Who We Are

In 1994, Busi L. Peters-Maughan, MS traveled to Nairobi, Kenya as an educator, came back to America as an entrepreneur, and founded Sikawaida Imports, an import/export company, featuring its premiere line of the Drum Bag – designed by Ms. Peters-Maughan for the Yatta Division Women's� Group in Machakos, Kenya. She became motivated to work with the group after witnessing rural Kenyans lack of basic necessities like adequate water supplies, electricity, and educational facilities for their children. Upon returning home to the United States, she turned her attention to the plight of women of color in her own backyard. Women of color are the fastest growing demographic of incarcerated individuals and are facing many adversities like unemployment and insufficient housing upon their release from prison. These two barriers create a lethal combination that contributes to the vicious cycle of recidivism.

This desire to serve marginalized women in Africa and the United States led Ms.
Peters-Maughan to create Women Healing & Empowering Women (WHEW), a nonprofit organization, with a local and global focus, incorporated in 2005.

WHEW initially developed through the volunteered expertise of a few women who live in the Third Ward section of Houston, Texas (Harris County) and who shared the common goal of improving the lives of disadvantaged women of color. The State of Texas, and Harris County in particular, has the highest rate of incarceration in the world–and is home to one of the highest recidivism rates in the nation. Many brainstorming sessions began with women sharing sustenance and solutions to the problems that face recently incarcerated women, domestic abuse victims, and women and children who are homeless.

Who We Serve

Disadvantaged women of African and Latino descent are disproportionately incarcerated. 80% of women incarcerated in the United States were subjected to domestic abuse or some violent act.
It is practically impossible for a person to maintain their residence while in prison, which results in homelessness upon release. Formerly incarcerated people are often unemployable due to felony convictions that make it difficult to not only find work, but also to gain access to public housing, welfare, food stamps, drivers’ licenses, passports, and voting. For the 600,000 prisoners who leave correctional facilities each year in the United States, re-establishing healthy and safe relationships back home is often the fulcrum upon which successful reentry is balanced. WHEW realizes that women who are formerly incarcerated, homeless, and victims of domestic violence have converging issues that make them ill-equipped to advocate on their own behalf.