2023-2024

General Meetings:

November 4, 2023 Branch Meeting
Program: Post COVID Mental Health
Amy La, Ph.D., MBA
Click for Videos of Meeting and Program
Click HERE for PDF of Presentation

October 7, 2023 Branch Meeting and Program
Program: Alyce LaViolette: Perpetrators of Violence in Intimate Relationships

Click HERE for Video of Meeting and Program

Reasons for violent behavior and the reasons to hope it can change were explored.. Alyce told stories of some of the people she works with. Although most of the perpetrators of domestic violence are male, she has also worked with females who are abusive. She spoke about her own experiences doing this work and the rationale for the way she does her program. She welcomed questions and comments.

Ms. LaViolette has worked with victims of intimate partner violence since 1978. In 1979, she founded one of the first programs in the country to work with abusive partners as a program of WomenShelter of Long Beach.  In 1984 she went into private practice in Long Beach and in West Los Angeles with a specialty in domestic violence and with high-conflict couples and gender issues.  She has a broad-based private practice.  Alyce speaks nationally and internationally and has served on the Speaker’s Bureau for the U.S. Department of State.  She has developed programs for the Probation Dept. in California and Los Angeles County and for the Department of Children and Family Services for Los Angeles and Orange Counties.  Alyce has served as an expert witness in criminal, family and civil court since 1984.  She appears on local and national television and radio and has co-authored one of Sage Publication’s best-selling books “It Could Happen to Anyone: Why Battered Women Stay”. She has a B.A. in Psychology, and M.S. in Community-Clinical Psychology and is a Licensed Marriage/Family Therapist.  She also has a lifetime teaching certificate for Community Colleges.

September 9, 2023:  AAUW Long Beach Scholarship Recipients and Presentation by Afghan Women (LINK to presentation)

Afghan Women – Introduction

It has been two years since our government’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover. In August 2021 Masoma, Reema and Hameeda, graduate students in a master’s program in agronomy at the University of Kabul, were evacuated together with their 12 classmates, other students and faculty of Michigan State University’s Grain Research and Innovation project (GRAIN).

They were at risk from the Taliban for being in this USAID sponsored program. Further risk factors for Masoma were belonging to the Hazara minority group that is the target of violence and also worked for a European bank in Kabul. All three women were endangered because family members worked in the Afghan government. (After the women arrived, we learned that Masoma and Hameeda are married; their husbands in Germany studying & working.)

Initially they were flown to Albania where GRAIN program was restructured at the Agricultural University of Tirana. After 7 months they came to the US in March 2022 on Humanitarian Parole, arriving in Long Beach in April. Supported by a Welcome Circle sponsored by NCJW Long Beach they were connected with resources and services including housing, government benefits, medical care, legal representation, and employment. They completed the graduate program with online classes and in September graduated with a Professional Master’s in Advanced Techniques in Horticulture.

The women have faced many challenges adjusting to life in a new culture, improving their English and applying for asylum.  They completed paid Internships with A Growing Experience, an urban farm in North Long Beach, and worked in other part time jobs.

Masoma, Reema and Hameeda hoped that their education and experience will lead them to fulfilling careers where they can make a difference – like farming, organic food certification, food science, hunger nonprofits, water science, landscaping, or aquafarming.

They miss their families in Afghanistan terribly and worry about their safety. The economic situation is dire, girls and women are denied education and work, fathers & adult siblings have been dismissed from their jobs. Family members continue to be threatened and some are in hiding. As the situation in Afghanistan worsens, Hameeda, Reema and Masoma have written congress members, to remind them to seek assistance for those left behind.

Over a year after coming to our community, the women have transitioned from the support of the NCJW Welcome Circle, are living on their own and working. Until asylum is granted, their futures remain uncertain. Hameeda and Masoma had their asylum interviews in December & Reema in April. They are waiting for the asylum decisions which have not come within the promised 6 months. Masoma’s husband was visiting when her asylum interview was scheduled; her interviewer surprised us all by adding him to her case. He is now waiting for Employment Authorization so that he can work. We hope that they will be granted asylum soon and they can move forward with their lives and contribute to our community.

2022 – 2023