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Create Change

Volunteer Opportunites & Eligibility

What can I do as a volunteer?
Who is eligible to volunteer?
Can men volunteer with Sakhi?

What can I do as a volunteer?

Sakhi works to achieve its mission through several program arenas. Descriptions of the programs and how volunteers can help in each follows. Click on each program arena to learn more.

Direct Services
Community Engagement & Media
Development & Fundraising

Direct Services

Domestic Violence Program

Providing survivors with support, information, and referrals to resources is one of the core features of Sakhi’s work. The DV program staff provides ongoing support, case management, and referrals to health, emergency, legal, housing, and child welfare services.

Volunteers of this program area provide emotional support to survivors through sustained contact, accompanying survivors to court and public benefits offices, and facilitating activities for the children of survivors during support group and related events. Volunteers also maintain regular contact with DV staff to stay abreast of related issues and resources. Sakhi supporters can also volunteer their professional skills by joining Sakhi’s Legal or Health Provider Networks.

Women's Health Initiative

Through WHI, Sakhi offers a network of culturally and domestic violence-sensitive health professionals who provide services to survivors. WHI also provides classes, workshops, and resources to help women educate themselves about the many physical and emotional consequences that may accompany domestic violence.

WHI volunteers work with individual survivors by accompanying them to healthcare provider offices, providing ongoing support to survivors, and facilitating activities for the children of survivors during WHI classes and workshops. Volunteers also maintain regular contact with WHI staff to stay abreast of related issues and resources. Sakhi supporters can also volunteer their professional skills by joining Sakhi’s Legal or Health Provider Networks.

Economic Empowerment Program

Sakhi’s EE programming works to empower survivors of violence in earning livelihoods and pursuing careers. We offer basic computer literacy courses which provide women instruction in résumé-writing, online job searches, English communication skills, and Microsoft Word and Excel proficiency. We also provide workshops focused on employee rights, starting small businesses, and financial literacy – including bank loans, budgeting, investments, retirement funds, and education savings accounts. Finally, Sakhi offers small grants to qualified survivors we have worked with for career and continuing education opportunities at accredited institutions.

Volunteers with the EE program work one-on-one with women during these workshops and other EE projects. Volunteers also facilitate activities for children during these workshops.

Community Engagement & Media Program

Sakhi is a social change organization. We believe that in order to build a violence-free society, we must engage all members of our community in the responsibility of condemning and eliminating domestic violence. In order to achieve this goal, Sakhi uses unique media tools - including an innovative, community-focused biannual newsletter, an interactive website, postcards, and educational videos - to call on the community to end violence. Each year, Sakhi organizes or participates in forums, meetings, conferences, marches, panels, and other outreach/education events. We also work with community-based partners, South Asian and mainstream media, schools, universities, religious institutions, and community and cultural centers to raise awareness about the issue of domestic violence.

Outreach volunteers assist Sakhi in its community engagement work by helping to plan Sakhi’s various outreach events as well as by attending, tabling, and interacting with community members at these events, and assisting in the production of Sakhi's biannual newsletter and other media work.

Development & Fundraising

Sakhi has a diverse, growing fundraising strategy that includes private foundation giving, corporate and government grants, and individual support. We rely on community members to help us raise funds to facilitate our program work and expand our network. Sakhi's new volunteer-led fundraising group, Gen2, provides an opportunity to engage people who have expressed interest in supporting Sakhi but are unable to commit to Sakhi’s comprehensive training program and ongoing trained volunteer opportunities.

Gen2’s work focuses on increasing Sakhi’s network of support as well as its impact on the community by:

• Organizing and hosting fundraising events;
• Engaging support and involvement from community members including professional, religious, cultural, and social associations;
• Developing and implementing creative and engaging fundraising strategies; and,
• Working with Sakhi leadership, volunteers, and other supporters to enable the organization’s growth.

Sakhi appreciates and values all donors. This committee is focused on engaging all levels of supporters in our work and establishing life-long relationships with Sakhi. 

Membership is open year-round to both men and women who demonstrate a strong passion and commitment toward ending domestic violence in the South Asian community. Members must be able to attend monthly meetings held within the Tri-state area. For more information, contact Stephanie Arcella at priti.bali@sakhi.org.

Who is eligible to volunteer?

Sakhi's volunteers are primarily women in the New York metropolitan area as well as parts of New Jersey and Connecticut. We encourage volunteers from a range of backgrounds and especially those who speak South Asian languages and have daytime hours during the week. Currently, our core active volunteers are women of South Asian origin or those with South Asian language skills.

If you do not live in the New York metropolitan area, please click here to find similar anti-domestic violence organizations in your state (U.S.).

Can men volunteer with Sakhi?

It is important for us to provide a safe space for the women we serve, and thus men are not currently participants in our Direct Services or Community Engagement and Media trainings. But we also believe that men are critical partners in the struggle to end violence against women, and for this reason, there are key ways in which we want men involved in the mission to end violence against women and in our families.

Men can volunteer their professional skills by joining Sakhi’s Legal or Health Provider Networks. In addition, we seek men who show support through their participation in Sakhi’s Create Change community engagement activities and fundraising activities. To get more information on how to get involved and sign up for our mailing list to get e-mails on supporting Sakhi events, please click here.

In the long-term, when we have sufficient resources, we hope to expand our work to offer specific men's workshops on violence against women as well as a mentoring program for the children of survivors.