Programs

  • Advocacy: Case Management Services

  • Thrive: Career training and coaching, financial literacy education, job placement assistance, and contextualized adult education.

  • Path: Safe Transitional Housing

  • Outreach & Community Engagement

  • Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation

  • Stand Against Forced Marriage

  • Aware: Mental Health resources

  • Women in Purple: Empowerment workshops

  • Against Elder Abuse

Our programs are free and target women from the greater Asia & MENA population who reside in Houston, Texas and surrounding counties. Our programs provide victims with holistic services that help guide them to rebuild their lives. Through legal help, mental health services, advocacy, financial literacy, english classes, and community resources we help them become empowered and independent, thus allowing them to learn to live without fear.

AADA staff will continue to follow-up with the victim to track their continued progress and address their short-term and long-term needs and goals.

Advocacy

Case Management Services

This program offers clients a direct case manager and translator (if needed) that helps them develop a safety plan (including emergency housing and protective orders), access and navigate legal resources (including divorce, immigration, child custody, police reports), and achieve economic independence (including finding stable transitional housing, education, and work).

Our case management service includes a network of legal experts, counseling and aid referrals who our case managers work with to help clients access vital resources. This program takes a one-on-one approach and is designed to meet the unique individual needs of our clients and language.

Thrive

Career training and coaching, financial literacy education, job placement assistance, and contextualized adult education.

In 2019, we entered into a partnership with the Chinese Community Center (CCC) to provide support services on financial stability through AADA’s Domestic Violence/THRIVE Demonstration Project. Through the collaborative effort, CCC provides support services such as career training and coaching, financial literacy and coaching, and job search assistance to help referred clients achieve long-term financial stability.

The goal of this demonstration project is to pilot models that will allow agencies to help domestic violence/sexual assault survivors with starting and/or continuing a path toward financial stability.

Within this program, AADA is responsible for client contact and screening; intensive case management, referrals, housing placement assistance, female empowerment workshops and advocacy. The CCC provides support services to clients referred by AADA. The support services include occupational training, job retention counseling, employment coaching, job placement assistance, on-the-job training opportunities and contextualized adult education. Clients also have access to financial education and coaching and to matched-savings and credit-building financial products.

AADA works closely with clients and their children to address their short-term and long-term needs and goals and transition them into a place of self-sufficiency and autonomy. Clients are supported through intensive individual case management, counseling sessions, medical and mental health assistance, court and immigration appointments, and facilitating stability and autonomy by transitioning them into safe housing and providing continued services as needed. Additionally, AADA interprets the contents of CCC’s job readiness program into multiple languages to allow clients with limited English proficiency to participate in parts of the program.

Path

Safe Transitional Housing

Since 2002, AADA has assisted victims of domestic abuse in securing safe transitional housing. The goal of the PATH program is to provide transitional housing assistance for survivors and help move them into long-term stable housing away from their abusers.

AADA provides housing in two ways: 1) direct rental assistance provided to a landlord in a scattered-site housing, 12 months on a sliding scale, and 2) directly renting an apartment or room in communal housing for up to 24 months.

The ability to support survivors to choose their own housing, and to decide what community they will live in, is crucial for their autonomy. For many of our survivors, their neighbors, their communities and schools, are their lifelines to safety, support, and connection. Having a safe and supportive environment helps our survivors better deal with the transition and stay employed while dealing with a diverse set of circumstances. For those without transportation, proximity to bus lines, employment and schools is crucial.

This program pairs with our THRIVE program, where our clients work towards financial independence.

Outreach & Community Engagement

In order to spread word about our organization and programs, our advocates and outreach coordinators disseminate informational materials to Asian cultural centers, ethnic religious institutions, such as temples, mosques and churches, international departments of universities, and Asian sororities and groups.

We work to form relationships with leaders in these organizations and provide them with training to help them recognize abuse and uplift survivors of violence. By working closely with leadership, we show their community that seeking help is welcome and reduces the stigma of speaking out.

In addition, AADA is listed as a service provider at local police stations, the Domestic Violence Hotline, and in all major women's shelters and centers in Houston.

Also, AADA has an active presence in many Houston cultural centers and attends many annual festivals (when not in a pandemic) with an information booth; including Chinese Lunar New Year events, the Japanese Festival, and Turkish, Persian, Lebanese and Korean cultural events.

We are connected to many Asian national and cultural institutions and organizations, including consulates, ethnic mosques, churches and temples, social media communities, and nonprofits.

Finally, AADA distributes brochures at nail salons, hair salons, women’s restroom stalls and grocery stores, locations that are frequently visited by the female Asian and MENA population. Our educational outreach efforts help reduce victimization rates by improving community solidarity with survivors.

During the pandemic, we shifted to a digital format and provided widely accessible webinars on domestic violence in collaboration with different cultural organizations. By maintaining a strong presence in the Asian and MENA community in Houston, and with a variety of victim services organizations throughout the area, AADA is able to provide services to a large number of victims, thereby improving our interventional abilities.

Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation

FGM/C (female genital mutilation/cutting) is a grotesque and inhumane phenomenon in which a part(s) of the female sexual organ is cut or mutilated in some way for social, cultural and/or non-medical reasons. FGM/C is the result of social conventions and pressures, cultural beliefs about the limitations of sexuality attributed to AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth).Though there is no practice of FGM/C written in religion, many religious leaders attribute it to the foundation and practice of religion.

Many of our victims/clients at AADA are under the threat of FGM/C since we focus on helping immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers from Asia, the Middle East, North, West, Sub-Saharan and Central Africa region; all regions that are known to practice FGM/C.

Actually, in 2016, Zahra Badri, 39, of Houston, who is originally from the United Kingdom, was charged in an indictment for transporting a minor from the United States to a foreign country for the purpose of FGM.

Through AADA you can also give funds to help women threatened with FGM/C or victims of this horrible female genital mutilation practice. Donate funds here.

Victims of FGM/C also get mental health care through our AWARE program.

Stand Against Forced Marriage

A forced marriage is one that takes place without the full and free consent of one or both parties. A person denied his or her right to choose whether, when, and whom to marry is likely to suffer psychological, sexual, and physical abuse. Forced marriage is a human rights violation that impacts communities around the world, even in the United States.

AADA offers assistance to anyone who is fleeing a forced marriage regardless of age, race, class, gender, immigration status, nationality, sexual orientation, or religion. We partner with survivors and other organizations to end forced marriage in the United States through direct services, education, outreach.

AWARE: Mental Health Resources

AADA’s AWARE’s program aims to educate and empower immigrant and refugee women and children from underserved populations to live a free and harmonious life, on their own terms. This holistic program offers culturally-specific group and individual counseling, mindfulness teachings, personal development coaching, nutrition and exercise education, and parenting support and education.

AWARE also offers specific programs for children from homes with domestic abuse to help them express their feelings, connect with their peers and embrace their heritage.

When a victim is struggling with their mental health, it is essential they receive quality and culturally sensitive therapy in order to improve their successful outcome.

Women in Purple: Empowerment Workshops

AADA offers women empowerment workshops we call Women in Purple, to each targeted Asian population.

Our workshops give women the skills and confidence to be advocates for themselves, their families, and their communities. During each workshop, women learn about financial literacy and resources available to them in order for them to become economically self-sufficient through employment, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy.

Against Elder Abuse

There is a growing belief that the prevalence and severity of elder mistreatment within Asian communities and immigrant and refugee populations are higher than previously suspected. According to the NAPCA (National Asian Pacific Center on Aging), a recent study, for example, revealed the two most common forms of abuse faced by AAPI older adults are caregiver neglect and financial exploitation.

Both Asian and MENA immigrants seem less likely than other populations to report abuse, often due to language, cultural, social, and institutional barriers. This program supports a comprehensive approach to addressing elder abuse in their communities.

 

You can make a difference.

Join us in our mission to eliminate domestic violence in our community. Your donation will help us continue to make a difference in our survivors lives.