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Copyright © 2005 PAIRWN. All rights reserved.
PAIRWN is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, grassroots organization.
Updated 01/22/07.
People We Serve
PAIRWN seeks to meet the needs of a large and underserved population. Our work centers on immigrant and refugee women Ewe seek to provide these women with support and voice. In helping women, we often work with families as a whole and with people of all ages, genders, nationalities, races, and religions.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Pennsylvania is currently home to a foreign-born population of over 565,000 people. PAIRWN currently serves the immigrant and refugee communities of Central Pennsylvania in the six counties of Dauphin, Cumberland, Lancaster, York, Lebanon, and Perry surrounding the state capital of Harrisburg. Women from the regions of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Erie have great need for our help, and we hope to extend soon our reach outward to those populations, bringing our total audience to over half a million people.
All
leadership and decision-making responsibilities have been and always
will be reserved for immigrant and refugee women.
However, all people interested in our mission and projects are
welcome to become members and/or partner with our organization.
Our
organization is contacted for help and support from men in immigrant and
refugee communities, and we certainly do not turn away such requests,
but aid those people in finding the help they need through referrals to
other organizations and networks.
After our first year, our membership was 10 people. By 2006, after five years of organizing, our membership has reached 100 people. Our members hail from North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. We estimate that 75% of our members live at or below poverty level and 95% have limited English language skills. Our membership includes both women and men, native-born and immigrants and refugees to the United States.
For all events, we advertise to the greatest extent appropriate and possible in the major languages of local immigrant and refugee communities. These include English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Turkish, Russian, and Bosnian. In addition, our quarterly newsletter, Our Voice, is distributed to over 700 people, focused in Pennsylvania but reaching across the country.