Like many Asian and Pacific Islander community agencies, Maitri, based in Santa Clara, California, grew from humble roots: responding to needs in their community, three women started a confidential phone line for South Asian women experiencing domestic violence. In the nearly three decades since, Maitri has empowered over 30,000 survivors, expanding to add programs such as transitional housing, legal advocacy, and economic empowerment, and becoming a trusted resource for the South Asian community.  

Prominent among Maitri's services is its immigration program, built and run by Client Advocacy Program Manager Zakia Afrin, who explains, "We offer survivor driven advocacy, which means our direct services follow the path our clients lead us to." Recognizing that many survivors faced barriers related to their immigration status at many junctures from divorce and custody to employment and housing, Maitri began building the capacity to assist clients around immigration issues. In 2011, Maitri became the first domestic violence agency in Santa Clara County to get recognition from the Board of Immigration Appeals to represent clients in immigration matters through accredited staff members. The program now annually serves 50 to 60 clients with their unique immigration needs.

Maitri's decades of service has allowed it to witness encouraging trends within its community. Youth today are increasingly engaged in anti-violence, equity and justice activism, and the domestic violence field is finding its place in and drawing strength from various intersections of anti-religious, anti-racism, and anti-oppression movements. Yet while we reflect on the movement, Domestic Violence Awareness Month also reminds that it's the smaller stories that stick with us. To that end, we asked Zakia to share about something that's had an impact in her work. She writes:

"Over the years, I have met so many wonderful resilient individuals sweeping through obstacles and finding themselves. Many who chose to continue in their less than ideal relationship also has also offered important lesson about choices. The one scenario I keep going back to you is a father with his two loving children and his struggles both internally within the anti DV movement and externally with the systems that offer rehabilitation. We begin to work together when he was sleeping in his car with the children and by the time we parted our ways he found himself a respectable job and a small apartment where the family found solace. His strength taught me a lot, being vulnerable as a man to come out as a victim was the first step of empowerment for him. The rest followed naturally. I feel blessed to have worked with him and appreciated how far we need to go to truly become gender inclusive in our services."