Meet SOAR’s Executive Director, Amrita Doshi!

This interview was originally published by API-DVRP in their Winter 2022 Newsletter.

Can you tell us about yourself, and share with us your personal journey in the movement to end gender-based violence? How did you get involved with SOAR?

My entry into this work, like many, begins with survivorship. At age 15 –– without having the language for it –– I was discovering my own modalities of healing, creating pods for safety and care, and continually silencing myself for the sake of others’ comfort.

Thus, my journey into this work was really a quest to rediscover my own voice, while finding community with those who were doing the same. I found this first at Sakhi for South Asian Women, where I interned as a sophomore in college. I spent my internship developing youth empowerment programming for the children of survivors, while their mothers received services. Soon after that, I found myself diving deeper into experiences of harm and healing in Asian American communities by conducting research on Womankind, formerly known as the New York Asian Women’s Center.

Outside of my formal work, I found my own medium for storytelling and community building to be through arts. I began cultural organizing work independently and with Sakhi to inspire dialogue and advocacy for gender justice, performing and producing in arts shows in New York City.

A few months into the pandemic, I reached out to Kavita Mehra, Sakhi’s ED, to see if I could apply my background in technology and community-centered design to support the remote adaptation of services. Instead, Kavita shared the urgent need to be working in coalition to address the shared challenges of the shadow pandemic of gender-based violence. Within weeks, I began facilitating conversations about the needs, gaps, and vision for our movement with Aparna Bhattacharyya (Raksha), Navneet Bhalla (Manavi), Rachna Khare (Daya), and Veda Kamra (Sakhi). That’s where the story of SOAR begins :)

Can you tell us about SOAR? How would you contextualize SOAR in the larger movements to end GBV and towards liberation?

Some of the earliest organizations serving South Asian survivors were founded in the 1980s –– this moment of unity has been over 30 years in the making. SOAR is an intergenerational collective of survivors, allies, and organizations in the movement to end gender-based violence in the South Asian diaspora in the US. We exist to grow our collective imagination and power for transformative change –– to transform ourselves, our culture, and our systems. Yet, our vision is not only to end violence, it is to bring about joy, healing, and justice for all South Asian survivors and communities.

To take that a step further, we recognize that we cannot build systems of healing and care for South Asian survivors and communities, unless and until we are working towards this vision for all communities. We seek transformation of South Asian communities, and through that work, we seek to be in solidarity with movements for collective liberation.

We hope that SOAR can be a home for survivors, allies, activists, and anyone supporting survivors to build their capacity, leadership, and community to advance a collective movement –– within South Asian communities and in solidarity with BIPOC communities globally.

We know that violence does not happen in a vacuum. What are some of SOAR’s principles & approaches to GBV prevention & response while combating the many systems of violence that impact the livelihood and wellness of South Asian communities? 

Central to SOAR’s vision for joy, healing, and justice is recognizing and dismantling the cultures of oppression and violence we all live in. Specifically within the South Asian community, we seek to dismantle structures of power within South Asian communities that oppress people and communities due to caste, gender, sexuality, religion, class, ability, and more. We believe that we cannot end violence with more violence.

SOAR approaches the work of collective liberation with feminist, anti-oppressive, anti-racist, and intersectional practices. I want to point out that we aim to center learning and growth here, knowing that we will constantly be striving towards a deeper, holistic practice of these lenses. Tactically, this means we are building capacity to serve and center the voices of survivors at the margins and who experience multiple forms of oppression. It means that we strive to provide spaces for learning and dialogue on caste, racism, sexist, capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy. Most importantly, it means that we are also constantly reflecting on harm and violence within our own spaces and finding ways to address harm and conflict in meaningful and restorative ways.

One of the challenges and critiques expressed by our member organizations and activists is our movement’s relationships to and position on the criminal justice system. A priority area for SOAR is creating the space for study, dialogue, and co-creation of abolitionist solutions and practices. We look to the Asian, black, brown, queer, disabled, and radical feminists of color who have paved the way for this work, and we aim to build our capacity to engage in this transformative change.

As a movement, we are thinking about building and redistributing power & resources. What are some ways that SOAR is building on-going leadership? And what does redistribution of resources look like to you in the context of DV/IPV work?

One of SOAR’s guiding principles is to be survivor-centered, which we strive to uphold by ensuring that the people most impacted by survivorship should be centered in leading and creating solutions. To us, this means survivors are represented across SOAR’s staff and governing structures, programming, and advocacy.

By focusing on survivor leadership, we hope to grow the inherent power of survivors to engage in interpersonal, community-wide, or systemic change. One of our ambitions is to partner with our member organizations to produce community-driven policy platforms that are directly informed by and uplift the needs of survivors and their communities. We are also exploring the possibilities of a survivor advisory or leadership council that guides and makes decisions about SOAR’s programming. 

With regards to the redistribution of financial resources, many of our member organizations already provide or are interested in providing direct, unrestricted financial assistance to survivors. Simultaneously, I think SOAR can support a fundamental culture shift in how we think about funding this work, which impacts salaries, which then impacts the sustainability of the movement and its leadership. 

Liberation work is care work. What are some ways SOAR incorporates healing and care internally as well as in your work with communities?

Guided by queer, abolitionist, and Black feminist leaders, we think the work of this movement is healing work. As Cara Page, one of the pioneers of the Healing Justice movement says, “Our movements themselves need to be healing or there is no point to them.” 

For SOAR, this means that everything from our values and spaces to our programming should be centered in healing and care for one another and our communities. Within this framework, we also want to center individuals’ autonomy over what healing looks like and when it takes place. This idea also applies to our collective –– and I think something we try to practice is deep listening and keen attentiveness to the shifting needs of our community.

In August 2021, as the crisis in Afghanistan unfolded, we facilitated a solidarity session for people to share and hold each other in profound sorrow. On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we shared an invitation for our members to reflect on the intersections of gender-based violence and state-sanctioned violence. During Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we held a healing circle, recognizing the ongoing healing of individuals providing services to survivors.

Over time, I hope this means we invest resources into building our community-centered solutions and accountability that support everyone’s healing –– for those who experience harm, those who cause harm, and those providing care and allyship.

What are some upcoming projects SOAR is working on? What is your trajectory for the next year?

Over the next year, we will be focusing on the following areas –– building our collective capacity, voice, and leadership.

Towards building our collective capacity, we will continue to provide training and resources to our member organizations. In particular, we will focus on building our capacity towards the gaps we have identified as a network such as strengthening our organizations, deepening intersectional approaches, and increasing our capacity to serve institutionally marginalized groups of survivors. In particular, we are excited to launch peer learning circles for our members!

Towards building our collective leadership, we will be launching leadership programming for survivors that is centered in transformative storytelling. This will provide sixteen South Asian survivors with the opportunity to write, share, and develop the tools to use their stories for change.

Towards building our collective voice, we are excited to release our inaugural report which shares our collective voice from the frontlines of the South Asian anti-violence movement. This report will set the stage for policy, advocacy, and systems change efforts.

As a collective, we are constantly reflecting and learning –– we look forward to evolving our mission, vision, and programming with all those who are a part of SOAR, and we welcome those who want to join us in this movement for transformative change.