Wider Opportunities for Women
Wider Opportunities for Women
Contact: Joan A. Kuriansky, Esq.
1001 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 930
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 464-1596
Fax: (202) 464-1660
jkuriansky@wowonline.org
For more than 40 years, Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) has worked in its home community of Washington, DC to increase women’s access to high wage jobs, improve economic opportunities for girls, and improve the city’s workforce development system. Today, WOW provides telephone information and referrals to more than 300 women per month who call the office seeking help with jobs, job training and educational opportunities. Their needs are reflected in our current activities, which include: an initiative with local groups to revitalize a training program to prepare women to work in the trades; co-leading the DC Women’s Agenda with the DC Employment Justice Center – a coalition to ensure that the voices of the city’s women are part of the decision making processes that affect their lives; and a project to identify jobs in the protective service fields – fire, police, security and others – that offer women career paths to economic security. In addition, our “Connections to Careers Self-Sufficiency Workshops for Teens Project” is introducing low-income young people across the region to the wages needed to meet local living costs and the jobs that – while not requiring college degrees – provide that level of income and benefits. On September 13, 2005 WOW released an updated Self-Sufficiency Standard for the Washington DC Metropolitan Area that underscores how much harder it has become for working families in the region to make ends meet. The Standard is now being used by the more than 50 organizations that participated in its development to change the political and economic debate in this community from one about poverty to one that focuses on what families actually need to be self-sufficient. Last year, WOW was selected by the DC Catalogue of Philanthropy as a featured organization for 2006 in recognition of its work on behalf of women and girls in the DC area.
