Community Organizing

Ending Intra-Familial Violence: Community Organizing

The Asian & Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence is committed to community organizing with the goal of ending domestic violence and ensuring community accountability.  We view it both as a philosophy and a strategy, embedded in a social justice framework that emphasizes gender equity.  Organizing in our immigrant communities involves an intuitive and complex bi-cultural understanding and sensitivity to intra-ethnic, generational, class and regional differences. 

GOALS

• Raising awareness about the corrosive effects of domestic violence on individual, familial, and community strength.
• Empowering communities to frame the issues and decide on strategies.
• Placing the leadership of women, girls, youth, and other disenfranchised voices- disabled, queer, rural, monolingual women - at the center.
• Addressing the root causes of violence, the sustained devaluation of women, the impunity of abusers, and community complicity.
• Organizing cultural transformation by emphasizing individual and community accountability, and by establishing new social norms.

HOW CAN I START ORGANIZING IN MY COMMUNITY?

We offer some general guidelines and resources for mobilizing; knowing of course that strategies will vary depending on the issues, recent events and communities involved. 

Planning your outreach

• Who is at the table? Make this as inclusive a process as possible: consider the different constituencies that need to be represented and their level of awareness about the issues.  If there has been an incident, identify family/friends, meet with them and listen to their needs. Decide if you want to start with a small group and then expand it or start with a large group that can later form into sub-committees.
• Networks Identify existing support networks; allies; who else needs to be there, e.g., members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community, rural women, other ethnic groups, etc.  Network with individuals who are already working on the issue.
• Knowing the players Identify members of the community that might be difficult to work with; existing and potential leaders; and what community alliances or divisions they represent.
• Empowerment philosophies and strategies are critical, cultivate them in explicit and implicit way.  Work with existing leaders, facilitate new ones.

Researching and defining issues

• Starting where the people are It is crucial to engage community members in conversations about how they feel regarding the issue or event at hand; listening to different voices; ensuring that people feel respected.
• Framing issues, identifying goals How can we as organizers and members of the community frame the issue so that we get the optimum level of involvement e.g., making the shift from victim blaming to perpetrator accountability.  Establish a process for identifying goals collectively.
• Learning from others Find out what approaches and organizing strategies other ethnic communities have used; borrow from their successes and learn from their challenges.
• Assessing impactIf the organizing is around a recent incident, assess the impact on people close to the victim; if it is around an issue, assess its effects on community institutions and members. 
• Be prepared for difficult discussions or conflicts.  Attitudes like victim-blaming and opinions like defending a high-profile abuser can surface (after a domestic violence related homicide for example); anticipate and plan how to address conflicts - perhaps even using them to increase awareness.

Organizing

• Selecting strategies What are the possible strategies and which ones will work?  What are the positives and negatives of selecting a certain strategy?
• Conduct trainings designed for the entire community, or because of the sensitive nature of a topic, start with smaller groups.
• Optimize community involvement by including a broad group of people in your campaign e.g., hairdressers or beauty salon staff, religious institutions, ESL classes, health clinics, etc.
• Sharing responsibilities and dividing tasks between members of the planning group creates solidarity and efficiency, and facilitates learning as members commit to an action, whether it to organize a vigil or send e-mail messages.

Examples

• Conduct a series of educational workshops where members of the community come together e.g., neighbor hood center, mosque, health clinic
• Make a point to talk about issues at gatherings with family and friends.
• Bring up the issue with organizations that do not typically get involved with domestic violence, e.g., the consulate general's office, or the ethnic press
• Conduct a demonstration or a vigil: this is effective after a well-publicized incident in building a community awareness campaign and at the same time getting the media involved.
• Hold showings of documentary videos or films that raise issues - directly or indirectly - about domestic violence at your local community center followed by a debriefing.

If you need assistance organizing in your community or would like to share strategies that have worked please email our Community Development Program Coordinator apidvinstitute@apiahf.org

Read more on Resources for Community Organizing

Analysis | Statistics | Ethnic Specific Information | Organizing