Asian Women’s Shelter

Located in San Fransisco, CA.

The Asian Women’s Shelter mission is to eliminate domestic violence by promoting the social, economic and political self-determination of women.  Volunteers help by working directly with women and children at the shelter, helping to plan outings and activities, and providing childcare and tutoring.

ABOUT

Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS) was founded in 1988 to address the needs of women, children and transgender survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking, especially those who are immigrants and refugees. The survivors they work with every day embody the true meaning of courage, hope, and determination. The survivors inspire their unrelenting commitment to end violence in our families, communities, and our world.

MISSION & VISION

The mission of Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS) is to eliminate domestic violence by promoting the social, economic and political self-determination of women. AWS is committed to every person’s right to live in a violence-free home, and has a specific focus towards addressing the cultural and language needs of immigrant, refugee, and U.S.-born Asian women and their children. This perspective is reflected in the organization’s broad strategy, which integrates culturally competent and language-accessible shelter services, educational programs, and community-based advocacy.

While they have the cultural and language capacity to address the specific needs of individuals from Pan-Asian backgrounds, they welcome all survivors.  They provide language accessibility, educational programs, community-based initiatives and advocacy.  All of their services and programs seek to address an interplay of factors affecting survivors, including sexism, racism, ageism, classism, ableism and heterosexism.

Because AWS recognizes the abuse of power as the root cause of violence, all of their work is rooted in an anti-oppression framework. They are a non-hierarchical, consensus-based organization and operate in a shared leadership model.  They continuously seek to collaborate with other organizations in order to build a network of services beyond AWS.  These efforts not only help us serve our clients, but create a stronger voice for our advocacy and policy work.