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Domestic Violence Outreach Expands

Services to be offered in East Bay

Robert Ross and Sherry Hirota of the California Endowment present a check for $532, 263 to Becky Masaki, middle, executive director of the S.F.-based Asian Women's Shelter. Photo by Tom Lee.

By Tom Lee

The Asian Women’s Shelter Collaborative to End Domestic Violence will now be able to offer its services to the East Bay due to a grant from the state’s largest private health foundation. During a luncheon ceremony on Aug. 17, the California Endowment presented a check of more than $532,000 to the Collaborative, which is made up of the Asian Women’s Shelter, Cameron House, Narika, and Nihonmachi Legal Outreach.

The grant is a renewal of a 1998 grant of $556,573 to create a system of services for API victims of domestic violence who have limited English language abilities. That grant provided domestic violence services to over 20,000 people in San Francisco County. With the renewal, the Collaborative will bring the program to Alameda County, where APIs are the fastest growing population.

Many women and children of Asian descent face additional barriers as domestic violence victims, according to Beckie Masaki, executive director of the Asian Women’s Shelter. “Many do not speak English and are unaware of their legal rights,” she said. “There is also the fear of the stigma associated with leaving a relationship even when it is abusive. The Collaborative addresses their needs and concerns in a culturally-sensitive manner.”

Masaki also stressed the loneliness some women may feel because of ethnic barriers. “Lack of English skills, immigration issues, housing issues, economic issues, all feed into the isolation that battered Asian women experience,” she said. “[We] have come together to break that [cycle].”

The Asian Women’s Shelter Collaborative to End Domestic Violence provides battered women access to multicultural, multilingual care and services designed to reduce domestic violence in Asian communities. Such services include crisis counseling, multilingual hotlines, emergency shelter, public education, and employment-readiness training. The Collaborative also does translations for court trials and offers legal representation.

The Collaborative was formed in 1995 by four community organizations dedicated to providing services aimed at the prevention and elimination of domestic violence in the Asian community. This joint effort allowed the agencies to provide a system of care beyond the capacity of one organization alone.

“It’s an incredible group of organizations,” said Rev. Frank Chuck, of Cameron House, emphasizing the different aspects each organization brings to the culturally and linguistically sensitive program. “It’s like pieces of a puzzle that fit together.”

“We’re very grateful to the California Endowment for acknowledging the significance of the collaboration of separate organizations working together,” said Chuck. “I really feel this is the wave of the future to serve our community more effectively.”

The $532,263 check was presented to the Collaborative by Robert Ross, M.D., president and CEO of the California Endowment, who said jokingly, “I was extremely proud to sign the check. I would’ve given you more.”

Ross recalled how this particular grant proposal stood out from the rest as an issue of particular substance and importance. “The greatest thing about this [grant] is that this is an investment in community, in ideas, in people,” he said. “It says what we are as an organization, that we believe in partnerships and collaborations and multicultural kinds of approaches.”

The California Endowment is a private health foundation with a mission to expand access to affordable health care for underserved individuals and communities. It gives $50 million a year in grants to non-profit organizations that are able to identify their own health issues and resolutions that will benefit the well-being of its communities.

Grants like the one to the Collaborative will help the California Endowment understand how domestic violence in Asian communities starts and how it is dealt with, said California Endowment trustee, Sherry Hirota. “We are responding to the need to address domestic violence and the more hidden health problems in the Asian Pacific Islander community. Over time we will be reviewing the program. It’ll give us insight and evaluation of what [the problems are].”