RAWA Projects facing Serious Danger of Closure: Please Make a Donation!
December 11, 2012
Dear supporters of RAWA and Afghan Women’s Mission,
This year was our most financially challenging year since our organization began nearly 13 years ago. As you may recall, about a year ago our fiscal sponsor IHC collapsed losing all our funds, and the funds of about 200 other organizations. Click here to read about it.
While we have found a wonderful new sponsor, SEE, we have raised only a tiny fraction of the funding we normally receive from donors like you this year. Tragically, the main sponsor of RAWA’s flagship project, Danish School, has also been unable to provide the funding we need. In fact, the money we have raised this year are barely enough to fund two months of Danish School operations.
The loss of our funds, and the global economic recession have created a perfect storm that now threatens closure of all of RAWA’s life-saving work.
Click here to make a donation.
In RAWA’s own words, here is an assessment of how dire the situation is:
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) has always relied on its supporters all over the world for financial assistance, and especially its supporters in the US, and never turned to any other source. We understand the many difficulties you face, which makes us even more proud when you work hard to help us as well. Please don’t forget RAWA, the only anti-fundamentalist and independence-seeking female organization of Afghanistan, in these hard days, and enable us to implement all our projects in the coming year so that your donation is spent in ways that truly help Afghanistan and its suffering people.
Crisis of IHC has caused a lot of problems for us, we had to limit our programs in Afghanistan due to acute shortage of fund. If we could not raise enough fund, RAWA may have to close down a school that we run inside Afghanistan for Afghan girls.
Click here to make a donation.
As you know, the situation in Afghanistan remains grim, particularly for women. This week Najia Sediqi, the head of the women’s affairs department for eastern Laghman province was shot and killed. And, a new United Nations Report released on December 11, 2012, finds that three years after a law protecting women was enacted, “Afghan women are frequent victims of abuse,” and “the overall use of the law remained low, indicating there is still a long way to go before women and girls in Afghanistan are fully protected from violence through the law.” Click here to read a news article about the UN report.
RAWA continues their hard work of creating a better Afghanistan through education, literacy projects, and more. But they cannot do it without your financial solidarity. We know that there are many worthy causes vying for your hard earned dollars this holiday season. Please consider making a donation to preserve RAWA’s projects before the end of this year. Your donation is tax-deductible in the United States to the extent of the law, and may be tax-deductible in other countries as well.
Click here to make a donation.
Read More...7th Annual Fair Trade and Conscious Gifts holiday Bazaar
November 10, 2012
WHEN: Saturday December 1st, from 10 am to 3 pm
WHERE: Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 3300 Wilshire Blvd, LA CA 90005 (Geneva Room – wheelchair accessible)
Browse through a large selection of affordable, sweat-shop free arts and crafts made by artisans internationally and locally, including embroidered pillow-covers, wallets and purses from Afghanistan, locally made jewelry, blankets, scarves and tote-bags, candles, soaps, oils, fair trade coffee & honey, conscious books, CDs, and including the famous soup beans by the Women’s Bean Project…plus much more!
Afghan Women’s Mission will be a proud vendor at the 7th Annual Holiday Bazaar! We will have purses, jewelry, trinket boxes, and more, handmade from Afghanistan. All sales will benefit AWM’s important projects!
Click here to download a flyer for the event.
FREE ENTRANCE & complementary refreshments while you shop
All proceeds will directly benefit the artists and workers who made the items.
More information at www.9to5california.org. This event is organized by 9to5 Los Angeles and co-sponsored by Afghan Women’s Mission. KPFK is the media sponsor.
Read More...
On October 15, 2012, Afghan Women’s Mission Co-Director Sonali Kolhatkar was a featured guest on Huffpost Live hosted by Ahmed Shihab-Eldin. The program focused on the on-going attacks against women in Afghanistan. Other panelists included Manizha Naderi, Executive Director of Women for Afghan Women, Jean MacKenzie, correspondent with the Global Post, and Jennifer Hunt, an Army Reservist who served in Afghanistan.
The panelists were asked the following question:
Violence against women spiked to its highest level since the Taliban’s fall. Will a U.S. troop withdrawal contribute to an increase in the region’s assault on women?
Watch the video below:
Statement on the Attack Against 14-Year-Old Malala Yousafzai
by Malalai Joya
Once again we see a crime against women by dark-minded and brutal fundamentalists. Malala Yousafzai was shot by Pakistani Taliban because she did not remain silent about the ongoing crimes and brutalities against women; because, despite her young age, she had the consciousness to stand for her rights and say ‘no’ to the terrorism and misogyny of the creatures of the Stone Age.
Read More...Dear friends and supporters,
As may know, in December 2011, IHC, our former fiscal sponsor, lost more than $400,000 worth of donations ear-marked for RAWA’s amazing projects (for the full story, click here). Although we have found a new and wonderful fiscal sponsor, SEE, we are still reeling from this devastating blow. We are trying to rebuild, move forward, and continue our support for RAWA’s work.
Help us rebuild this Women’s History Month!
For every online donation of $100 made in March 2012, we will mail a copy of the remarkable book by Malalai Joya, A Woman Among Warlords, as our “thank you gift” to you.
This book, by one of Afghanistan’s most famous women, chronicles the history of Afghanistan, and its current precarious position, through the eyes of one courageous woman. Every $100 donation will be used toward RAWA’s life saving projects that benefit Afghan women.
Read More...
ABC Channel 7 in Los Angeles interviewed AWM Co-Director Sonali Kolhatkar about the devastating loss of funds.
Click here to watch the news story.
Read More...By Jeff Gottlieb, Los Angeles Times
February 14, 2012
More than 200 nonprofit groups, from animals rights organizations to political activists, said most of their donated funds appear to have vanished after the organization that watched over the money suddenly ceased operations last month.
The International Humanities Center closed its offices, took down its Web page and informed its clients by email that it has ceased operation. The center served as an umbrella organization for small nonprofit groups, handling their donations and performing administrative duties.
Read More...Dear friends and supporters of Afghan Women’s Mission and RAWA,
We are deeply saddened to inform you of a devastating incident that has affected our operations.
We were informed in mid-December 2011 that International Humanities Center (IHC), the non-profit group that we had hired to manage our funds since 2003, has lost all of our donations. All of the nearly 200 organizations that had accounts with IHC are the victims of this theft. Altogether, about $400,000 donated to Afghan Women’s Mission to fund RAWA’s projects were lost.
Nothing prepared us for this. We were, and still are, in shock.
Read More...6th Annual Fair Trade and Conscious Gifts Holiday Bazaar
November 15, 2011
WHEN: Saturday December 10th, from 11 am to 4 pm
WHERE: Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 3300 Wilshire Blvd, LA CA 90005 (Geneva Room – wheelchair accessible)
Don’t spend your hard earned dollars at the mall, buying overpriced gifts made in countries with no labor or environmental protections!
Shop with a clear conscience at our 6th Annual Fair Trade and Conscious Gifts Holiday Bazaar.
Browse through a wide selection of hand-made goods made either internationally with fair-trade standards, or locally by LA-based artists.
There will be jewelry, purses, pillow covers, and more from Afghanistan, as well as books, T-shirts, candles, soaps, oils, handicrafts, and much much more!
Click here to view our new inventory of hand-made gifts from Afghanistan, made in RAWA’s income generation projects
Download the flyer here.
Entrance is Free. There will be complementary hot coffee and tea plus delectable cookies and pastries!
Read More...Our event last Friday was a great success! The Skype connection with Afghanistan was impeccable, with excellent sound and video quality. Thanks to our friends at Keycode Media, we were able to stream the event live and capture a full recording, which we now present (after minor edits to clean up dead time and fix some graphics).
For those who missed our live webcast with Reena of RAWA, here it is:
Read More...
So Cal Events |
Events and Announcements
- RAWA Projects facing Serious Danger of Closure: Please Make a Donation!
- 7th Annual Fair Trade and Conscious Gifts holiday Bazaar
- Huffpost Live: No Escaping the Taliban
- ‘The Courage to Say No to Misogyny’
- Help us Rebuild This Women’s History Month
- Nonprofits say funds gone with center’s closing
>> Read More...
Afghanistan News Wire
- Huffpost Live: No Escaping the Taliban
- Nonprofits fear money in center’s care vanished
- Gareth Porter: Taliban Hijack the US’s Narrative
- Malalai Joya, Afghan war critic, gets U.S. visa
- U.S. Government Embarrassed by Afghan Woman Again
- Malalai Joya Named by Guardian Newspaper as Top 100 Women
>> Read More...
Press Releases
- Tenth Anniversary of Afghanistan War: RAWA Member Available for Interviews
- U.S. Responds to Broad Public Campaign, Grants Malalai Joya Visa!
- US government denies entry visa to Afghan women’s rights activist and author Malalai Joya
- Leading Afghan Feminist Urges Immediate end to U.S. War
- A Woman Among Warlords – Malalai Joya Available for Interviews
- Afghan Women’s Rights Activist Calls for an End to US Occupation
>> Read More...