A Message from the Board

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Dear Supporters,

Hope everyone is staying safe from this scorching summer heat. Awaaz has had an unrelentingly, driven, and highly productive season, with our back to back events, several clients with diverse needs, new volunteers, and Board members’ orientations. We continue to devise new training formats for volunteers and client advocates, and expand the existing ones. We held our two hour in-person training session recently. We have also successfully continued to forge relationships with new legal, advocacy and law enforcement organizations, and strengthen our resource base. Outreach is critical to sustaining and growing Awaaz. It’s about connecting, networking, finding resources, educating, and sharing our message. Everyday has been a learning experience and we are all the more enriched by our whirlwind of a spring season. This has also been the season when many supporters have come forward with ideas and resources to expand and enhance Awaaz such as holding fundraisers for us, to advancing our educational and networking strategies. Please see the Events page below for details. 

We are immensely grateful to our Advisor, Lopita Nath, for hosting a cultural fundraiser for us on May 21, 2023. Lopita, the students, and gurus of her Rhythmosaic Kathak dance school, worked hard for weeks to put together a stunning show for a great cause. We also had numerous events these past few months both within our South Asian community and other local communities such as the UTSA Asian Festival, World Refugee Day, and India Independence Day. Please see Past Events section below for pictures.

We are grateful to have received a grant through the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence (APIGBV)’s Support for Survivor’s program. Besides helping us make important hires, grants enable us to help our clients financially for rent, food, medical and school supplies, career/job specific courses, and college tuition. Nothing is more rewarding than seeing these incredible survivors empowered and ready to claim their basic human right to a dignified and healthy life. 

We are thrilled to announce that Jinny Suh has joined the Awaaz team as our Executive Director. Jinny comes with very impressive credentials and years of leadership experience in various organizations in legal and management capacities. Please see Events section for an intro. We would also like to extend a warm welcome to our new Board members Jane Shafer, Purvi Patel and Durga Suryadevara and enthusiastic volunteers including: Mona Munro, Jayanta Das, Vinod Nandlal, Subathra Devi, Rupal Patel, Emma Patel, Dev Patel, Lichi Patel, Isha Patel, Amaya Patel and Farzana Khatak Escobar. As we have said before and cannot reiterate enough, our volunteers are our strongest assets and we are eternally grateful for them.

Thank you for your interest and support of Awaaz. Please contact us to find out more about us and what we do.

Sincerely
Awaaz Board

A message from Jinny Suh:

Dear Awaaz Network,

My name is Jinny Suh and I am so delighted to be your new Executive Director. I have a long history as a Board member of AFSSA (Asian Family Support Services of Austin) in Austin and I have a lot of experience in the nonprofit world. I am excited to work towards broadening Awaaz's reach and solidifying and expanding upon its mission as we move into the future. My professional experience is an amalgamation of working as an attorney, acting as an operations professional, and in general, doing the work that will put good out into the world. If you would ever like to chat with me to express your thoughts, desires, or hopes for Awaaz, please feel free to reach out. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to serve in such an important role.

With gratitude,
Jinny Suh



Human Trafficking Seminar
We were happy to have had the University of Texas in San Antonio Political Science and Geography Departments on May 6, 2023 co-host an important educational seminar with us on human trafficking and exploitation of children both in India, US, and the world. We are looking forward to partnering with them in future to continue raising awareness about human rights abuses that neglected and marginalized people of the world endure. We are also looking forward to partnering with other educational institutions in the near future in our efforts to educate the public about DV and its domino effect. We are very grateful to our community member, artiste, women’s rights activist and journalist Sheela Ramanan for attending and participating in the event and also for writing an article on Awaaz and the event in the Chennai based online newspaper DINMALAR. Click here for article.

             

Texas Coalition for Survivors
Two Awaaz board members, Tapasi and Jyotsna attended a meeting in Austin on February 13, 2023, to form a coalition of organizations in Texas who support survivors of Intimate Partner Violence. The coalition partners with AFSSA (Asian Family Support Services of Austin) , TMWF (Texas Muslim Women’s Federation), Mosaic and Awaaz to discuss common concerns and goals of Asian survivors of IPV and policy and legislative advancement, collective working/sharing resources, and help disseminate information as policy is changed. In particular, we discussed the need to support each other as there is a rapidly growing Asian population in Texas that is recognized as a voting power. 

Over the past six months, the coalition has continued to meet once a month virtually to discuss legislative issues of concern to IPV survivors that are supported by FVPS. The continued engagement with lawmakers on issues of concern to IPV survivors is needed to have access to immigration, language, and mental health resources for victims and survivors.