ABOUT

ASIAN WOMEN & CHILDRENS CENTERS is based in Portland, Oregon and Bangalore, India. This foundation was founded by Zubeda Ishaq in 1998. As a native Indian born in Bangalore, lived married life in Pakistan for many years. As a young woman who had seen first hand suffering of the poor people through the ravages of natural disaster, wars, and everyday poverty, Zubeda was fortunate enough to have had the means to help some of these victims in Bangladesh and war refugees from Afghanistan. During her involvement in these projects she was saddened and dismayed to observe how very little of the proceeds collected from both private donation and official aid agencies actually reached these poor people. Instead they were siphoned off by inefficient and often corrupt practices in the administration of these funds. At this point the seed of her dream was sown which was to channel help to these oppressed poor people of her country.

In 1991 she came to the U.S. to live with her sons who were studying here. She is a resident of the U.S. now and lives a privileged American way of life, one that is denied to millions of women around the world. What came with this change was the assurance that she was beginning a new journey that would be exciting and meaningful.

In 1998, she realized the time to start work on her dream had come. A dream which she had carried for years that had taken seed out of a simple sense of justice. Living here she had become a new woman. The more she learned, the stronger she became. She wanted to take this empowerment, freedom of thought, self respect and economic muscle to the suffering poor women of India. Out of this strength was born Asian Women and Childrens Centers.

The efforts of AWCC in counseling and providing the basics necessities for these girls has brought about good results in their general health, performance in studies, art and above all their self esteem and confidence. They are HAPPY GIRLS