Asian Women's Shelter

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 we work with every day embody the true meaning of courage, hope, and determination. They inspire our unrelenting commitment to end violence in our families, communities, and world. 

The mission of Asian Women's Shelter (AWS) is to eliminate domestic violence by promoting the social, economic and political self-determination of women and all survivors of violence and oppression. 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 and Arab women and their children. This perspective is reflected in the organization's broad strategy, which integrates culturally competent and language-accessible shelter and transitional housing services, educational and economic empowerment programs, and community-based advocacy and cultural change work.

While we have the cultural and language capacity to address the specific needs of individuals from Pan-Asian and Arab backgrounds, we welcome all survivors.  All of our 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 our work is rooted in an anti-oppression framework. We are a consensus building organization and operate in a shared leadership model.  We continuously collaborate with other organizations in order to build a network of programs and action beyond AWS.  These efforts not only help us support survivors, but the power of our collective advocacy and policy work.