Past WAW Events archive 2001 - 2009 here

2013

• WAW announces second gala event in on May 30, 2013 in NYC. The gala will honor Hillary Clinton and Doris Buffet.

2012

• Manizha Naderi organizes a panel on Afghan women's rights at the Association of Women in Development (AWID) conference in Istanbul, Turkey, on April 21. Panelists are Manizha, Fawzia Koofi (MP and 2014 Presidential candidate) and Maria Bashir (Chief Prosecutor General, Herat Province).
• WAW and Feminist Majority Foundation issue a joint statement at Shadow Summit to NATO Summit in Chicago, May 18.
• WAW-NY launches ESL class for Afghan women in Long Island.

2011

• WAW, along with other NGOs, fights a government attempt to take over all  women's shelters in Afghanistan.  For now, the autonomy of women's shelters is preserved.
• WAW launches the Family Guidance Center in Badakhshan.
• WAW launches the Family Guidance Center in Faryab.
• WAW launches the Family Guidance Center in Sare-pul.
• WAW launches two Children's Suport Centers, in Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz.
• WAW launches two halfway houses in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif.
• WAW commemorates tenth anniversary with a gala event on October 20 in NYC.

2010       

• WAW launches the Family Guidance Center in Kunduz.
• WAW launches the Family Guidance Center in Jalalabad.
• WAW moves Queens Community Center to a house in Fresh Meadows, Queens.

2009       

• Watch our 2009 WAW video created by volunteer Ishita Srivastava. 
• WAW launches the Family Guidance Center in Kapisa.
• WAW opens the Children's Support Center in Kabul.
• WAW takes a strong stance against US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on the grounds that this will lead to a takeover by the Taliban and a massive human rights crisis.

2008         

• WAW launches the Family Guidance Center in Mazar-e-Sharif.

2007         

• WAW launches the Family Guidance Center and shelter in Kabul.

2006         

• To counter the epidemic of self-immolation among women in Herat who have become desperate over their oppression and lack of access to justice, WAW partners with the Herati Voice of Women Organization and builds a center in a rural area where women can form their own governance system and earn money by opening businesses. Herat Self-Immolation Project Report here.
• Fahima raises money to build schools for girls in Herat province.
• Manizha fulfills a promise she made to herself in Kandahar in 2003 and returns to Afghanistan, the country of her birth, to launch a WAW program for women in Afghanistan. Click here to read a letter to supporters Manizha wrote a month after she arrived in Kabul.
• With guidance from the Board, Manizha conducts a 4-month feasability study, which leads to a plan to open Family Guidance Centers (FGCs) throughout Afghanistan, starting with one in Kabul.

2004 - 2005

• Manizha spends the next two years immersed in work to empower Afghan women in Queens.
• Fahima's work through the Afghan Women's Fund expands to include income generating projects for women and village development programs, such as replanting destroyed grapevine and digging wells for personal sanitation and irrigating crops.
• Under Masuda's leadership, WAW collaborates with the Business Council for Peace (BPeace) on a project to empower Afghan women entrepeneurs. Report on the Style Road Trip here.

2003

• Manizha Naderi joins WAW as a volunteer and then becomes our second staff member.
• Manizha and Masuda organize our women's programs in Queens and deepen our community outreach.
• In Fall 2003, we organize the first women's rights conference in Kandahar, Afghanistan, "Women's Rights and the Constitution." Read report here.
• The Afghan Women's Bill of Rights. Fall 2003 here.
• Masuda Sultan participates in a V-Day's conference in Kabul, Spring 2003. Read report here.

2002

• Masuda Sultan becomes WAW's first staff member.
• Fahima Vorgetts's Afghan Women's Fund becomes an official project of WAW.
• Our book, Women for Afghan Women: Shattering Myths and Claiming the Future, is published in Fall, 2002. See details here.
  
• WAW holds a second conference at Barnard College in Fall, 2002.
• We open an office in Flushing, NY, where we start ESL classes for Afghan women in Queens.
• We hold a Mother's Day celebration for Afghan Women that brings more than 200 women together.

2001        

• WAW is founded in April, 2001. Founding programs are community outreach in Queens and advocacy through a fall conference on Afghan women's rights.
• 9/11 catapults WAW into participation in a global debate.  We take the position that along with a global coalition of nations organized by the U.N., the United States must exert force in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban. On 9/11, Women for Afghan Women was already six months old. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, WAW helped organize two events that were important for our city and for our fledgling organization’s identity and evolution.
  
  • Sunday September 16th, 2001: WAW supported an interfaith vigil in Brooklyn Heights that was organized by the Arab American Family Support Center and other immigrant groups. 1,000 New Yorkers walked peacefully along Atlantic Avenue, a street known for its concentration of Arab-run businesses, to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, where an interfaith vigil was held overlooking lower Manhattan.
    
  • Friday September 21st, 2001: WAW was a lead organizer of a Muslim peace vigil at Madison Square Park in Manhattan. Other organizers included the American Sufi Muslim Association, Islamic Center of Long Island, Al-Rahman Foundation, Al-Rahman Masjid, Arab American Family Support Center, Brooklyn, CAIR-NY, Muslim Charity Networks, SAKHI for South Asian Women, VIRSA Pakistan and Muslims Against Terrorism. When security concerns prompted the NYPD to advise against this vigil and refuse police protection, the North Star Fund gave WAW a discretionary grant to hire private security. It was WAW’s first grant. However, the lack of police protection kept many Afghans away. This vigil was announced on Amy Goodman’s Democracy NOW. Several hundred people held candles and heard testimonies and prayers for victims of 9/11.
• Membership grows.  Fahima Vorgetts, Esther Hyneman and Masuda Sultan become leaders in WAW. Fahima had been raising money for women's projects in Afghanistan—this work evolves into the Afghan Women's Fund. Masuda, who hailed from the Afghan community in Queens,  had founded Young American Afghan Alliance (YAWA).  Esther had retired as an English Professor just days before 9/11, and met WAW women at a teach-in at Judson Memorial Church.  All three women have been dedicated to WAW since 2001.  Esther and Fahima have been full-time volunteers since 2001. 
• November, 2001, WAW holds its inaugural event, a conference at the CUNY Graduate Center on The Role of Women in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan.
• The conference lands WAW a book contract.
• Community outreach in Flushing, Queens, continues.  Our flyers and postcards reach out to Afghan women in stores, mosques, schools and at community celebrations.
• We begin to hold regular women's meetings at the Afghan library in Flushing (now closed).

2000-2001 - While working at The Sister Fund, Sunita Viswanath (then Mehta) seeks out those in NYC who are concerned about the situation of Afghan women under the Taliban. At The Sister Fund office she holds regular meetings that attract both human rights and women's rights organizations to discuss women in Afghanistan and the Afghan immigrant community in Queens. These meetings lead to the co-founding of Women for Afghan Women along with others including Fahima Danishgar.