“[By] sharing just that name, we are so proud and sharing that we support the community and we help this cause because we are philanthropists too,” Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation CEO Mona Kafeel says.
Don’t let the name give you a preconceived notion. Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation (TMWF) might have been founded by Muslim women, and is still proud of that identity, but the nonprofit’s service boundaries go far beyond the confines of their Plano offices and shelters and serve women, children and families of all genders, religions and backgrounds.
TMWF started shortly after 9/11 by Muslim women who “felt the need to be out and about and share with people that what media is portraying is not who we are.”
Kafeel came into TMWF first as a volunteer when the organization was only two years old. Since then, she has grown into different positions on the board to staff positions and, since 2020, CEO. The nonprofit has grown too, she says. In 2008, there were only 83 clients served. Now, she says, that number is in the thousands.
“And the reason for that growth is the Plano area,” Kafeel says. “The Plano area is so diverse now as opposed to 20 years ago and with that diversity, as you see new businesses popping up and new families moving in, you see these new family dynamics also.”
According to Kafeel, there are a lot of things that make the organization unique. Many of the women do not speak English and cannot share their stories ordinarily, she says. To mitigate the issue, there are about 22 languages spoken among the all-female staff, which consists of family and immigration attorneys, counselors and domestic violence shelter employees.
The services that the organization has offered are myriad:
- Two 24/7 crisis shelters for survivors of family and domestic violence
- More than 27 transitional apartments, including HUD Rapid Re-Housing
- A united community of Imams (Muslim religious leaders) in North Texas with a zero-tolerance pledge against domestic violence
- Ongoing interfaith dialogues and activities
- Spearheading the creation of the Contemporary Arab & Muslim Cultural Institute at the University of North Texas
- Providing training and education on domestic violence, online safety for youth, mental wellness, financial literacy and women’s entrepreneurship.
Throughout each of these programs, the organization focuses on two phrases: culturally-sensitive and trauma-informed.
Cultural sensitivity requires knowledge of various cultures and how religion, nationality, race and other factors affect family dynamics.
“In family law the cases take way more time than in immigration,” Kafeel says. “They are messy if you don’t understand that cultural aspect of the survivor, the layers of trauma, the layers of issues that the attorney needs to tackle … our in-house attorney knows the cultures. She understands that there’s so many layers when we talk about domestic violence within minorities.”
According to Pew Research Center, about a quarter of Asian, Black and Hispanic households are multigenerational, nearly double that of white families. This dynamic means that while one could assume that domestic violence refers to intimate partner violence, in other communities the perpetrator could be a mother-in-law or other extended family member, Kafeel says.
For trauma-informed care, Kafeel says it often is as simple as ensuring that the women and children have agency over their own decisions.
“Every week, the shelter housing advocates and the staff sit with the clients and ask them to plan their menu for the next week, so they get to cook for themselves, which means that they start getting that power of decision making,” Kafeel says. “A lot of times when these women come through our doors, the decision making has been taken away by the abuser … If somebody is going through trauma, we don’t dictate [their lives] because somebody was already controlling their life.”
Most women and families that the organization serves are referred through local businesses and faith-based organizations like churches, mosques and other nonprofits.
“Whether it’s a church or a mosque, they will find smaller groups and they will find some way to share their [experience of] domestic violence,” Kafeel says. “A lot of women know that our mosque here supports domestic violence survivors because we have a close partnership with them.”
Kafeel says the organization has become so synonymous with the community that city boards, commissions and city council members – several of whom she met through Leadership Plano – will get calls from smaller groups and refer individuals to TMWF.
Now, TMWF asks that the community continue sharing content from the organization on social media and with word-of-mouth.
“If you know somebody is going through domestic violence and you share my content, she will have a resource,” Kafeel says. “When we talk about one in four women [going through domestic violence,] you have so many friends and quite a few will go through domestic violence … For that purpose, social media presence is so critical and interacting on that level will help save many lives.”
