Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies

Youth development and sexual health - through this area of focus, iwes provides opportunities for youth to develop and enhance their leadership and advocacy skills through trauma-informed approaches. Additionally, iwes provides community members, in particular youth and young adults, with comprehensive sexual health education, hiv and teen pregnancy prevention education and services, advocacy and outreach using social media, peer and community engagement.

Emotional/physical well-being - to further the organization's mission, iwes engages community members in activities and events focused on addressing their emotional well-being, overall physical and psychological health. Iwes uses the social ecologial model sem, an in-depth multi-dimensional approach, which recognizes that individual behavior is shaped by multiple levels of influence including, interpersonal, community and societal context. Through this approach, iwes creates culturally proficient programs, activities and research to address and advocate for Women of color, their families and communities to heal and create sustainable change.

Resilience - this area of focus concentrates on community-level, non-clinical approaches to equitable recovery, healing and resilience of vulnerable populations through community-wide healing events, documenting stories of struggle and sruvival, colllaborations to develop trauma-informed approaches and community-driven, participatory research. Iwes helps to build emotional and physical well-being, resilience and capacity, using a social ecological model sem as its theoretical framework, which reocgnizes that individual behavior is shaped by multiple levels of influence including, interpersonal, community and societal context.