Grassroots Mobilization
AWS is proud to engage our active constituents in the movement
against violence. We do this through Chai Chats, Multilingual
Digital Storytelling, Volunteer/MLAM Mobilization, Community Action
Teams and Creative Interventions.
Chai Chats
Chai Chats is a safe and confidential initiative that reaches
out to the Asian and Pacific Islander lesbian, bisexual, queer, and
transgender communities to equip them with tools and strategies for
practicing and promoting healthy relationships in all areas of
their lives.
Participants learn and share skills and strategies for healthy,
happy relationships. They also explore how communication
practices, attachment styles, temperament differences, positive and
negative feedback cycles, responses to conflict,
trans/homo/bi/phobia and learned violence can factor into their
relationships and lives.
AWS is committed to engaging and mobilizing its constituency to
break the silence that surrounds domestic violence against these
marginalized communities. We work to change the societal and
cultural norms that perpetuate violence, into those built off of
equality, non-violence and the respectful use of power.
Please contact us to learn more about Chai Chats!
Multilingual Digital Storytelling
The stories of immigrant and refugee women's experiences of
violence are usually unheard. In collaboration with the Center for
Digital Storytelling, AWS launched a pilot project in 2006 with the
goal of creating a space for advocates and survivors of violence to
share their stories using the creative tools of digital imagery and
audio recording.
Built from the natural storytelling and oral traditions of many
Asian Pacific Islander and immigrant communities, this program is
based on the simple premise that individuals gain from making
stories and communities gain from experiencing Read More
Volunteer/MLAM Mobilization
Our volunteer and language advocates are made up of
multicultural/multilingual women from local communities. They
attend over 70 hours of training to become educated anti-violence
activists and domestic violence counselors. They are agents of
support within the walls of AWS and are agents of change within
their communities.
AWS utilizes volunteers and language advocates in a variety of
grassroots anti-violence efforts, ranging from outreach at language
or community-specific events to facilitating community
dialogues.
Community Action Teams
As part of our commitment to using our organizational power
responsibly and supporting local and community-based efforts to
address violence, AWS supports Community Action Teams (CATs).
These teams often emerge organically, formed by our volunteer and
language advocates who have knowledge of pressing needs, current
issues and creative opportunities in their communities. They
work on projects or initiatives that are grounded in their own
skills and capacity.
CATs can have a voice and a power in their communities that,
most often, outsiders doRead More
Creative Interventions
AWS has been a collaborative partner of Creative Interventions, an
Oakland-based initiative centered on developing and sharing
concrete tools to support everyday people to address violence.
AWS works with representatives from Creative Interventions, Shimtuh, Narika and La Clinica de la Raza to develop tools to
address and transform violence in their communities through three
years of on-the-ground work supporting community members. AWS is
working with Creative Interventions to craft that on-the-ground
experience into a toolkit - a practical and useful resource for
those doing community-based violence interventions.