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In anticipation of an upcoming volume of New Feminist Solutions (NFS), last month, executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Women Tiloma Jayasinghe and her colleagues came together to discuss ways to broaden and transform the anti-domestic violence movement so that it brings the needs of communities of color to the center.
For April’s episode of Dare to Use the F-Word, the BCRW’s monthly podcast, Amrita Doshi and I wanted to focus on a fellow young feminist working at Sakhi. Her work may not seem obviously related to Sakhi’s mission, but it is in fact crucial to the organization’s overall goals. Caritas Doha is a fellow at Sakhi working on an initiative surrounding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. DACA is an immigration-related Executive Order that targets undocumented immigrants who came to the United States when they were children and who have lived in the US most of their lives. If applicants are approved they receive a two year protection from deportation and the right to work.
Image by takomabibelot from Flickr Creative Commons
Both Amrita and I have previous connections to Sakhi: Amrita has been interning with Sakhi since January, while last semester I worked with the organization through a class (co-taught by Barnard’s Professors Bernstein and Jakobsen) called Theorizing Activism. As a part of this class, students were split into five groups which then were partnered with local activist groups in New York City. Three of my classmates and I were partnered with Sakhi and, under Tiloma’s supervision, researched the “state of the field” of South Asian women’s organizations across the country.