We understand that trauma shows in different ways for everyone, and that this is impacted by the intersected identities from our service users. We consider this principle as part of our service delivery, our monitoring, evaluation and learning, our policy and advocacy work, and our internal operations. It means we offer a safe space and environment for everyone that works at LAWA and that comes to access our services. We always provide information and options, so the service user is in control of their own pathway.

Our work is one that aligns with a wider goal of social justice. There cannot be social justice while women and children are still enduring patriarchal and white supremacist oppression. To dismantle these systems, which are interconnected and sustain one another, we must all play our role. Within this context, LAWA’s work is focused on working directly with survivors and providing emergency accommodation and 1:1 service to women and children.

As a Latin American organisation, we aim to embed our work within the practice of communitarian feminism, especially the collective approach of working with and for the community. As a diaspora community, we highly rely on our social fabric, solidarity, and support from one another within the community. Working for the well-being of the community is part of this approach. The black feminist approach is also linked with the intersectional approach, which aims for social justice.

Global Majority Women and children survivors of VAWG face additional challenges given the intersecting disadvantages that shape their experience of abuse. In this sense, by having an intersectional approach in our work, we understand that all women’s experiences are different and that there is an additional impact that results of the intersection of different sides of their identity, such as race, class, immigration status, sex orientation, disability, neurodiversity, among others.  

Anti-racism is a wider principle, aligned with the wider VAWG sector anti-racism charter. But it is also an approach that allows us to understand how anti-racism and colorism operate within our community and in our home countries. These principles also call for personal reflection on one’s identity, privileges, and power dynamics and how these can vary from one context to another. It is important to be aware of this and the role it plays in the provision of services and the relationship with the service users.

We understand sisterhood as the political solidarity between women. At LAWA, we stand in sisterhood with indigenous, black, Asian, and trans women. Identifying ourselves as a black feminist organisation is a complex journey that calls for internal reflection and deconstruction, and that can be an uncomfortable one.