Domestic Violence Prevention Program Supports Muslim and Immigrant Women

Founded in 2019, OPH helps clients of many ethnicities with culturally informed safety plans, intervention, transportation, parental and governmental assistance, counseling and support groups, transitional housing, and more.

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Domestic abuse of all kinds can happen to anyone, anywhere, regardless of ethnicity, religion, age, gender, class or level of education.  It can occur as physical, psychological, emotional, sexual, financial or religious in nature. As a culturally-specific domestic abuse prevention and family-strengthening program, Our Peaceful Home (OPH) specializes in serving immigrant and refugee women of Muslim backgrounds in the Greater Milwaukee Area. It is a program of the Muslim Women’s Coalition, located at 5235 S 27th St. in Greenfield.

Founded in 2019, OPH helps clients of many ethnicities and offers services in Arabic, Urdu, Somali, Malay, Rohingya, Burmese, Hindi, Spanish and other languages upon request. Their services navigate culturally informed safety plans, intervention, transportation, parental and governmental assistance, counseling and support groups, transitional housing, and legal matters like restraining orders.

At the time of OPH opening, advocates acknowledged that existing local domestic violence organizations struggled to meet Muslim clients’ needs at times. Janan Najeeb, founder and executive director of OPH, had been approached by Antonia Drew Vann of Asha Family Services, Inc, a domestic and gender-based violence prevention organization for Black communities. 

Cultural Sensitivities

“She said that it is going to be critical for me to open something like that to ensure that Muslim clients are being dealt with in a way that recognizes their cultures and sensitivities,” Najeeb elaborates. “There were a number of incidents where clients left certain shelters or agencies when they felt that they were looked down on.”

Once she received the grant necessary from the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families to launch the program, Najeeb named it “Our Peaceful Home” to honor the Islamic tradition of defining home as a place of safety and security.

Najeeb takes great pride in her OPH staff, themselves Muslim women, whom she has observed being there for clients every step of the way. Basema Yasin is OPH Coordinator, accompanied by two additional advocates.

“I have the dream team,” Najeeb affirms. “Basema is not intimidated by anyone and she’s going to keep fighting for the client. Our advocates come with the skillsets of other languages that are highly needed here. They all take these cases to heart, and that makes a big difference.”

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Growing Number of Clients

Yasin, who joined OPH early on, notes that the number of clients their team has helped over the years reflects how communities have come to trust them.

“Our client profile has a lot of young moms with young children. The majority of our moms do not speak English and have no family here in the states,” she explains. “Many times they have limited transportation or do not know how to drive. They have no work experience because they have been stay-at-home moms.”

She continues, “There’s also a lot of undiagnosed mental health issues that are the root cause of the abuse but because of the stigma against mental health, the abusers refuse to seek treatment. Many of our survivors are refugees and they’ve come from communities that have seen a genocide, and they need a lot of help.”

Because of the nature of abuse, women in such circumstances are often isolated from their friends, family and community resources. Once a survivor comes to them, OPH does an intake to assess the client’s particular situation in order to determine an appropriate safety plan.

Many Services Offered

Yasin continues, “Oftentimes, our advocates do a lot of hand-holding with our clients who finally seek help and are trying to become more independent. With the help of other organizations and collaborators, we’ve gotten clients on Foodshare or Badgercare, and we’ve done driving ed courses, English as a Second Language (ESL) courses, and assisted in employment search. We have also collaborated with Legal Action of Wisconsin, Civitas Law Group, as well as other independent attorneys that have generously agreed to represent our clients in family court and restraining order cases.”

If a client does not speak English or know their immigration status, OPH works closely with translators, making sure that the client knows where all legal documents, passports, and valuable items are. “Abuse is about power and control,” Yasin states. “We often tell women to make sure that they have a safe word to contact a trusted family member or friend to let them know she is in trouble and needs help.”

OPH actively carries out outreach and preventative education by way of trauma-informed programs, workshops, and seminars for schools, hospitals, mosques, law enforcement, and other agencies.

An anonymous client shares her experience working with OPH, “My situation was tough but I got a lot of financial and emotional support. They helped me with the divorce case, and they helped me buy a car and start my life over. I’m so grateful for this place. If I didn’t get that help, I cannot imagine what would have happened to me.”

Another client is quoted as stating, “When I first entered this sprawling country, I knew no one, and no one knew me. Our Peaceful Home guided me and my child to safety through this thorny path. They took our hands and gave me tranquility.”

A third says, “Our family has been reunited because of OPH. The advocates helped with every single thing our family needed, always having good suggestions and supporting without problems. From my heart, your agency is the best thing I have ever seen, and I really appreciate you supporting us.”

If you or someone you know is potentially in an abusive situation, contact the Our Peaceful Home crisis line at 414-727-1090 or 414-727-4900 for the main line, or email byasin@mmwconline.org. 

Donations to Our Peaceful Home are always welcome. Especially in the midst of “anti-DEI” funding cuts under the Trump administration, support for their work as they ensure the safety and security of every client is extremely important.