OUR HISTORY
Http://www.Napawf.Org
NAPAWF is the only national, multi-issue APA women's organization in the country. NAPAWF's mission is to build a movement to advance social justice and human rights for APA women and girls.
1995 Fourth U.N. World Conference on Women - Beijing, China At the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing Asian and Pacific Islander American female activists at the non-governmental organization (NGO) forums were confronted with two profound realizations.
First, although they were gathered in an Asian country, they had no organized voice for Asian or Pacific Islander women from the United States to participate in the official UN conference.
Second, although each of them as individuals worked long and hard on their respective issues (safety, economic justice, reproductive rights, equal educational access, health, immigrant and refugee rights, civil rights and LGBTQ rights) their work was not linked in any sustained or meaningful way back home in the United States.
Despite the difficult logistics of organizing in a rain-soaked suburb of Beijing, 100 women came together over two caucuses and pledged to build and sustain a national, progressive, multi-issue movement of APA women in the United States when they returned home. A year later, in September 1996, 157 women became the founding sisters of NAPAWF at a gathering in Los Angeles.
September 21 & 22, 1996 - Los Angeles Over 150 women participated in the Founding Gathering in Los Angeles, California. Concrete results of this event include: formation of regional Chapters, the National Transition Team (interim leadership body) comprised of representatives from different regions; identification of platform issue areas; formation of the Fundraising, Media/Communications, Membership/Outreach, and Governance Committees. The first gathering that established the organization also created a chapter and membership structure, a national transition team, identification of issue areas and formation of working committees.
1997: NAPAWF became a project of the Tides Center.
Summer 1998: NAPAWF National Summit, Minnesota Over 100 women gathered in Minnesota to ratify the platform issues papers [LINK] and to establish governance procedures.
1997 - 2001: NAPAWF had several part-time coordinators based in California over these years: Milyoung Cho, Christine Balance, Jenny Lin and Judy Han.
April 2003: NAPAWF established the national office in Washington, DC and hired Kiran Ahuja as its first national director.
March 2004: NAPAWF held its first national conference entitled: "Building an APA Women's Movement: A National Economic Justice Gathering".