The South Asian Women's Forum (SAWF) is a global association in cyberspace run by women drawn from India and the South Asian diaspora. The SAWF website (http://www.sawf.org) was launched in April 1999. It was conceived as a platform where issues germane to the contemporary South Asian woman could be raised, discussed and debated amid a civilized, informal backdrop. The Forum has accordingly evolved to reflect the multifarious roles that modern South Asian woman have come to successfully parlay, whether as a mother, a housewife, an engineer, an entrepreneur, an artist, a film maker or a poet. SAWF thus provides a rich breeding ground for a cross-fertilization of ideas, intellectual and commercial.

The SAWF site is unique: for while the site is wholly managed by women, it is not exclusivist. The SAWF community does not believe in erecting or perpetuating traditional barriers and invites - indeed encourages - participation from all with no regard to gender.

Conceiving and sustaining SAWF has been a challenge. It has been a labour of love. It runs entirely on the efforts and resources put in by its team members whose reward is only the joy that comes from working for a cause one believes in. SAWF has no external sources of funding.

The chief feature of the SAWF site is a bi-weekly webzine. Here the experienced as well as the novice, young and old, come together in a display of their talents in writing, poetry, music and other areas. The Webzine stresses on the best in family and cultural values. Our section on Indian Classical Music is of a very high quality and contains hard-to-find material that both the seasoned professional artiste as well as the lay listener may learn from. Other sections Poetry, Kitchen and Household tips, and discussion fora supported in both English and Devangari...

Writing for Sawf

Sawf is an informal virtual community of like minded people with no commerical interests. While we welcome contributions, we are in no position to pay for them. Indeed, the movement exists because of voluntary contributions of thought and articles from community members.

If you would like to contribute, or know someone else who may like to, we will be delighted to hear from you. Feel free to mail your contributions or even upload them.

Sawf does not claim copyrights on any contributions made by you. You are free to use the contribution elsewhere, even for commercial gain. However, once a contribution is published, you maynot ask us to remove it from our archives.

Guidelines for Sawf Contributors

The following are some simple guidelines for contributors.

• You can write on any topic that you feel will be of interest to the South Asian community.
• Your contribution should conform to the ambience of positivity and should not contain derogatory remarks aimed at any community, religion, sect etc.
• We appreciate an introductory paragraph to enable us to introduce you to our readers.
• Since we are a webzine we prefer articles that have pictures or representative graphics. However, let that not deter you from contributing.