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.
Watch our new animated video about AJWS’s work to end child marriage in India. AJWS supports efforts to end child marriage by bringing girls and young women together to define their own futures. Together we’re supporting girls in India to live with the dignity, safety and independence they deserve. Learn more about AJWS’s work to …
Investigative journalists keep Haiti’s officials accountable for responsible reconstruction. Billions of dollars in foreign aid and reconstruction projects have flooded into Haiti since the earthquake, but the process for deciding how the money will be spent is not transparent. While displaced earthquake survivors languish in tent camps, U.S. government funds have sometimes been directed toward …
The rapid growth of mineral mining across Mexico has ravaged local communities. Poverty and disease have soared for workers and people who live near mines and other development projects. The digging has stripped local land—ruining it for farming—and polluted sources of drinking water, multiplying health problems and miscarriages.
Cecelia Danuweli has been to hell and back. As a girl during Liberia’s brutal civil war, she witnessed her stepfather murdered before her eyes and faced the constant threat of rape and other violence as warring factions attacked her village. In 1990, she fled for her life and spent years living in the bush, hiding …
Tostan—which means “breakthrough” in Wolof, the national language of Senegal—is among the highest-profile social change organizations working on the African continent. AJWS was one of its earliest supporters, first funding the organization just a year after its launch in Senegal in 1991. AJWS stood by Tostan and its founder, Molly Melching, as the organization grew …
Thirty years of armed conflict in Casamance have left many people—especially women—feeling powerless: powerless to stop the frequent deadly bursts of guerilla violence, and powerless to feed and educate their children in the midst of the chaos of conflict. But one woman, Seynabou Male Cissé, a former high school teacher, saw the potential of women …
In Guatemala, very few young people have access to quality reproductive health care and sexual health education. Only 44 percent of women of reproductive age use any kind of contraceptives. The maternal mortality rate—the proportion of pregnancies that end in the mother’s death—is the second worst in Latin America and is especially high among indigenous …
Homophobic hatred sizzled in Haiti’s streets last summer. Religious leaders marched throughout the country to protest same-sex relationships and stir up anti-LGBT sentiment. As these extremists launched a vicious campaign, Haiti’s small, but growing number of advocates for LGBT rights—like the aptly named AJWS grantee Kouraj (Courage)—spoke out.
Hundreds of Maya Achi people were murdered to make way for a dam in Guatemala. Decades later, their families finally find justice. Back in 1982, Carlos Chen Osorio was a young man with a family: his wife, Paulina, and their toddler children, Enriqueta and Antonio. Paulina carried their third child inside her, and expected to …
Sunita Jaiswal can’t remember a time when she was happier. On a Saturday afternoon in her tiny house—set in a sprawling, crowded Delhi slum—her daughters grin and perch along the narrow stairs, bounding up or down to make way for passing guests. Meanwhile, Sunita pours cold soda into steel cups and passes them around, beaming …
