Mujeres Unidas Y Activas (MUA)

Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) is a community-based organization that provides peer-led direct services and leadership development opportunities to immigrant women from Latin America to help them overcome trauma, navigate systems to access services they need to thrive, and become active leaders towards changing the policies that negatively impact them as immigrants, as women, and as workers. Currently MUA reaches over 2,000 immigrants per year, of which at least 800 are considered active members (meaning they participate in member meetings and/or training programs) and 60-70 are member-leaders who volunteer their time engaging in organizing, advocacy campaigns, and/or providing peer-led services. According to our most recent member survey, 82% of members identify as domestic workers. MUA serves immigrants in San Francisco and Alameda Counties. Our primary services are: support groups, peer counseling, individual and group psychotherapy, life skills workshops, and vocational and leadership training programs. We also engage in policy advocacy campaigns focused on immigrant rights and domestic worker rights. MUA is also the fiscal sponsor and a lead organization of the California Domestic Worker Coalition, which includes 11 organizations statewide representing tens of thousands of domestic workers and their allies. MUA is a member-led organization that has developed a clearly defined Pathway to Leadership for low-income immigrant women. Participants in MUA programs have the opportunity to be trained to be volunteer peer counselors, group facilitators, and community organizers. Members who develop leadership through our programs are prioritized for positions as MUA staff and Board members. In 2022, 70% of the staff team and 65% of the Board were made up of MUA members. Over its 32 years of existence, MUA has built a strong base of immigrant women who now have the skills and support to make positive changes in their own lives, as well as define and lead policy campaigns on the issues that most affect them. MUAs early campaign successes include upholding the right to prenatal care for undocumented women in California, and helping to pass the immigrant womens provisions of the national Violence Against Women Act. In 2007, MUA members co-founded and incubated the National Domestic Worker Alliance, which became its own nonprofit in 2010. In 2014, MUA co-founded the California Domestic Worker Coalition, which is still housed at MUA. Through the Coalition, MUA helped create and pass the 2016 California Domestic Worker Bill of Rights the strongest overtime protections for domestic workers in the country. More recently, MUA helped introduce and pass SB321, the 2021 California Domestic Worker Health and Safety Act. This led to the creation this year by California Occupational Health and Safety Administration (Cal OSHA) of the first ever statewide health and safety guidelines for domestic workers. Last year, MUA also successfully campaigned for the passage of the San Francisco Domestic Worker Paid Sick Leave Ordinance, the first municipal law in California which will create a city-run system in which all caregivers will be able to accrue and access paid sick leave, regardless of how many employers they have or their immigration status.In its internal systems, MUA separates funds used to pay for its peer-led services from funding that pays for its advocacy campaigns, in this way ensuring that any and all restricted government and foundation funding is utilized only for the purposes specified. 2022 Programs and ServicesPeer-Led Services: Our ongoing services for immigrant women include peer support groups, peer counseling, life coaching, nutrition courses, parenting groups, Zumba fitness, yoga, ESL classes, know-your-rights workshops, facilitating access to legal services, vocational training workshops, and labor rights forums. Prevention and remediation of domestic violence is a core aspect of our peer-led services and support groups, since gender-based violence is highly prevalent in the communities we serve. In 2022, a total of 1,165 women participated in our peer-led programming. Basebuilding & Community Outreach: This year, MUA conducted large-scale street outreach campaigns one day per week for 4-6 months per year in Oakland, San Francisco, and South Alameda County. In 2022, 21 members and 6 staff together reached 1,135 new women via street outreach, with 764 providing their contact info and at least 214 of these women attending a MUA program.Leadership Development: MUA offers a variety of leadership training courses to members, including courses on basic peer counseling, support group facilitation, community outreach, policy advocacy, and workers rights advocate training. Graduates of each course are then eligible to join a member leadership committee where they can volunteer to exercise their new skills as peer counselors, group facilitators, community outreach volunteers, policy campaigners, etc. These women are the backbone of MUAs peer led services and policy advocacy. Last year, 30 women graduated from our various leadership training programs, and 60 participated in MUA leadership committees as volunteer peer counselors, group facilitators, outreach workers and policy advocates. Grupo Mam: Mayans from Guatemala and Southern Mexico are currently the most populous group of indigenous immigrants in the Bay Area. While there are many Mayan languages, the most common one spoken in the East Bay is Mam. Just prior to the pandemic, MUA trained its first cohort of Mam speaking leaders, and those women organized our first Mam language support groups. Currently those groups are meeting twice monthly. The program now includes regular street outreach to Mam speakers, individual counseling and accompaniment for women in crisis, a weaving circle to promote a sense of community and cultural pride, and access to other MUA training and support programs. 92 Mam-speaking women participated in MUA programs in 2022.Arts for Healing: MUA continues to collaborate with NAKA Dance Theater to use arts as a means of healing, self-expression, and narrative change. In 2022, we held multiple performances of Y Basta Ya!, a theater show made up of member-created poems and set pieces related to immigration trauma, domestic violence, and the various forms of anti-indigenous and anti-Black racism in the Latinx community. MUA and NAKA also jointly published a fotonovela, a booklet and art exposition of MUA member drawings related to migration, community, and culture, and launched a weaving circle for Mayan indigenous women. Domestic Worker Rights: MUA is the home of the California Domestic Worker Coalition, which works to pass and implement legislation to strengthen domestic worker rights statewide. MUA also conducts ongoing outreach, know-your-rights and vocational training workshops with domestic workers in San Francisco and the East Bay. This year, we participated in committees to press for the implementation of SB321, the 2021 Domestic Worker Health and Safety Act, and the 2021 San Francisco Domestic Worker Paid Sick Leave Ordinance. Asylum Rights and Immigration Reform: MUA participates in regional and national coalitions aiming to protect the rights of asylum seekers and to push for comprehensive immigration reform. This year we brought member testimonies on asylum to public forums, including the national launch of a documentary, Seeking Asylum. On immigration reform, we backed the Immigrant Registry Act, a bill championed by Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Sen. Alex Padilla which would allow up to 8 million undocumented immigrants to file paperwork to regularize their immigration status. Voter Education and Mobilization: In 2022, MUA members and staff conducted voter outreach to approximately 750 households via phone banks and in-person canvassing during election season. We educated Oakland voters about ballot initiatives related to affordable housing, tenants rights, and community services. We also mobilized Latinx voters in Nevada to the polls in the midterm elections without endorsing any specific party or candidate.