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New England Learning Center for Women In Transition |
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~ A short herstory of NELCWIT ~
The birth of NELCWIT
In 1975, four
women sat around a kitchen table in New Salem, discussing the need for an
organized program that would offer services for battered women and their
children in our area. They wanted to
provide several kinds of support, including crisis intervention, safe shelter,
and advocacy for legal, vocational, and financial problems. This group was to
become the New England Learning Center for Women in Transition.
NELCWIT opened her
first outreach office at 34 Bank Row in Greenfield in 1976, offering counseling
to women who were experiencing abuse, neglect, separation, or divorce. NELCWIT
volunteers were already receiving referrals six months before the office opened,
and it became clear that many women in our community were in dire need of
assistance. In 1977, with a staff of 22
volunteers, NELCWIT was incorporated as a non-profit multi-service center
addressing the needs of women in major life transitions. At the onset, temporary shelter for women
who were escaping abusive relationships was provided through a careful network
of approximately a dozen private homes throughout the county. In February of 1979, NELCWIT opened a
shelter for battered women and their children.
In addition to
addressing the immediate problems in women's lives, early NELCWIT volunteers
also saw a need to educate the community at large. The women of NELCWIT challenged the public acceptance of domestic
abuse; they put pressure on the courts and law enforcement agencies to improve
their responses to battering; and they became an information clearinghouse,
gathering statistics from courts and local human service agencies, maintaining
a library dealing with women's issues, and participating in conferences,
workshops, and trainings on violence against women. The new organization's goal was to end oppression against women -
and all forms of oppression.
The growth of our programs
In
1984 NELCWIT received funding to become a
rape crisis center, enabling us to
increase our rape prevention work and to do more work with rape survivors. In 1988, as a result of our first capital
campaign, we were able to purchase our own
shelter and office buildings. In addition to our main office in Greenfield,
we also have offices in the
North Quabbin. Our court advocates assist women obtaining restraining orders; our
child-safe program offers counseling for children who have
witnessed violence; and, since 1997, our
Domestic Violence Intervention Project
advocates have been working with the police departments in several towns to respond to domestic violence and rape calls. Many many
volunteers still help NELCWIT with
all of these activities. NELCWIT's Survivors Project opened in May 1999 after five years of planning and operated until 2006. This innovative program received national recognition.
NELCWIT's anti-oppression work
In the early
1990s, NELCWIT expanded its commitment to
ending oppression with the formation
of a multicultural committee. While the
women of NELCWIT's staff and board were almost all white and middle class,
the women we served were more often poor, and, increasingly, women of
color. The new committee wanted to make
sure our programs and services were accessible for women of color and to attract
more women of color to staff positions. By the mid-90s, we realized that despite our good intentions, women of color who came to NELCWIT, whether for support or as staff or board members, were experiencing racism. In 1996, NELCWIT committed itself to becoming an anti-racist organization, and developed a new strategic plan clearly connected to and grounded in an anti-racist perspective. We began to identify ourselves as an anti-racist, social change organization. Where are we now? This is a time of many changes, and a time of decreased support from many of our traditional sources of income. A few years ago our staff numbered close to 50; today it is about half that. In October 2006, we closed our domestic violence shelter due to decreased funding from the state. Sadly, it was not just our shelter that closed; there are now fewer shelter beds throughout Massachusetts for those escaping domestic violence. We hope that, within the next few years, we will once again be able to provide residential services. In the meantime, we are exploring innovative ways to do our work and finding new models for working with the families who come to us for help. We have recommitted ourselves to devoting our limited resources to providing services to those who need them. NELCWIT's
archivist is the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, Northampton MA.
You can view their website and its fascinating and comprehensive information on
women's history at
http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc. 12/07 |
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