Women's Institute for Solidarity and Empowerment

The Women’s Institute for Solidarity and Empowerment (WISE) is a resource and research center whose work involves examining issues in partnership with grassroots women's organizations and working women to develop publications and resources that broadens and popularizes their calls for social change. Our five priority areas of research are: human trafficking and violence against women, issues of indigenous women, impacts of family separation on migrant women and children, issues of women in vulnerable industries and lines of work, and impacts of anti-people governance and forms of systemic violence (such as the climate crisis, policing, incarceration, and anti-abortion policies). In this way, WISE serves women's groups, workplaces, and grassroots organizations by developing research projects that are unique to specific needs of women and communities on the ground, with the goal of identifying solutions that empower and improve the lives of women. 

Our Mission: WISE strives to empower working and marginalized women from grassroots movements and organizations through participatory action research to demand economic justice and build solidarity by bridging their issues and struggles to promote social change.

We believe that the real change makers of history are women who are actively engaged in changing the world, not merely interpreting it. Our research aims to support the fights, campaigns, and struggles of women in their efforts for social change. Research is not just about numbers; it is about telling stories, understanding trends, uncovering truths, and providing evidence that can shape policies and practices. In order to make their voices heard in an environment that prioritizes the data and logic of extractive corporations, grassroots working and marginalized women need support in exposing their struggles and their political fights. These partnerships ensure that research does not become a distant academic exercise but a tool for real-world change.