CRIW believes meaningful change begins with listening. Partnering with underserved refugee and immigrant women, we build community-led initiatives from the ground up, centering their voices, leadership and lived experiences to promote agency, well-being, opportunity and lasting change.
WOMEN-LED CHANGE
POWERED BY COMMUNITY
ROOTED IN COLLECTIVE WELL-BEING
Who We Are: CRIW - The Collective for Refugee and Immigrant Women’s Wellbeing is a nonprofit in New Haven founded in 2020. We partner with underserved refugee and immigrant women with limited power due to gender, ethnicity, poverty, education, language, culture and health disparities who drive and guide our programs.
Our Approach: Our programs are built from the ground up—centering the voices, leadership, and lived experiences of refugee women in New Haven.
We build: Relationships and initiatives from strengths, honoring experience and culture and promoting self-agency.
Our Programs: Shift power and fuel systematic change by creating new ways of doing things to solve long-standing challenges by breaking barriers starting at the grassroots level. CRIW’s community-led initiatives and cross-sector partnerships create models of what's possible when those most impacted shape the systems meant to serve them.
We believe: Lasting impact is built through connection. We foster community collaborations rooted in shared goals and mutual support.
We trust in: The transformative power of community as a force for healing, growth and justice.
Our Focus
Our Initiatives: At a Glance
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Building collective power with preliterate Afghan women through leadership training and civic engagement.
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CRIW coordinates an onsite, neighborhood-based ESOL and family literacy program created with and for refugee and immigrant mothers and their young children. In partnership with New Haven Adult Education, IRIS, and CRIW volunteers and interns, we offer multi-level English classes plus childcare and preschool readiness support. Designed collaboratively with the community, the program emphasizes practical skills that help families actively and confidently engage in community life. CRIW oversees program quality and coordination, manages student recruitment and retention, and trains and supervises interns and volunteers.
Co-designed with local women, the program offers a welcoming and vibrant space where women are learning, gaining confidence and self-agency, and navigating community resources with increasing ease.
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Using multiple artistic platforms, we reduced barriers to expression and provided preliterate Afghan women who are often unheard, to tell their stories.
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CRIW is committed to collaborating with individuals and organizations to celebrate community; support existing programs; envision and create new, meaningful initiatives and collectively advocate for justice and equity.
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With women’s voices at the center, CRIW is partnering with Yale School of Medicine’s Program for Recovery and Community Health (PRCH) to launch a culturally-responsive, CoDesign project focused on better understanding and addressing the needs, hopes and systemic barriers faced by refugee and immigrant women in the Greater New Haven area who are:
Experiencing challenges to mental their well-being
Living with a physical and/or mental disability
Caring for a family member with a disability
Using an equity-led process with trained Pashto- and Dari-speaking women facilitators, CRIW’s two-phase initiative will build self-determination, shift power, and reimagine systems with refugee women at the center. This project will leverage CRIW’s successful experiences in community-led programming and cross-sector partnerships to create a model of what's possible when those most impacted shape the systems meant to serve them. This project will inform future work with diverse underserved communities to reduce disparities and create solutions to promote well-being.
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