YWCA of Madison, Inc.

YWCA is dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all. In order to achieve our goals of a more equitable society, the YWCA Madison provides a spectrum of programming aimed at creating a more just and inclusive society. These programs include:
-Racial Justice Programs
-Restorative Justice Program
-Women’s Leadership Initiatives

Racial Justice Programs
Racism affects all of us, regardless of what we look like. The elimination of racism is an on-going process that requires persistence, commitment, and continuing dialogue between individuals and groups. The YWCA is committed to helping individuals, organizations, and companies in the Madison community improve race relations and find ways to eliminate racism through constructive dialogue and meaningful action. The YWCA achieves these goals through:
-Racial Justice Workshops are offered regularly in the community and upon request for groups, organizations, or businesses.
-Each year, the YWCA hosts a Racial Justice Summit that brings together community stakeholders to work on eliminating barriers that foster racism in our community
-For an intensive and cumulative learning experience, the YWCA offers a racial justice certificate program for participants who attend all three of the course levels and complete reading and online assignments between the courses.

Restorative Justice Program
The YWCA Madison uses Restorative Justice as a strategy to address the School-to-Prison Pipeline. The School-to-Prison Pipeline is a process by which students are removed from the school for disciplinary infractions. These students are often put on a path to the criminal justice system. The racial disparities in school discipline directly correlate with the racial disparities in the criminal justice system. We use restorative justice to provide alternative discipline models in schools to keep students in school and out of the justice system.

Women’s Leadership Initiatives
The YWCA Madison’s women’s leadership trainings aim to help women develop skills to help them advance in their careers while breaking down barriers that prevent women from attaining leadership roles. The YWCA Madison achieves these goals through:
-The Moxie Conference: Nerve and Know-How for Emerging Leaders - This women’s leadership conference aims to build tomorrow’s leaders and encourage them to draw inspiration from the Women of Distinction Award recipients who will be honored during the conference.
-YWomen Lead Series - This eight-month intensive leadership and career development series develops leadership skills to support personal growth and develop a leadership peer group. Attendees will gain fresh ideas and strategies to promote women’s leadership in their organization.

Women who participate in our training programs gain skills in economic literacy, as well as tangible job skills that allow them to have access to employment fields in which they have traditionally been underrepresented.

As we look at the impact of sexism and racism, women, and particularly women of color, experience adverse economic impacts. By focusing on empowering women economically, the YWCA Madison hopes to improve the economic wealth of individual families and our community.

Women’s economic empowerment speaks to a woman’s ability to make strategic choices, improve her economic situation, and alter existing power structures that create barriers to economic justice.

Economic empowerment is more than simply having a job. Our goal is to create economic justice that equals equity and fairness.

The YWCA Madison achieves these goals by providing:
-Employment and training programs, and
-Safe transportation solutions.