About WSN
We are building the support survivors deserve.
Survivor-led, grounded in lived experience, and focused on abuse, trauma, stigma, retraumatization, and the long work of reclaiming a life.
Our mission
A connected, survivor-led ecosystem.
WSN is building a survivor-led ecosystem of support, education, navigation, partnerships, and leadership pathways for women and fem-identified survivors of relational and workplace abuse.
We work across the full survivor journey, and with organizations and systems that shape survivor outcomes. Survivors who choose to lead should be able to help change those systems.
Our vision
We envision a world where survivors are believed and supported; healing and rebuilding are accessible and sustained; organizations respond to harm responsibly; and survivor leadership helps shape safer communities, workplaces, and institutions.
We are working toward a world where it is difficult to become a victim and easier to escape, heal, rebuild, and lead as survivors.
“Survivors face more than the immediate harm itself. They should not have to face its aftermath without support.”
The work reaches beyond any single point in a survivor’s journey.
The gap
The gaps are connected. So must be the response.
Survivors may face manipulation, retaliation, stigma, financial harm, career disruption, disbelief, and retraumatization during abuse and long afterward.
Many survivors lack language to understand what happened or a connected path through resources, healing, and practical rebuilding.
People around survivors may misunderstand abuse and trauma, disbelieve what happened, or retraumatize them even when they intend to help.
Organizations need education about abuse and trauma, and practical ways to prevent harm and respond with understanding and validation, informed by the people their decisions affect.
“We are survivors ourselves. We know the reality of abuse and trauma: the difficulty of recognizing harm, the struggle for safety, and the long, often brutal work of healing and rebuilding afterward.”
From WSN’s founder · Read the full message ↗
Our story
Created by survivors to close a persistent gap.
Founded in 2025 in partnership with survivors who helped shape its vision, WSN grew from the founder’s experience rebuilding after abuse, work inside organizations, and conversations with other survivors. The same pattern kept emerging: people were expected to navigate trauma and rebuild their lives alone while the systems and communities around them often failed to understand or support them, or worse, retraumatized them.
Before WSN, Amparo created Astekah, a coaching practice begun in 2024 to support women healing from harm. That work and the people it reached helped make the need for a larger, survivor-led nonprofit clear. WSN incorporated in California in July 2025.
In 2026, WSN established its Board and governance, completed and began learning from its first stabilization pilot for the relational abuse track, began research and assessment groundwork for the workplace abuse track, and strengthened its team and operating systems. This foundation matters to the work we are building toward.
The WSN survivor journey
The whole journey matters.
These stages help us see what support can be needed over time. They are not a required sequence. People may experience several at once or define their own path; leadership is always a choice.
01
Awakening
Recognizing patterns of harm and trauma, and learning to trust what mind and body are telling us. This education matters for survivors and for the people around them.
02
Escaping
Moving away from harm or creating protective boundaries. WSN does not currently provide escape assistance. We hope to build partnerships with organizations that do; those partnerships are not yet in place.
03
Stabilizing
Addressing immediate practical and emotional needs, including safety, housing, income, health, work, and access to resources.
04
Healing
Recovering from trauma and rebuilding safety, trust, and connection.
05
Rebuilding
Building a life beyond immediate survival: strengthening community, pursuing opportunity, reclaiming identity, and choosing a direction.
06
Leading
An optional path to turn knowledge into influence, systems change, and safer environments.
Why connect the whole journey?
Survivors are whole people living through an interconnected journey, often while trauma, practical demands, and continuing harm overlap. They should not have to start over with every new need or face institutions that undo their progress. Needs do not fall into neat stages, and the responses of people and organizations around survivors affect what becomes possible. That is why WSN connects individual support with education, partnerships, organizational change, and survivor leadership.
What guides us
How we approach the work.
01
Build with survivors
Survivor knowledge shapes strategy, design, governance, and decisions. Lived experience is expertise, never a requirement to disclose.
02
Protect dignity and choice
Safety, consent, cultural context, and agency guide how we work with people.
03
Educate the people and systems around survivors
We help organizations recognize harm, respond to survivors with understanding, and improve practices that can cause further harm. We test approaches before expanding them.
Our values
Survivor-centered and survivor-led practice; survivor-informed and trauma-informed learning; cultural responsiveness and inclusive womanhood; dignity and care; community-based healing; and change in the systems that sustain harm. These values guide our choices, from program design to governance.
How we lead
Matriarchy and shared power. We value relational wisdom, care, and decisions that protect life and serve the long term.
Servant leadership. Leaders remove barriers, share power, and act with humility and responsibility.
Warriorhood. Protective stewardship means safeguarding survivors, the mission, privacy, and the integrity of our work.
Leadership & governance
People building WSN.
Founder · President · Executive Director
Amparo I. Vázquez
Amparo founded WSN in 2025 with other survivors to build the connected support she saw missing during her own long rebuilding process and in the experiences of people around her. A Mexican-American organizational leader, she brings experience in program development, operations, and working across institutions. Before WSN, she founded Astekah, a coaching practice supporting women healing from harm. She now leads WSN’s program and partnership development, organizational foundation, and survivor-led direction.
Board of Directors
Bríenn Paniagua
Survivor Experience Steward · Interim Secretary
Claudia Coons
Marketing Steward
Jessica Soja
Impact & Alignment Steward
Julia Ramirez
Treasurer
Julia Saladino
Survivor Legal Systems Steward
Marissa Jasso
Pilot Partnerships & Insights Steward
Nikiya Crisostomo
Program Governance Steward
Tannia Schmidt, Esq.
Immigrant Survivor & Legal Systems Steward
Official nonprofit information
Women’s Survivors Network is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation and an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) public charity. EIN: 39-3304356.
Registered office: 2108 N St, Ste N, Sacramento, CA 95816.
The work ahead
The full reality of abuse and trauma calls for a fuller response.
Explore how our programs and collaborations are taking shape.