Dr. Fouzia Saeed of AASHA." Violence against women Saeed has worked extensively on issues of Violence against women (VAW) and its effects on women and their children over the past 25 years. Other than crisis counselling and sensitisation on the issues, she has given numerous talks on the subject of VAW in general, domestic violence, rape, incest, and bride burning. While studying in the United States at the University of Minnesota, Saeed actively volunteered at crisis centres in Minnesota. She received training as an advocate and a councillor to deal with violence survivors at Chrysalis . She worked on the helpline, counselling violence survivors on the phone and provided them with references for legal help, medical and shelter facilities. She also received training from Minnesota Intervention Center for facilitating small groups of women. Later, she conducted a research study for St Paul Intervention Center where she assessed the satisfaction level of violence survivors from the law enforcing agencies. This included police, courts, counselors and shelters. The outcomes of the report and the specific recommendations were presented to a body of senior judges and police officials. She also worked with St. Paul Intervention Center as a woman's advocate and volunteered in a program which provided violence survivors direct support after they had requested police intervention. After returning to Pakistan in 1987, she joined Women’s Action Forum. She formed a taskforce under its Islamabad chapter called Committee for Violence Against Women. This committee analysed factors that have helped this violence persist and initiatives needed in the society to address some of these aspects. To deepen the discussion she and others on the task force organised workshops on the issue. Bedari Saeed was a founding member and executive director of, Bedari, a community organisation focused on women's issues, specifically related to violence. The organisation was founded in 1992 by Saeed and Ambreen Ahmad. At that time others among the core members who formed the first executive body included Sara Tirmazi, Shazreh Husain and Roshaneh Zafar. Bedari became the first Crisis Center in Pakistan that dealt with women experiencing violence. Women in folk culture Fouzia Saeed has been working throughout her career on women's issues in the field of folklore, development and social change. Her career started as a Deputy Director Research at the Pakistan National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage (Lok Virsa) where she developed and supervised a folklore research program and