of pregnant women seeking to continue their pregnancies to term.  Ms. Paltrow has served as a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, as Director of Special Litigation at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, and as Vice President for Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of New York City. Ms. Paltrow conceived of and filed the first affirmative federal civil rights challenge to a hospital policy of searching pregnant women for evidence of drug use and turning that information over to the police. In the case of Ferguson et. al., v. City of Charleston et. al., the United States Supreme Court agreed that such a policy violates the 4th amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Rashida Manjoo is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women. Most recently, she has accepted a professorship in the department of public law at the University of Cape town, South Africa. Prior to that, she served as the Des Lee distinguished Visiting professor at Webster University, USA where she has taught courses in human rights with a particular focus on women’s human rights and transitional justice.  Ms. Manjoo is an advocate of the high Court of South Africa and a former commissioner of the Commission on Gender Equality (CGE), a constitutional body mandated to oversee the promotion and protection of gender equality. Prior to being appointed to the CGE, she was involved in social context training for judges and lawyers, where she has designed both content and methodology during her time at the law, race, and gender research unit in the University of Cape town and, the University of natal, Durban.  Ms. Manjoo is a member of the International Coalition for Women’s Human Rights in Conflict Situations and also a member of the Women living under Muslim laws network. She was also an active member of the Women¹s Caucus for gender Justice in the international Criminal Court and remains an advisory Board member of the Women’s initiative for gender Justice.

Breakfast and check-in start at 8am both days and our program starts at 9am and ends by 6:30pm.  There will be morning plenaries both days of the Sakhi Summit, followed both days by a series of concurrent sessions and facilitated break-out sessions. Check back for our agenda in the coming days.

Getting to NYU

For more information on the campaign, go to http://16dayscwgl.rutgers.edu/.

In 2006 , as part of the global campaign, we asked members of the Sakhi community to share their thoughts about activism and violence against women. We sent selected responses for each day of the campaign by e-mail. Listed below are the questions which participants answered:

1. What does activism mean to you?

2. Why is activism for women’s rights important?

3. How is violence against women a human rights issue?

View the responses from the community.

In early April, I attended a national conference put together by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) an advocacy organization committed

to elevating the voices and perspectives of South Asian individuals and organizations to build a more just and inclusive society in the United States.

The Summit held during the first week of April brought together a wide range of South Asian organizations from around the country,

providing an opportunity for all to raise issues concerning South Asian communities, and collectively strategize for solutions and future collaborations.

Attending the SAALT summit really got me thinking about the broader implications of the work I do everyday at Sakhi.

As an advocate at a grassroots, community based organization; the Summit helped me draw connections between my day-to-day work and broader social justice work.

One of the panels I titled ‘Connecting the Local to the Global: From South Asia and the Middle East to the Border and Our Backyards’ articulated the importance of the need for local grassroots organizations (specifically those working with immigrant populations) to integrate local community-specific visions in a broader context. One of the panelists,Hansdeep Singh from United Sikhs explained how discriminatorynational laws and negative public attitudes can affect an individual and a community’s psyche, how it increases an individual sense of alienation,reduces job prospects, impacts a community’s standard of living and education and leads to an increase in violence against women.

In context of the work I do everyday to combat domestic violence, I understood how important it is to address the roots of violence from the‘bottom up’ and at ‘top down’ at once. For example, by building connections with home countries and educating women about their rights even before they arrive in this country as new immigrants,

we can do preventive work, and by working towards improving immigration and national policies that affect the daily life of immigrants, we can ensure that survivors of violence can have access to their human rights. Harsh immigration laws reduce women’s choices and impedes (especially immigrant women) from finding alternatives,

leaving abusive relationships if they choose to and establishing independence from their partners.

Further, mainstream non-governmental and governmental agencies such as the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and various law enforcement organizations lack a nuanced understanding of the impediments immigrant women face. For example, violence against women in the South Asian context is manifested in various forms including child marriage, polygamy, dowry, female infanticide, marital rape, depriving women of basic education and other such human rights violations. In such experiences, it is imperative that mainstream service agencies understand the abuse in this context. For this to happen there needs to be a lot more cultural sensitivity in both in organizations/social service units both in the US and the home country.

Other important points brought out during the conference included the importance of community interaction and dialogue. Another SAALT panel titled ‘Transnational Issues and the South Asian Community’ featured government representatives from South Asian consulates and provided a great avenue for dialogue between organizations and home governments on the above issues and ways to address them.

Tiloma Jayasinghe, Sakhi’s Executive Director spoke on this panel and made a very important point. She asserted the criticality of dialogue between community organizations and broader global entities like the UN for truly bringing about women’s empowerment. Initiating dialogue of this kind creates a nurturing setting necessary for all women to actively participate in the mainstream development process.

As an advocate assisting women who have experienced violence in their lives, I really appreciated the opportunity to discuss the complexities of my cases with other advocates from around the country. For example at Sakhi, I see many cases in which abusive husbands threaten their wives by refusing to help convert a conditional green card to one that would give her permanent status. In having discussions with my counterparts in other organizations, I was informed (and disheartened) to hear the further limited choices that H-4 visa spouses have in this country. In these scenarios, the ‘dependent’ clause within the H-4 visa severely debilitates and restricts a woman’s right to move around freely and establish independence from her husband. For example, a woman with an H-4 dependent visa often needs her husband’s accompaniment and support to acquire a driver’s license, open bank accounts and more.

SAALT’s Summit offered me the opportunity to have a broader understanding of how immigration status and its related nuances can adversely impact the choices that a survivor of domestic violence can avail of.

I thank and applaud SAALT for its work to create a platform for individuals and organizations to come together and share valuable insights with agencies that may have varied focuses, but have a common goal fo social justice and equal opportunity for all.

• Learn more about SAALT and its work

in conversation with AiiETV Host Nivedita Chandrappa

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Too many times in our communities a woman’s worth is measured by her ability to fit in to social norms of womanhood. A woman’s true worth is not and should not be determined by her ability to give birth. Women play various roles everyday as sister, friend, head of household, mother, colleague, aunt, organizer and so much more- and often times these contributions are rarely recognized, acknowledged or valued.

This Mother’s Day, Sakhi takes a step to honor and recognize a woman for her true worth celebrate her for who she is.

Sakhi staff and volunteers will go out into the Bronx, Staten Island, Jackson Heights, Flushing and Richmond Hill and celebrate individual women by giving her a beautiful card, a flower and a piece of sweet. The Celebratory card will also have resources on identifying abuse, numbers to call if they need help and other resources.

It is a small gesture that can have a huge impact! We will honor and celebrate women and at the same time and let them know that we are here if they need us!

The more people we have the more women we reach! So, join us on Saturday, May 7, 2011 10am-3pm to CELEBRATE & HONOR the remarkable women in our families and communities.

Want to join us? RSVP to our Facebook Event Page or send an email to sethu.nair@sakhi.org

Hand in Hand – Achieving Success- A Fundraiser Event

The year 2011 marks the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. In remembrance of that tragic day, and in memory of Swarna- a dedicated volunteer we lost that day.

Dedicated to our work to end violence against women, Swarna was an ardent supporter and advocate of Sakhi’s Economic Empowerment Program. This Fund provides survivors of violence small grants to finish their education, obtain certificates and gain skill training to help them secure jobs and lead a life of self-sufficiency.

Sakhi will host a Fundraiser event on June 7, 2011 at the Aicon Gallery to replenish this critical fund.  You are invited!

On April 8, 2011 Sakhi met with The White House Initiative on Asian American Pacific Islanders team to inform the Initiative’s efforts to understand the critical issues facing AAPIs face in the United States today.

Held at the Ms. Foundation’s office in Brooklyn, the meeting brought Sakhi together with advocates and representatives from other women’s anti-violence agencies and civil rights organizations such as the New York Asian Women’s Center, Chhaya CDC, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund as well as representatives from other marginalized community based groups.

The round table meeting offered community organizations the opportunity to express critical issues, while allowing the Initiative to gather recommendations on how the federal agencies can better meet the community’s needs. “On the whole, AAPI community advocates and organizations are working tirelessly to meet the needs of the local communities, yet are largely unaware of the federal resources available to support their work” said Ms. Miya Saika Chen; the Initiatives Community Engagement Advisor.

During the roundtable, advocates educated the Initiative about a variety of issues, including, for example, about single mothers who are survivors of domestic abuse and living with friends and thus being undercounted in homelessness numbers, and women workers in the service industry who are working longer hours for less pay.

Sethu Nair, Sakhi’s Outreach & Media Advocate raised concerns about the critical issue of langauge access.  Over the past 21 years, Sakhi has been on the forefront of policy and advocacy work to ensure that survivors of violence have acess to information they need. In many federal agencies important documents and rights manuals are still only printed in English and Spanish. There is a great need for documents translated in Asian languages. “In New York City and other such cities with large immigrant populations the availability of language accessible services often determine for example, whether a survivor of domestic violence can fight for child custody, articulate that her life is in danger, advocate for safe shelter space and demand her rights,” said Ms. Nair.

The WHIAPPI team asserted that their goal is to gather all feedback and use it to inform national efforts to improve the lives of Asian American women. “Women’s issues are near and dear to the Initiative’s heart and we fully intend to raise the issues you all shared with our colleagues within the White House and with the various agencies” said Ms. Kiran Ahuja; Director of the Initiative.

• Want to learn more about the Initiative?   Read the WHIAAPI Weekly Highlights Blog

Sakhi at the SAALT Summit

April 1 – April 4, 2011

American University Washington College of Law, Washington DC

On April 1st – 4th, Sakhi will participate in a national conference to raise issues concerning South Asian communities, and collectively strategize for solutions.

Hosted by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) and the South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA) at the Washington College of Law, American University, the Summit is an opportunity for organizational leaders and community members to: engage with policymakers and government agencies; participate in a learning environment; discuss emerging issues in the South Asian community and the country as a whole; and, strategize to achieve best practices, discuss collective solutions and agree to common principles using a progressive, social justice framework.

Sakhi will participate on two panels: Connecting the Local to the Global: From South Asia and the Middle East to the Border and Our Backyards and Gender Equity and the South Asian Community

SAALT Summit 2011

Sakhi to speak on a panel on race and reproductive rights

April 7, 2011, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Northeastern Law School, Boston MA

On April 7, 2011, Sakhi will participate on the panel discussion: Race, Rhetoric, and Reproductive Justice: How Current and Proposed Legislation Will Affect Communities of Color.

The panel will address the various ways that current federal and state legislations and policy changes on reproductive rights will affect communities of color. Among the many topics discussed will be:

• How immigrants lack of access to health care in the Obama Care plan will affect immigrant communities
• Recent state court decisions that ruled “Pregnancy Crisis” centers do not have to state that they do not provide abortion services
• The Republican proposed congressional amendment to cut all Planned Parenthood funding

Panelists include Lorretta Ross; National Coordinator of Sister Song, Elizabeth Barajas of the Natioanl Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Tiloma Jayasinghe, Sakhi’s Executive Director and more.

Sakhi works with the Department of Health and Human Services- Office on Women’s Health on a Trauma Initiative

As part of a 5-year initiative, Sakhi joins the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health (OWH) and other partner organizations acknowledge trauma as a public health issue.

Research findings recognize the impact of trauma as a crosscutting, gender-specific issue that has significant adverse affects on the health and wellbeing of women, children and families. Building on OWH’s projects in the areas of HIV/AIDS, prevention of violence against women, women’s health for incarcerated women and juveniles, and women’s mental health, this 5-year Training Initiative will provide a framework to acknowledge trauma as a public health issue and will conduct provider education which will lead to the development of prevention strategies.

The goal of the 5-year Training Initiative on Trauma-Affected Women, Children, and Families is to increase the capacity of providers from diverse service sectors to engage in systems change in order to offer responsive trauma-informed services and supports.

Sakhi honors Swarna Chalsani on the10 year anniversary of 9/11- May 2011

2011 marks the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. This May, Sakhi will host an event to honor the memory of those who were killed during the World Trade Center attacks. Among the many who died, was Swarna Chalasani and passionate Sakhi volunteer.

In memory of Swarna’s dedication to Sakhi, the Chalsani family created an education fund that offers small grants to qualified survivors for career and continuing education opportunities at accredited institutions.

Through fundarising efforts, Sakhi hopes to rebuild the Swarna Fund to ensuer that survivors of domestic violence continue to have access to this critical fund.

Preventing Violence, Promoting Justice- A Sakhi Conference- October 2011

This October, Sakhi will host its first ever conference. The goals of the conference are to:

• Build an anti-violence movement that takes into account the race, class, socioeconomic, political and cultural realities of vulnerable populations of women
• Explore the intersectionalities between the DV movement and related movements for social justice
• Harness the strength of organizations, individuals to promote the human rights of women

The first Pan-Asian project on Domestic Violence in New York, Project Speak Out is committed to breaking the secrecy and silence that enables and perpetuates violence in Asian American communities in New York City.

“Because domestic violence is viewed as a private family matter, the community is often silent in response to abuse,” says Tiloma Jayasinghe, Executive Director of Sakhi for South Asian Women. “This perception ends up condoning violence and discouraging women from speaking out or seeking escape. When they do try to seek help, they are often punished with blame, stigma and shame.”

Sakhi joins forces with three other Asian American anti-domestic violence community organizations; The New York Asian Women’s Center, the Korean American Family Services center and Garden of Hope- in a concerted effort to change individual and community attitudes and behaviors toward intimate partner violence/domestic violence.

By pooling knowledge and experience, Sakhi and the partner agencies of Project Speak Out will challenge cultural prohibitions by increasing awareness of domestic violence, confronting the social conditions and community structures that contribute to violence while building networks of community leaders who can continue this transformative work to end violence against women.

This important work will be done through volunteer recruitment, training of volunteers who will go into Asian neighborhoods and meet with the leadership and members of religious organizations; service clubs; community leaders; Asian ethnic affinity groups; Parent-Teacher Associations; and, legal, health, and human service organizations and more.

“Through this initiative we will be able to prevent and reduce domestic violence and give hope to abused women and children, says Larry Lee, Executive Director of the New York Asian Women’s Center. .

• Read the Project Speak Out Blog