The Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE) works as a catalyst for change in the lives of women, transgender people 1, teen women, children, and other communities especially affected by violence. CAE’s programs are designed to develop participants’ skills, knowledge, and awareness to enable them to heal from, prevent, and counter violence. We do this work to actively create a peaceful, just, and equitable world.

Thirty Years Strong: CAE's Driving Values

Building voices is our foundation. Founded in 1974, Brooklyn Women's Martial Arts—which then become the Center for Anti-Violence Education in 1989—grew out of the protest movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. We began as a feminist women’s organization with a commitment to building women’s leadership & have since developed violence-prevention curriculum for transgender people, teenagers & children. To further our vision of a violence-free society, we develop age-appropriate programming to teach violence-prevention skills and strategies and to encourage community involvement.

We are multiracial and anti-racist. Always guided by a commitment to addressing the different types of oppression that lead to violence, CAE has long used trainings, discussions, and special programs to turn our anti-racist commitment into reality and to create a community organization that is truly accessible to people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.

LGBT issues are central to our work. Lesbians have always played central leadership roles in BWMA and CAE, and we are committed to working in alliance with the broader LBGT community. Starting in the late 1990s, we welcome women of transgender experience and since the fall of 2004, CAE’s courses are inclusive of all transgender individuals. We have refined our policy in hopes to determine the best way to reconcile our historic mission as a women’s organization and our commitment to being allies with the transgender community and to fighting gender oppression.

Our youth programs are dynamic. Our children’s classes provide girls and boys with a safe space to talk about important issues in their lives, including bullying which is a daily reality for so many children. The teen program nurtures their leadership development, and teen women & transgender youth work with adults on intergenerational teaching teams in the children’s program. Our programs encourage youth to find their voices and to realize their own individual potential and their connections with their broader worlds.

Our programs are economically accessible. Many of our students attend classes for free or almost-free. Sliding-scale fees and free child-care reflect our bedrock commitment to women, transgender people, teens, and children, families and individuals, of all socio-economic backgrounds.

We promote the leadership of all participants. We all teach and learn from each other. We foster women, transgender people, teen women, trans-youth, and children’s leadership, creating generations of new teachers and leaders. Over the years, we have trained more than 200 new self-defense teachers and have prepared thousands of children and young people to take community leadership roles.

Our programs impact people throughout New York City and nationwide. Over the past thirty years, we have offered community education workshops at schools, work places, rape crisis centers, domestic violence groups, HIV/AIDS organizations, youth agencies, community centers, substance abuse recovery organizations, and in a host of other settings. We are an invaluable resource to groups in every New York City neighborhood and to communities beyond our own city.

We are a community. From the youngest children to the seniors, we honor each person and the rich tapestry and power of our collective strength. Together, we create a community that supports the healing and strengthening of our minds, bodies, and spirits. Our power derives from our diversity—across ages, racial and ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, and gender expression—and we know that our organization is fuller and more complete when we all come together.

Over the next five years, CAE will broaden our work with LGBT communities, increase our presence in schools and youth centers, and build our programming in domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers, so that we confront the violence in our communities and work to create a world without violence.

Statement of Organizational Values
(August 2004)

DIVERSITY: We are committed to building an organization that is intergenerational, multi-cultural, multi-racial, socio-economically diverse, and inclusive of people of various abilities, sexual orientations, gender identities, and religious backgrounds.

COOPERATION: We are committed to working together with mutual respect and cooperation.

LEADERSHIP: We are a multi-racial, women- and trans-led 1 organization that, as part of our commitment to women-centered and feminist values, enhances the skills and promotes the leadership of all participants in our work and their broader involvement in social justice.

SOCIAL JUSTICE: Arising from our feminist, anti-racist, anti-heterosexist, and trans-inclusive perspective, we are committed to opposing all forms of oppression, which we recognize are interlocking tactics of a system that would keep us divided to protect the power and privilege of the few.

COMMUNITY ACTION: We are committed to transforming our progressive values into community action for social justice. Collectively and in alliance with others, we stand up against violence in all its manifestations, such as ecomonic oppression, racism, heterosexism, gender oppression, ageism and ablism.

CAE is inclusive of all transgender people.

Footnote: Transgender (TG): The term refers to a group/groups of any and all people who feel that the gender they were assigned at birth and/or were socialized as does not accurately match the gender that they feel they are on the inside. It additionally refers to anyone who may wish to, or has altered their outward appearance or secondary sex characteristics through the use of hormones or surgeries. However, the term does not require that any person make permanent changes to themselves in order to identify with it. It can refer to anyone who is inclined to cross the gender lines, or identifies as transsexual, a cross-dresser, two-spirit, hijra, genderqueer, a drag king or queen, bigender, gender benders, and any other way of being gender varient. This is the main way the word is used today, and is referred to as an "umbrella definition" as it can encompass everyone.

Written by Sierra Spingarn