Registration is Open
Join social workers, youth workers, social justice advocates, and health practitioners in this all-day workshop to gain the tools to support immigrant and refugee families. Workshops include fostering intergenerational resilience, strategies to reduce secondary trauma stress, parent engagement in the Somali community, and meditation for self care.
WISE History
WISE was founded by a group of multicultural, first generation immigrant women in 1995 as a vehicle for the educational, social and economic empowerment of immigrant and refugee women, girls, and female-identified individuals.
*The terms women and girls are interchangeable with female-identified individuals.
WISE seeks to empower immigrant and refugee women and girls to succeed through advocacy and culturally competent services. It’s goal is to provide academic support, life and leadership skills training, to facilitate participants in becoming self-sufficient members of their community and beyond.
WISE provides services to immigrant and refugee women, girls, and female-identified individuals in grades 6th-12th, and post-secondary institutions. Services include financial literacy, healthy relationships, self-identity, English literacy, social entrepreneurship, mentorship, college preparation, and homework help.
WISE continues to host community-based initiatives that raise public awareness of immigrant issues, develope leadership capacities, and promote self-sufficiency of immigrant and refugee women, girls, and female-identified individuals.
Our Work
Girls Getting Ahead in leadership
Girls Getting Ahead in Leadership (GGAL) is a program offered during school hours and after school for immigrant and refugee female-identified students in grades 6th-12th, providing academic support and life skills training. Learn more about GGAL now!
WeLead
The WeLEAD program supports our GGAL alums and other immigrant and refugee female-identified students to succeed in college and other post-secondary programs. Career placement, scholarships, and academic support ensure each students’ success.
Healthy Relationships
Our Healthy Relationships program focuses on educating girls and their families about what makes a relationship healthy and safe. This program brings awareness to gender-based violence and offers prevention-based strategies for youth.
We Remember
Violence Free Minnesota
WISE is a member of Violence Free Minnesota: the coalition to end relationship abuse.
We Remember is a memorial to Minnesota’s victims of intimate partner homicide. Each of these victims is someone’s child, parent, sibling, family member, intimate partner, friend, neighbor, or co-worker.
For over 30 years, we have collected information on victims killed due to relationship violence in our annual Homicide Report: Relationship Abuse In Minnesota (formerly known as the Femicide Report). Violence Free Minnesota also curates the Clothesline Project, an interactive visual memorial to Minnesota’s victims of intimate partner homicide.
This page is updated every time we are notified of someone killed due to relationship violence in Minnesota. We ask that you share their names and stories on social media and remember them as more than their deaths.
#WeRememberMN
Learn more at www.vfmn.org
