Sahiyo U.S. would like to thank our friends at the South Asian Bar Association (SABA) of North America Foundation for a core support grant award of $6,500. The SABA Foundation supports access to justice for South Asian communities in North America and advances causes important to the communities they serve. They fund work related to domestic violence intervention; immigration rights; prevention of and support for victims of hate crimes, discrimination and racial profiling; and other community access to justice issues.
These funds will help Sahiyo specifically by expanding our Community Outreach and Education program, which trains health care providers, government officials, law enforcement, social services, and other community based organizations on ways to support female genital cutting (FGC) survivors; planning for our next annual Activists Retreat, where we train advocates to continue their work raising awareness against FGC; providing organizing power to FGC survivors in states that don’t yet have policy against FGC; and conducting valuable research investigating the needs of FGC survivors and the intersections of FGC and other oppressions, such as discrimination based on race, gender, religion, sexuality, and diverse migrant experiences.