SAMOA VICTIM SUPPORT GROUP INC.
FUTURES VWITHOUT VIOLENCE
W.O.M.A.N. Inc. (WINC)
TAHIRIH JUSTICE CENTER
Samoa Victim Support Group
Intro by Grant Screening Committee member Ann Roberts:
Why I love this organization. SVSG is the only organization in Samoa that helps victims of domestic violence. They government does do this; the only organization is this one.
They are extremely effective. They have the trust of the community and international donors.
Their focus is to:
– Educate
– Empower
– Advocate for new laws
– Engage with the community
It’s hard for women especially when the government doesn’t acknowledge that it happens.
They are really good at taking best practices from around the world
Presentation by SVSG President Lina Chang:
See also her presentation at http://www.oneskygivingcircle.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/One-Sky-Presentation-1.pdf (login: osgc)
Greetings and thanks on behalf of our children survivors of violence
The women survivors of violence and the rehabilitated perpetrators of violence
Talofa! That means hello in Samoan
Our Motto:
We support
We help
We care
We are your family
A little bit about our history:
We were founded by a young female lawyer, 3 attorneys and 3 female ex-police officers who saw a gap in support for victims of sexual violence
Originally everyone worked on a volunteer basis with no salary
From 2006 to 2012 we moved from shelter to shelter without permanent accommodation
Our first office was under a shady coconut tree, then in an old building, then another one, then in 2013 we moved to the office we have now.
We now have 10 paid staff in 3 locations: 2 on Upolu and 1 on Savaii
Over 500 people are our eyes and ears. They are village leaders carrying on the work and keeping volunteer spirit alive
Our approaches:
– Advocacy: we provide guidance to the government of Samoa for legislation
– Prevention & Support
– Protection & Healing
Mothers come to us lost and suicidal
They are cast out from their families or unable to return to their villages due to danger
Our achievements to date:
Now domestic violence is criminalized through the 2013 Family Safety Act (FSA)
2013 FSA finally criminalized domestic violence
The punishment for raping a 13 year old is now life imprisonment; and we extended the definition of rape
The Family & Youth Court was created specifically for family violence
SFSG has paved the way forward for peaceful families in Samoa
The magnitude of our work is measured by the lives that we have saved
Samoa’s population is 180,000 people.
We have provided:
8532 case work assistance
215 rape case victims assisted
1212 domestic violence
213 child abuse
50 attempted suicide
897 children sheltered
105 abused mothers sheltered
Lives rehabilitated
800 kids sheltered at facilities have been successfully reintegrated into society
713 offenders have completed court referral programs
Families reunited:
We have reunited over 1000 families reunited through counseling, and over 300 through mediation programs
Families reached:
Since SFSG started its 24 hour free help line, we have reached over 100,000 people
We have reached 80,000 through ending violence awareness
We have reached over 50,000 though our “No to rape” Awareness program in churches, villages, schools and work places
Over 10,000 throught Gender Equality Awareness
Justice served:
Over 200 sexual abuse cases heard in court with a 90% success rate
Over 300 protection order applications for family violence set by the courts
The difference we have made:
– Mentality change in villages, churches and family leaders talking positively
– Community on alert and seeking the help line for any type of support
– Our communities are stronger
– The behavioral change towards sexual and domestic violence has people speaking out
Rape campaign of 2010 has made change away from acceptance of gender based violence
With all the life saving work, mothers and children are still dying form family violence
In the shelter you now get children pregnant from incest or rape. They are suicidal. We walk with them as they seek justice against their only family members
We have consented to medical operations of abused children
For 19 months we have been.
We have evacuated children living as animal and treated as such
Our help line has extended SFSG casework assistance at any hour of the day
Exposing our own families to danger
Supporting 10-12 year olds through childbirth
Our facilities:
Campus of Hope: only shelter for abused and neglected kids in Samoa
House of Blessings: nursery for babies from incest cases
House of Hope: for kids aged 3-12
House of Dreams: dorm for girls 13+
Ray of Hope Shelter: For pregnant rape survivors
School of Hope: continuing education
Our work:
– Casework
– Counseling
– Court support
– Shelters
– Empowerment, education, livelihood training
– Community engagement
– Holding government accountable
– Supporting those with disabilities
– SVSG Juniors – we train youth for succession plan
Challenges:
– Funding
– Staff shortage
– Lack of resources
– We have no women’s shelter at the moment, so we shelter the domestic violence survivors in our homes
We believe that the strength of the family binds us and the strength of God holds us.
Q&A:
Q: Do you have verification of your work and results?
A: Yes. UN women Trust Fund. They worked with us 2011-2013. UN Women Fund for Gender Equality.
Q: What is your largest source of funding?
A: For caring of victims, it is donations. For work that we do, we have some donors who believe in us. Mainly we depend on project funding. The funding is from the donor agencies. The government of Samoa gave us a 2010 funding to carry on the rape campaign. All the premises were built by individual donors that you can contact.
Thank you for listening and please vote for us!
Futures without Violence
Intro by Grant Screening Committee head Lisa Acree:
We have Rachel Smith Fals and Kiersten Stewart from Futures without Violence.
I have so many things to say about them and why they are on our slate. I’ll say one thing that really stands for us is that you have this incredibly powerful model where at the highest levels of government here and all are the over the world they’re having an impact through this very powerful advocacy
Then at the mid level through the community perspective, in our research you come upon whole communities that are impacted by using their materials and their training and their approaches .
And also the actual individuals and caregivers who have gone through the training; people who are police officers or nurses or coaches.
You have this amazing span of impact and altogether, for me, it’s very hopeful to show what can actually be done to address this issue.
Rachel Smith Fals:
Kiersten runs our DC office. She is our Director of Policy. I’ve been at Futures 15 years and Kiersten 17. We have a long, deep history.
You are a very unique group in terms of how you have researched this issue, the process you have gone through, it’s really impressive.
I’ve spent a lot of time with foundation and giving circles and I thank you for the thoughtful process you have done.
It’s also an honor to see groups like SVSG. They are why we do what we do and the way that we do it
Background:
Our mission: Women must be safe before they can learn, earn and thrive.
Safety is so core to everyone that we do as an organization.
Basic human right to live a life free of violence
Violence is learned and can be unlearned
We believe that we have the power and, now, the evidence to create futures without violence.
Esta Soler started the organization in San Francisco. We have now grown to be national and international.
Our HQ is in the Presidio. Come and visit us. We are creating an immersive learning center to become a destination for the world and place that is dedicated to creating new solutions and really engaging people in everyday acts that we can all participate in.
1984 – Esta was part of a core group that passed some of the first legislation in California and nationally.
She was giving presentation on this to the state legislature, and one of the male legislator said that would be taking the fun out of marriage. That was 1984 in a progressive state.
Only a decade later did we pass the first federal law to make domestic violence a crime.
It’s an important reminder that it hasn’t been that long.
But we have made incredible progress.
Since that time we have helped reduce domestic violence and violent crimes against adult women by over 64% in this country alone.
We have a lot more work to do on that here and internationally, particularly with younger women, which is why we are here
In terms of our impact, tonight we are focusing on international.
Kiersten leads our international portfolio on Capitol Hill, so I’ll just give a brief overview:
In early 90s (93) original Violence Against Women Act
We were approaching, and still approach, this work by sector.
We started in the health sector because we know that most women may not call the police but they would go to the hospital; so we started going into the hospital to train and work with physicians to identify and work with victims
We also started working with law enforcement
We started to build a body of evidence that was getting some traction internationally
In the early 1990s and mid-90s, we started going internationally and giving in-country training.
We moved into Russia to give them training in health care setting
Started also started doing work directly in Mexico
We helped pass some of the first laws in India (which sadly only happened recently, but the work started in mid90s)
The work wasn’t necessarily scalable, so in the late 2000s to mid 2000s we started looking domestically at what we could do to influence the global agenda and global policy and global investment.
Esta went to Ford Foundation and said we need to make this a priority. The Ford Foundation funded her to go to Beijing and she worked with Hillary Clinton there, where Hillary made the now famous words that “Womens rights are human rights”
So we came back to the US and started working with the US government to influence the policies that were being shaped.
You heard SVSG talked about the UN Trust Fund for Women
In the early 2000s, they were about to go bankrupt until Kiersten came in and said no
these are organizations that can’t do the work without that funding
We worked with policy makers, who came together for this fund and now it’s at $20M
The other key point in 2000s in terms of our international strategy
We had success with Violence Against Women Act – So we worked on International Violence Against Women Act, to strengthen US investments in programs and policies through a gender lens.
Under Obama we were able to get it through an administrative strategy and not a legislative strategy.
Now it’s extremely under threat.
We’ve been a Four Star Rated Organization on Charity Navigator for 11 Years
Kiersten Stewart
We do what we do, so groups like SVSG can do what they do
We went from doing our own work with organizations to rethinking how we can support them. We support them through US advocacy
1 in 840 women had polio at the height of the epidemic
1 in 25 women had HIV/AIDS at the height of the epidemic
1 in 8 have breast cancer in US
1 in 3 women experience domestic violence in the US and internationally
Globally, that domestic violence number is up to 70% in some countries
- These are the reported numbers. We now it’s grossly underreported. These numbers are the minimum.
Universal value: No woman wants to be beaten, raped or killed. That in and of itself is the reason we should be focused on violence against women.
We also know that violence Against Women is that undercurrent that often inhibits our success in international development aid around girls’ education and economic empowerment.
If girls are being abused, if they are being forced into early marriage, they are unable in many cases to take advantage of many of the programs that we offer.
So I never want to say that we care about violence, because we care about all of these other things. They both matter.
I want to reiterate our appreciation for your considering the issue of violence. It’s something that’s really important. Whatever you choose I hope you maintain your focus on this.
We are asking for support for:
– Rapid Response Fund
– To invest in our International Advocacy.
We are a strong and healthy organization based here in SF. Our international advocacy is not in the same place and that’s why we’re asking for help
What we want, in the administration, a lot of the progress we’ve made in the last 15 years is under direct threat
There was a document released today that showed that the UN Trust Fund, which we spent a lot of effort to try to fund, UN Women Fund, which you heard highlighted a primary funding source for SVSG – and that true for hundreds of organizations around the world. The budget draft we’ve seen showed a 29% cut in international funding.
We are the organization that’s leading the work to maintain the international funding.
The International Violence Against Women Act is about to be reintroduced next week. Many members of Congress haven’t seen it yet; we don’t even have a bill number yet.
But what we do in Washington is we try to solve problems.
We maintain leadership in State Department and US Aid to make sure that the international work around gender based violence and supporting women on the ground internationally continues.
We have offices at USAID and State Department
We are also in a migration crisis
We’re seeing enormous rates of conflict
Most refugees are women and children
They are at risk for trafficking and violence in camps
We all want to be there for the victims, but the best gift is never to be a victim in the first place. At Futures without Violence that’s where we spend your time
We were able to get the US to increase budget to $160M annually against gender-based violence
Multiple agencies that have to report their success are more likely to do good programming
Kiersten leads our policy work in DC. There are no other groups in DC that leads this agenda and the advocacy in DC
We only have $65K allocated to this work this year
Also the education of the staff people
People coming into these position and they have no awareness and no knowledge of the impact of these programs
Q&A
Q: Would more people be funded on Capitol Hill? Is it more research? Could you break down what they funding is going towards
A: It is staff personal. We have a staff person we won’t have if we don’t raise the funding. She’s amazingly talented and we’d like to keep that work going.
In addition, we try to do educational briefings on Capitol Hill. Nov 25 is International Day to End Violence Against Women. If possible, if can grow the portfolio, we really try to bring women’s organizations to the US and we like to bring them, whenever possible, to speak for themselves.
There’s an incredible movement; there’s a global movement to end violence against women. We’d love you all to consider coming.
When we do these briefings and events they are incredibly powerful. These women have never experienced anything like this, and their stories can have a lasting impact.
Q: Do you have to get a congressman to push it for you?
A: Joe Biden was our first champion. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is the original sponsor; she’s a senator. Sen from John Isakson (R-GA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are the Republican co-sponsors working on this.
We recognize politics are tough right now. We’re not going to get anything done if we do not have Republican leaders so we spend a lot of time cultivating them and getting them educated about these issues.
And the truth is, violence against women is one place where we can make bipartisan progress.
The Senate Bill is of the International Violence Against Women Act is ready to go. The
House has a companion bill. Our goal is to introduce the same bill in both house; we are negotiating with them now.
We are hoping the house bill is identical
We’re hoping the next week it will get voted on. To pass the bill and continue to fund it is a challenge in this administration, but we always think we can make progress.
Esta inspires us. She is the eternal optimist
Yes, there are things that are challenging, but I don’t want to spend time on what’s challenging. I want to spent time on how you’re going to get it done.
W.O.M.A.N. Inc.
Intro by Grant Screening Committee member Shannon Tyne:
We are happy to have Jill Zawisza here with us tonight. She’s the executive director. She’s been working in the field for 20 years and with W.O.M.A.N. Inc. for the last ten.
W.O.M.A.N. Inc. has been a critical resource in the Bay Area to support survivors and families of domestic abuse. Through a number of comprehensive services and programs they are able to provide life changing experiences for survivors.
Some of the most powerful ways to describe what W.O.M.A.N. Inc. does is through words of someone they’ve helped: “I’ll forever be grateful that they were there for me in the lowest moment of my life. I had been in an abusive relationship and my former partner was stalking me. I was isolated, alone, afraid. I went to W.O.M.A.N. Inc. to get a restraining order. They listened. I felt validated and they made me realize just how abusive my relationship had been. The prepared the paperwork and went to court with me. It’s been 15 years and I’ve since recovered from my abusive childhood and that relationship, but I still look back at my day at W.O.M.A.N. Inc. as my first day of healing.”
Jill Zawisza, Executive Director:
There are six of us.
It is domestic violence awareness month and we are hustling all over the place right now. We are very passionate about what we do and we are pretty darn good at it.
We are greatful to be here. We have a packet with our annual report, services we provide, etc. We really would hope to build a partnership with you all.
After Trump’s election we got a lot of calls. It was very triggering for a lot of people who had survived domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual assault to know that this person was elected. Our question was, what are we good to do about it. Well, we thought let’s be real clear about how we are and what we believe in. So we came up with these statements:
We are:
pro immigrant
pro love
pro Muslim
pro people of color
pro queer
pro reproductive justice
pro survivor
pro trans folks
We believe in collective liberation and that everyone deserves to be safe in their bodies, homes, streets.
Whenever anyone wants to work with us, we cross check it with our strategic goals:
- Foster innovation and collaboration through scalable, high-performing partnerships
- Widen the scope of impact
- Continuously improve quality of care
- Grow funding sustainably
- Develop and capitalize on strength of our reputation
- Maintain vibrant organizational culture
We offer a low cost, high yield model. We are very solid in the stewardship of our resources.
We have 9.44 full time employees. What that means is there are six of us in the office doing full time work and the rest of us plug in as needed.
We have a large network of volunteers. 60 people volunteer every month. If they are really good we pluck them out and cultivate them and pay them.
82% if all of our funding goes down to program support.
When we’re making decisions, I mentioned that we have strategic goals in mind. We also have a lengthy document, which we call our cultural praxis document with our values. It’s on our website, but here are a few of our values:
Our values:
– Anti-oppression and intersectional feminism
– We work towards social, racial and economic justice.
– We are mindful that people who come to us are surviving domestic violence but that does not define who they are. We are human beings and we have a plethora of identities in the world. Our framework of anti oppression is where do those identities intersect and how are they making this experience harder for the survivor and how are they making it easier? What resources do those identities bring to the table? To us that’s very important to how we see feminism: it’s intersectional. Our feminism has to be wide, and we want to work towards the benefit of all women.
– Meeting survivors where they are. It’s important to understand that a lot of the go-to options that we might think of – the most common is calling the police – are not an option for many people. It can be a huge threat, it can actually escalate violence. There are communities of color who are murdered by some police departments. We’ve got people who are just afraid. They don’t want to get anyone into trouble. They want the violence to end. They don’t want anyone to go to jail.
If they do want the police to arrest someone, we will file a report with them at the police department.
Whatever it is they’re bringing with them, we honor and respond to. We don’t have a go-to guide of how to support someone. We have a foundation of listening, honoring, respecting – then we figure out what it is they need and what we may be able to do in that spectrum of service.
– Very positive workplace environment
All of the staff have stayed for years. It’s an awesome place to work. We are big on self care. The work we do can be rough. We hear disgusting things that human beings do to someone; it’s a lot to listen to and contain. We want to support your feelings, we know that you may feel triggered. A lot of us doing the work are also survivors of domestic violence. We honor who people are, we give a lot of time off when needed, we do staff care days. We are intentional about creating a nice place to work that people don’t want to leave.
Outcomes:
Based on evaluation reports, which is in packet and online.
People tell us they feel better about themselves when they are engaged with our counselors. They don’t feel as isolated.
They have more extensive their support networks. It’s really hard to create support networks when you’re constantly in crisis. When you are talking with someone about it, getting some help and making some forward momentum, you can reach out for help and find friends again.
We’ve had people start businesses and come in and offer their services.
People talk about improved physical and mental.
We feel we build stronger communities, because we get out there, we try and share our knowledge and learn from folks who come into the organization.
Activities:
We have a 24-hour support line. It’s a monster to run; there are six of us. It’s a lot.
We get about 9000 to 10,000 calls a year.
We mostly talk to people who are survivors, but we also connect to organizations who perhaps don’t do domestic violence work themselves but they have someone who is experiencing it and we walk them through it.
We have an online database that connects folks with shelter information; whether shelters are doing intake interviews.
That is a statewide database. We have 70 members on it.
A program I really want to talk about gets back to survivors doing the work:
Echando Pa’lante – The program run by women who are monolingual Spanish speakers who’ve come through the agency’s services and went through the training to become counselors and they counsel other women in the community. It’s the idea of healing through helping.
They have made amazing changes in their lives.
To wrap up, in the power point I’ve put in some survivors’ stories.
Q&A
Q: How would you use the funding?
A: The Echando Pa-lante program is really the future of what we think we want to do. Stabilizing that pipeline of women who have come through the services who want to heal through helping. About 65% of the volunteers who came last year are themselves survivors, and we want to widen that percentage. It takes a lot of work to engage participants, to do the assessment to see if they are in the space to do it yet. So it would be building on the project, but we really believe in the approach and how it works.
Q: So would the funding help you develop this group or other groups like Echando Pa’lante?
A: Yes, we envision engaging these women to do the training themselves. We just translated our training materials into Spanish. And we do pay them. That’s where we think the field needs to go.
Q: Just to clarify, you would be paying more trainers so they could expand the program? That’s exactly where the money would go?
A: The money would go to paying the trainers, but also from the leadership team’s perspective, there’s probably a couple of people I’d want to create a project plan, do the evaluation, assess what needs to be changed, tweak the program a little bit, and then implement it. Having resources to let them have at it, along with paying the trainers.
Q: Where are the services? Are they local?
A: We are in SF. We’re in SOMA. Our hotline, gets calls from all over the state. And out of state calls.
Q: How do people hear about you?
A: Primarily through our partner organizations. We have 69 very close partners we work with who refer to us. We get also referrals when we go out tabling and when we do presentations, we’ll get people calling. Our come in through a walk-in session.
Q: How is the hotline staffed?A: Primarily it’s run through volunteers, but there are more high-volume shifts that we the paid staff will plug into. We all do direct service, no matter our role. We staff the drop-in counseling. That can be more intense. We put people who are more seasoned into the drop-in counseling. That is mostly us.
Q: Do you have a network of people you refer people to, like lawyers and doctors?
A: We have a huge network. We do refer out; we have a few good connections with local organizations that represent clients. We have a grant with a local restraining order clinic and sexual assault center in city. We have lots of good connections that we refer out to when we need to.
Tahirih Justice Center
Intro by Grant Screening Committee member Lynda Sullivan:
It was my privilege to research the Tahirih Justice Center. It’s an organization that works with immigrant women and girls who have been victims of gender based violence.
They are headquartered in DC and recently opened an office in BA and the grant proposal is to support the work here locally.
The things that impressed the screening committee about Tahirih are:
- They are the organization that works exclusively with immigrant women and girls and gender based violence and in the current political climate, it’s hard to imagine a group any more vulnerable that this group.
- They have an incredible operating model. The primary direct service they offer is free legal advice. They help women get assylum and visas in the US. They have a network of of pro bono attorneys who work with them to take on these cases.
Across their entire organization last year, there were $12M of donated legal services. So every $1 from us or anyone else that gets invested in Tahiri ends up supporting $4 worth of work, which is an incredibly attractie return on investment.
- We like the combination of direct services and national advocacy. There’s an opportunity to both to make a difference in in women’s lives here in our community and to support to work the organizations does in trying to effect systemic change in advocating for better politices and laws in everything from immigration policy and detention policy to, believe it or not, trying to stop child marriages here in the US.
- The organization has been around a long time and has an incredible track record of success, and the Bay Area team is very impressive. They have ramped up very quickly. We all felt that an investment here would be really well stewarded and would be able to make a difference.
Morgan Weibel (Executive Director) and Theresa Samuel-Boko (Development Director)
Morgan Weibel:
You prounounce Tahirih like Hooray with Ta in front: Ta-hooray.
VIDEO:
Layli Miller-Muro started the organization after being involved in a case where a girl was fleeing Togo, where she was feeling a forced marriage and female genital mutilation. At that time, in 1995, our laws did not provide refugee status to girls and women who were fleeing forms of persecution that were being inflicted simply because they were women.
I argue her case before the immigration judge. It was appealed all the way to the highest immigration court in the US, where it received a good deal of media attention and ishe won. And that case set a precedent, opening the doors to legislation in what we now call
“Gender based asylum.”
Narrator: Some of our clients have experienced terrible violence. Female genital mutilation, domestic violence… They experience these types of violence more than women do simply because of their gender.
Then showed a woman from Honduras. Translation: my country of origin in Honduras. My town is small, but we are not untied. Everyone deals with their own problems. I was at parties and weddings, he tried to take me. Then he kidnapped me. I didn’t want to be with him. I was only 15; he ripped my shirt and raped me. I felt so dirty, I didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone.
The man came one night and broke my door and raped me again. I got pregnant.
Narrator: Being Tramautized makes it hard to share and tell the details of your story. We work very hard developing a relationship with each of the women who approaches us seeking help so she feels she can open up to us.
Aracely told things us things she couldn’t tell anybody else. Sometimes she could only do it in the quietest voice because she was so ashamed of the things that had happened to her. That was probably the hardest thing because she didn’t ask for them.
Aracely was raising her son and she met a nice guy and she became pregnant and the horrible rapist came back. The guy returned and killed her kids.
Aracely story was brutal.
Narration: By the time our client get to us, they are already heroes. They’ve traveled across deserts and over oceans, they’ve had to navigate a system where they don’t understand the law, they language. And many of them have had to do that with infants in tow, with young children who are dependent on them and with absolutely no resources, while the contend with ostracism and exclusion from their families. It’s a real privilege to be able to support them in their journeys.
The complexity and inaccessibilty of the system means that without a lawyer, you have only a 16% change of success. With any lawyer, you have 47% chance of success. And with the Tahiri Justice Center’s legal representation, you have a 99% chance of success.
Unfortunately, we can only help 1 in 10 girls when they call for help. There is so much more than we could do. Our model is very efficient. We turn every dollar donated into
4 of impact. We’re now in multiple cities throughout the US and a national leader in public policy advocacy on behalf of women and girls.
We have a long way to go before women and girls are truly protected from violence. We need financial resources we need donors to protect women and girls from violence and help transform society.
Morgan Weibel:
First of all, my apologies. I generally give a trigger warning before showing that video. The reason we felt it important to show a video like that is because Aracely’s story is increasingly the norm. It’s no longer an outlier. It helps give you a sense of the incredible heroes we are working with as our clients.
There was so much more that Aracely needed than just legal representation. I’m an immigration lawyer by training. I like to think that I make an impact in the world, but my work has made me see that clients need so much more than legal assistance in order to attain justice, to rebuild their lives, and to become safe and successful and thrive.
Who’s most important in our office?
Probably our social services department and our wrap-around services that they provide. For example, getting her therapy services in culturally specific and meaningful ways. Making sure that she was prepared when that daughter was going to be reunited with her years later. Some of our clients need to get divorces, they need to get full legal custody of their children, and to be able to provide that all under one roof and in house is incredible, because we’re able to work as a team in the organization.
Many of our clients are survivors who need medical services – we have a pro bono medical network.
Aracley was 15 the first time she was married. A lot of times the solution in these communities is to force these people into marriages. That’s where our forced marriage initiative comes into plays and it helps not only women who are facing forced marriages in the US but throughout the world.
We work from a holistic services model. We are facing historic numbers of people coming across the southern border.
We are unique in that we both provide direct services and national public policy advocacy. We are fighting so many battles, so many fronts, so many times. And to be able to have an impact you need both boots on the ground and you also need individuals that are able to move mountains for them.
I want to share a story of a client who we were able to help here in the SF office. Our first victory in this office. Tahirih has existed for 20 years but we opened our Bay Area office in January 2016.
A client several months ago said that her deportation and removal officer said that she needed to bring him a passport or he wouldn’t remove her ankle bracelet electronic monitoring device.
This client was applying for asylum, and as an immigration attorney I had to tell her it could work against her in front of the judge, so she couldn’t then apply for a passport.
What we settled on is I wrote a letter to her deportation officer; I got a call from a very upset and irate deportation and removal officer. He berated me and said how dare you do this? I told him it could negatively impact my clients’ case. After the call, I called my colleagues in the DC office. They called this deportation officers boss’ boss’ boss and explained what was happening here. They agreed with us because the law is clear because it could negatively affect her case.
That higher up in DC called the officer here in SF and my cleint’s ankle bracelet was taken off the next day.
That’s the power and impact when you have both direct services and a policy and advocacy department fighting within the government.
Another thing that is critical is that we are non-partisan. We believe that women’s rights are not a partisan issue. They are human rights and everyone can agree on that. That has also allowed us some access in this administration in whatever limited way we can push things along for our clients.
I will end on a slide. We are a staff of six in Bay Area. As Lynda mentioned earlier, our goal for this first year was to help 50 full service clients and impact 120 client throughout the year.
I’m happy to report we now have 76 full service clients.
We were hoping to grow our pro bono network to 150 attorneys. We do use them; they are a critical force in us being able to meet the needs of more women and girls. We now have 127 from 25 of the top bay area’s top law firms and corporations. They’re the ones that ones that give us the 1 to 4 impact.
We have reached 912 professionals through 22 outreach and training events.
And we’re note done yet. We still have a couple more months in the year.
Q&A:
Q: How do clients find you? You said you can only help 1 in 10 who come to you; how do you determine which to take?
A: We are lucky in this office and we are in building mode and we haven’t had to turn away clients yet. We set a core criteria in each office based on what we think we can accomplish and other what gaps people aren’t filling. We specifically focus on gender based violence. There are many organizations that do immigrant rights, but there is a very small niche in the area of the law that deals with gender based cases.
It’s complex and at the cutting edge of the law. We are trying to push the boundaries of the legal definitions right now. We feel a responsibility to take those cases first because we know that others may not take those. That is always at the top of our criteria. And then it’s what we can handle and what we can get in a given time period. If someone comes to 3 days before a hearind and we can’t possibly file something and represent and that’s not going to be at the top of our list. Likewise, if someone has something far out and we know no one else ca help them, then we will sit down with them.
Clients are coming through direct referrals from other like minded organizations in the area. We did a lot of outreach with other nonprofits when we came to BA. But I’ve had clients get referrals from other clients. One woman said I met a lady at a detention center in Texas who said I needed to find the pajarito (little bird) lady. The client was illiterate and the bird is in our logo.
Q: How do clients find you? Do you have any attorneys that volunteer 1-2 days per week and how can you incentivize them?
A: Yes, we talked about our pro bono attorney network. Those attorneys are assigned along a Tahirih attorney in the process to coach them and mentor them through it. The other thing we do is we offer a volunteer attorney position. Those attorneys who’ve worked with us often have a good experience so when they decide to career shift or try something new, they’ll come and work with us. We ask for minimum of 6 months. They are here a minimum of 3 days a week.
We out a lot fo thought into. We send out a bro bono newsletter to keep them engaged in changes in the law, and what’s happening in office, and trainings and in each of those we do a pro bono spotlight. We try to do annual events that appreciate them and our gala events we have an award for attorney of the year.
Clients find us by Googling us, looking for domestic violence and protection from female genital mutilation and that sort of thing. They find out about us for mother clients. They may be staying at a shelter and seeking an immigration attorney and they shelter gives them our name.
Q: Is it mostly asylum? As well as domestic violence reports?
A: Assylum, diverse visas for different types of violence.
Special immigrant juvenile status also. All of our work is in the federal courts here in the US. We don’t do any work abroad, aside from our forced marriage initiative, which touches on abroad.
Maryam: Thank you to our four organizations. Thank you to all of you for how we are going to enable to the organizations.
It’s a great time to bring friends. I hope you were not just inspired but learned a lot. It is our mission: Educate, Engage and then Fund.
Invite friends and men too! The ballots will go out on Monday. The four organizations will be on there. You will vote the pool (that is from our pool) and then you can allocate additional funds.
Unusually, this year we are going to put one more organization on the ballot. The
Napa Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Services. They were on our short list on the Grant Screening Committee.
Lisa and I both felt that, given the fires, we all want to help. This is a way for us to help victims that are likely to become double victims. Special opportunity for us to be able to make a difference in our community.
They won’t be eligible for the pool funds, but for additional funds that we want to give.
There are a lot of ways that we can help the fire victims, primarily financially at this point.
I’m very glad that domestic violence and violence against women is a non-partisan topic. I myself am not nonpartisan. So good for you guys for doing that.
At this moment, with our Harassor in Chief in the White House and with Hurricane Harvey, and with all the #metoo’s filling our social media feeds, that’s just on the domestic front. And with Russian decriminalizing domestic violence, this is a really timely issue.
This is moment for us to speak up and speak out. It’s not a comfortable issue, but this is our chance to make a difference for our maybe our most basic right, the right to feel safe. Please keep that in mind when you cast your ballots.
Thanks.
