Praxis International

Praxis International—changing the conditions that give rise to oppression, injustice, and all forms of violence against women

As a part of the movement to end violence against women, we act from the shared belief that we all must confront, examine, and change how our society responds to and often accommodates violence against women.  We know that real change requires a groundswell of community-based action and we hope you will join us in that effort today.  

Praxis was founded to work with communities that share our mission of eliminating violence in the lives of women and children. We seek to change longstanding assumptions that underpin this violence by working in multiple dimensions: addressing the needs of individual survivors, changing institutional and community responses, and reshaping local and global discourse. We act from the shared belief that in order to end violence against women we must confront, examine, and change how our society responds to and often accommodates the mistreatment of women. Our “gaze” is centered on the gaps between what people need and deserve and what institutions provide.

Our mission is grounded in an analysis of violence against women and children as an expression of historic male dominance, supported by societal practices; individual, family and community beliefs; and the institutions that directly impact all of our lives. To fulfill that mission, we convene diverse groups of people to think together about institutional problems or gaps that contribute to the underlying societal supports for domestic and sexual violence and result in poor outcomes for victims; develop and support innovative individual, institutional, and community-based solutions; and provide expert tools, training and technical assistance locally and beyond for organizations and communities working to close those gaps. Our work seeks to model, launch, inspire, and sustain change that confronts what is wrong and finds ways to make it right.

Core strategies for change:

Advocacy Learning Center: strengthening advocacy organizations to create fundamental social change and building knowledge and skills for individual, institutional, and community advocacy to address all forms gender-based violence.

The Blueprint for Safety Program: guiding communities across the country in adapting The Blueprint for Safety, the first comprehensive inter-agency framework in the nation for criminal justice system response to domestic violence. Developed in St. Paul, Minnesota, The Blueprint for Safety rests on practices tried and tested in communities across the globe

Institutional Analysis Technical Assistance: providing advanced training and support to communities to apply a method of institutional analysis and change that uncovers how managerial systems have organized individual practitioners to either centralize or marginalize attention to victim safety. 

Rural Technical Assistance: reducing isolation and supporting and building both advocacy leadership and Coordinated Community Response capacity in rural communities across the country.