Advocacy

RIWC

African Health Action in collaboration with 6 other organizations have created the Refugee Immigrant Women for Change (RIWC). The six organization forming RIWC are: African Health Action Corporation (AHA); CAPI; CENTRO; Lao Women is part of the Lao Assistance Center; Liberian Women's Initiative Minnesota (LiWIM); SEWA-AIFW ; and Women’s Initiative for Self Empowerment (WISE). RIWC mission is to build the capacity and leadership of the RIWC organizations to plan, design, and implement programs to achieve gender equality for refugee and immigrant women.

RIWC Vision

Refugee and immigrant women and our communities thrive in a gender equitable world where we have:

• Violence-free homes and communities
• Access to health care, education, and life-skills training
• Economic independence and vitality

RIWC Goals and Strategies

• GOAL 1: Review and assess the refugee/immigrant context related to gender equality and women’s empowerment to identify gaps of knowledge and cultural rooted barriers.
• GOAL 2: Organize community workshops to raise public awareness on the status, conditions, and rights of refugee and immigrant women.
• GOAL 3: Build and develop the human capital of staff, participants, and partners to incorporate gender and cultural issues to enable women to realize basic rights.

RIWC Future

Over the next 12 months, we are committed to conduct a series of gender analysis activities to shape the RIWC Action Plan to integrate gender perspective and sensitivity into all of our current and future programs and services.