Directory of Organizations

Manavi provides a unique blend of culturally specific support services and intervention methods through Western advocacy practices and linguistically traditional techniques. As a direct service provider, social change agent and diversity trainer in the mainstream movement to end violence against women, Manavi simultaneously addresses both the immediate needs of women facing abuse and the long-term vision of establishing peaceful communities free from gender-based violence.

Manavi offers culturally specific and linguistically accessible services to survivors of violence. Manavi believes in centralizing the services women need to be empowered.

The services we provide include but are not limited to the following:

• Crisis intervention and Advocacy (Project Raahat)
• Culture specific counseling (Project Sabala)
• Court and medical accompaniment
• Women’s support group
• Legal clinic and referrals (Project Insaaf)
• Immigration relief and gender asylum (Project Zamin)
• Interpreter services
• Economic Empowerment (Project Samarth)
• Safe home (Project Ashiana)
• Transportation as needed
• Outreach and education (Project Rokeya)
• Training and technical assistance

Manavi (meaning “primal woman” in Sanskrit) is a tax-exempt and not-for-profit organization that was founded in February 1985. Six South Asian women founded Manavi as a consciousness-raising group. Within a short time, demands for help from battered women changed the focus of this budding organization. Manavi became a pragmatic organization determined to put theory into practice. It is the first organization in the U.S. to concentrate on the issue of violence against women in the South Asian immigrant community. Although Manavi is located and works with South Asian women who reside in New Jersey, its focus is also national and international. Manavi is an organization for South Asian women, with a mission to end violence against women and assist women to progress toward self-reliance and autonomy.

Transforming Communities: Technical Assistance, Training & Resource Center (TC-TAT) is an award winning violence prevention project, based in the California Bay Area, with a key emphasis on the prevention of violence against women. A division of Marin Abused Women’s Services (founded in 1977), TC-TAT carries out primary violence prevention work through its extensive training, research and consultation infrastructure and hands-on community work.

As a training and resource center, TC-TAT fosters effective social change through collaboration, learning communities, effective state and national policy, addressing the emerging needs of the violence prevention field, evaluations and trainings in effectiveness, culturally competent services and resources, all with a focus on primary prevention. TC-TAT reflects a combination of applied experience in primary prevention, best practices derived through research, and training of other practitioners.

The Marsha P. Johnson Institute (MPJI) protects and defends the human rights of BLACK transgender people. We do this by organizing, advocating, creating an intentional community to heal, developing transformative leadership, and promoting our collective power.

We intend to reclaim Marsha P. Johnson and our relationship as BLACK trans people to her life and legacy. It is in our reclaiming of Marsha that we give ourselves permission to reclaim autonomy to our minds, to our bodies, and to our futures.  We were founded both as a response to the murders of BLACK trans women and women of color and how that is connected to our exclusion from social justice issues, namely racial, gender, and reproductive justice, as well as gun violence. 

Our mission is to improve the lives of Portuguese speakers in Massachusetts and help them become contributing, active participants in American society while maintaining a strong ethnic identity and a sense of community.
We work with and for the Brazilian, Cabo Verdean, Portuguese and other Portuguese-speaking communities to increase access and remove barriers to health, education and social services through direct services, advocacy, leadership, and community development.

MAPS in its present form was created in 1993 by the merger of two agencies: the former Somerville Portuguese American League (SPAL) and the Cambridge Organization of Portuguese Americans (COPA), which had served area Portuguese speakers separately since 1970.

They merged to improve service provision and further unify the Portuguese-speaking community, including immigrants from eight countries around the world.

In addition to serving Portuguese-speaking immigrants and their families, MAPS assists all who need our services.

Our mission is to improve the lives of Portuguese speakers in Massachusetts and help them become contributing, active participants in American society while maintaining a strong ethnic identity and a sense of community.

We work with and for the Brazilian, Cabo Verdean, Portuguese and other Portuguese-speaking communities to increase access and remove barriers to health, education and social services through direct services, advocacy, leadership, and community development.

Services include:

• citizenship assistance
• domestic violence/sexual assault advocacy
• driver alcohol education
• elder services
• employment & career assistance
• family support
• HIV/Sexually transmitted infections
• immigration integration
• intimate partner abuse educational program
• translations/notary public

Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) began as an all-volunteer program in 2001 working for the transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive communities of Massachusetts. MTPC is the only statewide advocacy organization focused solely on our communities – led by trans people, for trans people.

Founded in 2001, the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) is an advocacy, education, and community leadership organization that works to ensure the wellbeing, safety, and lived equity of all trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive community members in Massachusetts. We support and advocate for all persons who have been, are being, or might be deprived of equal rights and/or fair treatment because of their gender identity or gender expression.

MassEquality is the leading statewide grassroots advocacy organization working to ensure that everyone across Massachusetts can thrive from cradle to grave without discrimination and oppression based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

The ‘me too.’ movement was founded in 2006 by Tarana Burke to support survivors of sexual violence, particularly young women of color from low-wealth communities, to find pathways to healing. The organization hosts an array of survivor resources and information.