(Posted 2021 October)
Tahirih Justice Center, a national nonprofit with offices in Washington, D.C./Baltimore; California, Georgia and Texas, serves women, girls and other immigrants fleeing gender-based violence. The organization combines free legal services and social services case management with policy advocacy, training and education. Their programs leverage donated professional services from a network of attorneys, medical professionals and other experts to serve as many immigrant survivors as possible.
It is these services that dovetail Tahirih’s mission with those of the Domestic Violence Action Center (DVAC), making their partnership such an asset.
“We both have benefited from the partnership,” says Hellitz Villegas, project associate with Tahirih’s Forced Marriage Initiative. “It likely was one of those ‘we’re here, let’s make sure we all know about resources’ [we can share]. We were involved in several Tier 1 trainings. We’ve provided training and legal rights issues related to immigrants. We’ve had pretty intensive training from Domestic and Sexual Violence staff on stalking. It’s a partnership with lots of training, lots of relying on each other for our expertise and a lot of client referrals. Whenever you can get firsthand knowledge from a program you partner with, it just makes the rapport with survivors so much easier.”
Angela Yeboah, project coordinator with DVAC, agrees. “Our partnership provides us the opportunity to efficiently connect clients with comprehensive services through trauma-informed direct referrals.”
Immigrants who are survivors of gender-based violence and need legal aid in the Washington, D.C., area can call 571-282-6161 weekdays from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tahirih is currently closed to new clients because the case load has grown exponentially during the pandemic and the Afghan refugee crisis, but the organization still provides support and referrals to community partners.
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