Founded in 1989, Sakhi is the second-oldest South Asian women’s organization in the United States and the first to
break the silence surrounding gender-based violence within New York’s large South Asian population. By serving
over 10,000 survivors and mobilizing community members to condemn abuse, over the past 29 years Sakhi has
completely changed the conversation around violence against women in the community from a private family
problem to a public social issue.
Today, Sakhi is still the only organization explicitly addressing domestic violence and sexual assault in New York
City’s South Asian community. Sakhi unites survivors, communities, and institutions to eradicate domestic violence
and create strong, healthy communities. Sakhi uses an integrated approach that combines support and empowerment
through service delivery, community engagement, advocacy, and policy initiatives. Each year, Sakhi answers over
4,500 helpline calls and provides in-depth case management to approximately 400 women. As a highly underserved
population, Sakhi's constituents face multiple barriers in accessing the resources that they need. These barriers include cultural stigmas, isolation, affordable child care and housing, and issues faced by the current political climate. The largest and most
vulnerable group that Sakhi works with consists of low-income women, 80% of whom are limited English proficient.
Over 95% of these women are recent immigrants, more than 75% reside below the federal poverty line, 85% are head
of their households, 85% need public benefits and housing assistance, and 80% are mothers. Sakhi works to empower
survivors of violence by promoting self-sufficiency, civic integration, healing, and personal transformation to reduce
poverty and break the cycle of violence.
Buckeye Mela is proud to support this incredible cause.
Sakhi exists to end violence against women. |
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Sakhi's Programs
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Direct Services Program
This program comprises of crisis response, safety planning, ongoing emotional support, case management and services that help to promote survivors’ network of support, self-confidence, and to navigate the systems and agencies of a country that is foreign to them. Sakhi accompanies them to court hearings and to public support agencies, hold multiple legal clinics providing pro-bono immigration and family law assistance, provide interpretation in multiple South Asian languages, and host weekly support groups. |
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Economic Empowerment Program Through this program, Sakhi addresses systemic barriers that prevent women from achieving their goals of safety and self-sufficiency. Last year, Sakhi assisted nearly 300 women through this program. It helps prepare participants to obtain employment by providing individual case management, financial literacy information, as well as assists women achieve their educational goals by offering scholarships through a competitive grant process.
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Youth Empowerment Program This program seeks to break the cycle of violence by working with the daughters of Sakhi's constituents as they are at greater risk of experiencing violence themselves later in life. It aims to mitigate the risk factors of South Asian female youths by providing positive social, emotional, and academic support to encourage them to make healthy choices in their lives. |
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Women's Health Initiative
This initiative responds to the health needs of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault from the South Asian community in the NY metropolitan area. This includes services, referrals, advocacy and outreach specifically addressing the mental, physical, emotional and sexual health impacts violence has on women and their children. The Women’s Health Initiative promotes survivors’ ability to complete training and education to achieve self-sufficiency; promotes healing and recovery; strengthens the survivor’s family and community; and engages in advocacy around protecting women’s health and human rights. |
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Community Outreach Program
This program provides awareness and education to communities in NYC about Sakhi, its services, and our work to end violence against women. Our program addresses multiple barriers South Asian survivors of violence face when seeking services by: providing information about services in different languages; working to reduce stigma through awareness-raising and education efforts promoting gender equity; and facilitating presentations to non-culturally or linguistically specific community service providers, doctors, and law enforcement personnel about specific issues affecting our community. In addition to these activities, Sakhi has a robust calendar of community engagement events. |
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