NAPAWF builds autonomy and power in AAPI women and girls

Note from the CREDO team: This September, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO community will help NAPAWF in its work to build the power, influence and autonomy of Asian American Pacific Islander women and girls.

Read this important blog post about NAPAWF’s critical work, then click here to visit CREDODonations.com and cast your vote to help send funding to NAPAWF to support its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding September grantees.

The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum is the only national, multi-issue organization focused on building power with and for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women and girls within a reproductive-justice framework at the intersections of immigrant rights, racial justice, reproductive rights and economic justice.

Our mission is to build the collective power of AAPI women and girls to gain full agency over their lives, families and communities. We work toward equity and lift the visibility of AAPI issues using our core strategies of base-building and leadership development, grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, community-engaged participatory research, and strategic communications and coalition-building.

NAPAWF raises women’s voices in the media and in spaces where important decisions that impact AAPI women’s lives are made. We continue to grow our base by reaching, activating and mobilizing AAPI women and girls through grassroots organizing, leadership training and development, and by creating AAPI women leaders from diverse ethnicities and regions of the U.S. NAPAWF increases public and community awareness of issues that impact AAPI women and works toward influencing systemic and culture shifts to propel our reproductive-justice movement forward.

Reaching many communities and gender identities

NAPAWF’s work primarily impacts AAPI women and girls but also other marginalized communities and gender identities. As we have built our field organizing programs over the years, we have shifted our base to center on the AAPI women who are most affected by the issues we work on, including low-wage workers, first-generation immigrants and people with limited English proficiency. Our base spans many different AAPI ethnic groups and is multigenerational, ranging from young adults to “aunties.”

Today, NAPAWF has a base of more than 40,000, with 500 active members leading change within their communities across the U.S. We work in collaboration with values- and mission-aligned organizations, engage our base year-round, mobilize our movement and its organizing power, continue centering the experiences of the most-impacted AAPI women, highlight reproductive, economic and gender justice issues, and push for systemic and culture change that empowers the leadership and value of AAPI women.

Many successes so far this year

In 2023, NAPAWF has been hard at work with the HEAL Coalition to advocate for the reintroduction of the Health Equity and Access Under the Law (HEAL) for Immigrant Families Act. Our coalition’s work has succeeded, with Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Rep. Nanette Barragan and Sen. Cory Booker, along with 56 cosponsors in the House and nine cosponsors in the Senate, reintroducing the HEAL for Immigrant Families Act to Congress on July 27.

On another front, NAPAWF’s reproductive rights and abortion access work was marked by the launch of our Free the Pill letter in April, which was signed by 478 individuals and submitted to the FDA ahead of its hearing on the authorization of over-the-counter birth control.

In our gender justice work this year, NAPAWF launched a strategic partnership initiative to build the AAPI Gender Justice Collaborative, which commenced in July at the Gender Justice Convening in Chicago.

Our fight for affordable healthcare for all, reproductive justice and abortion access is uncompromising. It is the focus of the ever-growing work and advocacy efforts implemented in the field by NAPAWF’s five chapters in Chicago, Florida, Georgia, New York and Texas.

Working together to make a difference

AAPI women and girls in the U.S. continue to face immense challenges. But we are hopeful and we are stronger as we work with CREDO Mobile and our sisters from other immigrant, marginalized and underserved communities to overcome all challenges on all fronts, one battle at a time. Together, we’re gaining ground, making a difference and achieving our goals.