Posts Under Newsletters Category

By Rebecca Chowdhury Attending a small liberal arts college in Ohio that has a predominantly white and upper class student body, I often hear students talking about their experiences doing community service in a country in Africa or a developing nation in another region. While their intentions may be admirable, for some, this has colonial overtones of “saving people of…

Sakhi is happy to present a guest article from one of our allies, Sharon Stapel, the Executive Director of the NYC Anti-Violence Project (AVP).  We will be working with AVP in the future, providing cultural competency support for their outreach to the South Asian LGBT community regarding intimate partner violence; and learning from them as we do our own work…

July 2010 marks the beginning of Sakhi’s 5-week Financial Literacy workshop series for survivors of violence.  The impetus behind these workshops is the widespread economic abuse that our survivors face.  Financial abuse is defined as a tactic used to control relationships by preventing access to money or other financial resources.  Some documented tactics of financial abuse include controlling how money…

It is not an exaggeration to say that throughout our lifetimes, we as women have been stripped of our power and our self-worth by the various social constructs around us.  This has consequently left women vulnerable and more susceptible to violence.  Similarly women’s voices have often been silenced.  This silence has hindered women from expressing ourselves, and we, thereby ignore…

One of the goals Sakhi for South Asian Women has set for itself is to continue to open up the dialogue in our communities concerning issues that are persistently silenced and which are causing damage to us as individuals and to our communities at large. The term “violence against women” can invoke horrible images.   Within many South Asian languages, the…

By Natasha Rizvi Sakhi staff and interns, along with a new batch of Sakhi volunteers, recently participated in the annual Sakhi volunteer training designed to prepare young women and men to join Sakhi and contribute to ending violence against women.  The intensive four day training gave an opportunity for many of the overarching issues involved in the movement to end…

By Vaidehi Joshi Danielle Reydon came to Sakhi to turn theory into practice. While obtaining her undergraduate degrees in History and Anthropology from Brooklyn College, Danielle became cognizant of the disconnect between academia and lived experience. A few months before graduation, Danielle took on a three-month internship at Sakhi in the Development department. “I wanted to try and do something…

On June 12, 2010, Sakhi’s Executive Director, Tiloma Jayasinghe, presented at U.S. National Conference for United Nations Development Fund For Women (UNIFEM) on a panel entitled “Ending Violence Against Women Through Legal Instruments and Cultural Change”.  At the core of this presentation was raising awareness of our rights as women to ask for broad protections entitled to every human being…

The story of how our newest Economic Empowerment Coordinator, Payal Hathi, took the position at Sakhi is, in some ways, a familiar one to those of us who have been with the organization for a long time.  Payal, like many young women who are tuned to the happenings at service-based organizations doing work in fields that are important to them,…

By Tara Sarath When I was little, my father used to put me to sleep literally by reading me Old World fairytales. The (male) hero only had a year and a day to find the most amazing bauble in the whole world and in turn would win the coveted (female) prize. I have been serving as an intern, in various capacities, at…