The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

Proposal Development for a Participatory Action Research Project on Sexual Violence as Experienced by Undocumented Immigrant Women
 
Background:
In conjunction with the Spring semester course on Monitoring and Evaluation, the Alliance developed and piloted participatory instruments with undocumented immigrant women to explore the scope and impact of sexual violence on their lives; their knowledge of and ability to access health, counseling, legal and other services after an assault and their ideas around prevention of sexual violence.  Each group piloted a different set of PAR tools: the scope and impact group worked with immigrant women from several different backgrounds and utilized a traditional focus group format to explore the women's personal experiences with sexual violence and also developed a listing and ranking exercise that asked the question "What are the biggest issues facing women in your community?" The intervention group worked with African women and designed a vignette or story about a woman who experienced marital rape and then had the group explore several different scenarios about the ending of the story (i.e. the woman decided to tell someone, who does she tell? Where can she go?) The prevention group worked with Latina women and designed a strategy diagram to explore the question of how can we work to prevent sexual violence from occurring in the first place?
After each group, the students asked the women to debrief on their experience participating in the group. Thus, we have very useful information on what questions and tools worked well and what we need to improve.

Based on this initial pilot stage, the Alliance has reached out to several immigrant-focused community-based organizations to develop a joint citywide PAR project on sexual and dating violence among undocumented immigrant women. The planning group currently consists of the following organizations in addition to the Alliance:
1    Sauti Yetu Center for African Women,
2    Sakhi for South Asian Women,
3    Arab American Family Support Center,
4    Planned Parenthood NYC, Bronx Immigrant Outreach,
5. New School, GPIA The group is continuing to outreach to other organizations throughout the city.

Tasks: The student practicum team tasks will include the following:
1. Work with the planning committee to conceptualize the PAR structure for a citywide project,
2. Reach out to other community-based organizations to include them in the planning committee,
3. Research and report to the planning committee on best practice and innovative examples of cross-site PAR projects,
4. Work closely with each of the participating organizations to write a comprehensive funding proposal for the first stage of a citywide project,
a. This funding proposal will include a literature review of any research done to date with undocumented immigrant women around sexual violence; any work done with undocumented immigrants that utilizes PAR and any PAR work that is cross-site with multiple languages,
b. The funding proposal will also include a detailed program description that the team will help develop,
c. The funding proposal will include a detailed description of the partner organizations, the work they have done on the topic of sexual and/or dating violence and any experience they have with PAR or community-based research
d. The funding proposal will include a monitoring and evaluation plan, and
e. The funding proposal will include a detailed budget and timeline.
5. Working closely with the committee, identify and follow-up with project officers at key funding foundations. This may include informal phone calls with grant managers and formulating letters of intent for foundations, corporations or federal funding.

End Deliverable:
1    Written funding proposal, approximately 20 pages in length
2    List of possible funders with proposal requirements and contact people

Benefit to the Alliance:
No research currently exists on the topic of sexual and dating violence among undocumented immigrant women in NYC. This project represents an innovative and ground-breaking initiative to break the silence around both sexual and domestic violence within these communities.  This project will allow the Alliance and other community-based organizations and service providers to reach out to one of the most isolated communities in NYC and provide much need services and support.  Due to the participatory nature of the project, immigrant women will be involved in the entire process, thus empowering these women in many ways. Together, we can begin to prevent sexual violence from occurring in NYC.

Core Documents

Additional Documents