Take a deeper look at our stories from around the world.
Watch our videos to learn how AJWS is supporting people around the world who are fighting to improve the lives of millions.
We support women, girls and LGBTQI+ people, as they organize to end discrimination, stop violence and live with dignity, safety and health.
A tribute to a truly extraordinary leader, AJWS’s former President and its first Global Ambassador.
Get to know Robert Bank! Robert joined AJWS in 2009 as our Executive Vice President. As of July 1, 2016, Robert became the President and CEO of AJWS.
A look at the work we do to end poverty and promote human rights in the developing world.
We aid communities and movements organizing to protect the land, water and natural resources that people depend on for their survival.
Each year, 15 million girls worldwide are married before the age of 18—sometimes against their will. AJWS supports efforts to end child marriage by bringing girls and young women together to define their own futures.
We aid communities and movements that speak out against injustice, hold governments accountable to respect the rights of all people, and work to recover from civil wars and other conflicts.
Witness social change up close through these videos from around the globe. You'll watch a day in the life of an activist AJWS supports and learn how they change lives and build social movements for justice.
In celebration of AJWS’s 30th anniversary, we profiled 30 global leaders who have partnered with AJWS to build a better world.
It was Yanilda Juan, 23, who brought her family to Muñecas Negras. Today, her sisters and their daughters joined: seven Juan women in all. “This project doesn’t just teach us to stitch dolls. It teaches us to love ourselves, our roots, our ancestors, our hair, our skin. To understand that everything we have is gold, …
The Muñecas Negras initiative brings together women and girls, largely from communities of Haitian descent, in rural areas across the Dominican Republic — giving them a safe space to connect, take pride in their identity and learn about their history, all while creating dolls that share their skin color. Below, step into Batey Carmona to …
Welcome to Activists Up Close, our new video series inviting you inside the lives of human rights activists that AJWS supports around the world. Mercy, Misael and Pisey are all working every day to build a better future for their communities. Below, you’ll hear their inspiring stories told proudly in their own words. The work …
Living as an LGTBQI+ person in Kenya has always meant living under threat — often from your own community and certainly from the laws of the country, which makes same-sex relationships illegal. But AJWS grantees, led by truly inspiring activists, are creating change city by city. Esther “Essy” Adhiambo is one powerful activist at the …
As a teenager, Khushi Prajapati worried for her future. Her family had lost everything. Forced to move to a Delhi slum, she worked long hours as a maid, but the family could barely make ends meet. If she didn’t figure out a plan for her future, Khushi faced the likely prospect of an unwanted, early …
RAJASTHAN, INDIA — At 23, Manju Kumari is already a sarpanch, the elected head of her rural village. And she’s one of a rising number of women in India filling these political positions, ever since the government reserved a proportion of village leadership seats for women. But in the face of longstanding gender inequality and …
In El Salvador last year, a group of local farmers proved that water is more valuable than gold. The situation was dire: An upswing in gold mining had poisoned the water supply and caused dramatic increases in cancer and kidney disease. Twelve grassroots groups organized thousands of local people to pressure the government to intervene. …
In a garden in Casamance, Senegal, sprouts poke hopefully out of the soil.
In 1981, during the Guatemalan armed conflict, 21-year-old political activist Emma Molina Theissen was arrested, brutally raped and tortured for nine days by the military.
In 2010, as rumors of a same-sex wedding swirled in the conservative coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, angry Muslim and Christian religious leaders mobilized locals to “flush out the gays.”
