The Undocumented Women’s Fund is an NYC based feminist organization working to build a community care and organizing network to build collective power among and address the needs of Spanish speaking immigrant women and gender expansive people. 

 

UWF’s work supporting low-income immigrant women and their families as they navigate the systems necessary for survival is ultimately about raising consciousness, building community, and fostering self determination alongside our newer neighbors in NYC. 

Our Mission

  1. Developing a left feminist narrative about labor, gender, and immigration as intersection struggles.
  2. Building a community care and organizing network, aka “Comadre network,” to mobilize resources and help meet the needs of undocumented women and t heir families, often excluded from safety nets.
  3. Co-producing systematic knowledge and data about our communities’ needs and exclusion factors through Participatory Research Action methods.
  4. Fostering peer to peer organizing, skill sharing, and political educational initiatives among immigrant women and girls.

History

UWF was founded on May 10th 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic’s devastating impact on undocumented migrant women in NYC.

Undocumented women faced immense financial pressure during and after the COVID-19 crisis: they perform most of the unpaid care work that upholds their communities; face significant barriers to obtaining work; and, when they are employed, it is usually in low-wage, precarious, and invisibilized jobs like domestic work or informal labor. On top of this, their immigration status limits their access to basic social services and has been used to exclude them and their families from relief programs and social rights.

UWF started out by cash grants to undocumented women heads of household to support their living costs. This project entailed significant fundraising work, as well as conducting screening interviews to ensure funds were being distributed to families in need.

This continued through to the end of 2022, by which point the Covid-19 pandemic was less acute and many newer migrants were arriving in NYC. As a consequence, UWF decided to reassess priorities and redirect the organization’s efforts.