History

Compassionate Volunteers

The organization that is today MAWA began in 1998 when two of the African women founding members met as advocates in a battered women’s shelter in the Twin Cities. Seeing the plight of African women clients - the isolation, cultural misunderstanding and bewilderment - the two African women advocates began speculating on setting up a center that could provide culturally appropriate services for African women in such situations. They began extending themselves in their own free time to help meet the unseen needs of these clients - doing language and cultural translation with lawyers, using MAWA to meet their immigration needs, providing emotional support, self-esteem building and violence prevention education while recognizing the cultural values and barriers that guide the choices of their African women clients. The gratitude of the women they worked with was their only reward.

MAWA Incorporates

Eventually, as they got more involved with diverse African communities in the Twin Cities, they began learning more about the areas in which there were gaps in programming - African teen moms, sexual exploitation of younger girls by older men on the promise of US citizenship, etc. These unmet needs led the two African women advocates to incorporate MAWA as a nonprofit in 2002 so they could provide services to these refugee and immigrant women who are mostly low-income.

The MAWA Board Guides Policy

MAWA - the Minnesota African Women’s Association - has a board of Cameroonian, Kenyan, Liberian, Sudanese, Somali, Tanzanian and American members. We believe that for African women to transit into their new American culture more effectively, we need the input of Americans as well as Africans. Board members are advocates, community leaders, educators, nurses, cultural translators, journalists and social workers who have served African women back in Africa and in the US for over twenty years. Our board also includes African men because we cannot address African women’s issues without including the men.