Anxious to "fit in," some immigrants are also unwilling to call attention to problems in their communities.

"As immigrants, we are less likely to speak out against our batterers because we're trying to protect our ethnic group. We don't want to be divisive," says Baliga, the daughter of Indian immigrants.

Baliga says she will compile a database of legal, counseling, and community services similar to the Women's Information Service Hotline (WISH) run out of Rad- cliffe's Lyman Common Room. She will translate the information into Hindi and disseminate it through universities and South Asian organizations, temples and mosques.

Looking to universities as a pool of resources, Baliga hopes to draw student volunteers and create sustainability. Once the database exists, it can be incorporated by university South Asian and women's groups, South Asian cultural institutions and all other women's organizations in the San Francisco area.

"This year is a step in refining my ideas about what women need," Baliga says, although she has not decided what she will do after her year or two in California. She hopes her work will help her decide how to "channel [her] energies into serving women for the rest of [her] life."

Helping the Homeless

Fels will devote herself to assisting the needs of homeless women, a group which many say is an underaddressed community as well.

Combining her Stride Rite grant with other public and private contributions, Fels will create a student staffed shelter for 10 to 15 homeless women that will provide a long-term place to stay, meals and personal and career counseling.

"How do you put together a resume?" Fels asks. "How do you make that first phone call? How do you find out what jobs are out there besides looking in the Boston Globe?"

While these questions can be daunting even to college seniors with -job-hunting skills, the homeless are starting without that advantage, Fels says.

But homeless men and women must also face extraordinary personal hurdles.

Ninety percent of all women who are homeless were sexually abused as children or were raped, Fels says. She also says an unusually high percentage of homeless men were sexually or physically abused as children.

"These are things that render you effectively disabled," Fels says. "Whether or not you are mentally ill, you may be troubled by these kinds of things, and they grow, and they're incredibly pernicious. If a woman needs to deal with issues like that, she's not going to be very employable."

Many women's shelters share space with men's shelters, like the University Lutheran Church Shelter where women must shower in the men's bathroom. Fels, co-director of the University Lutheran Church Shelter, has known women who could not function so close to men, preventing them from taking advantage of the shelter's program.

The core idea of Fels' shelter is to provide an all-female "safe place" for homeless women.

"What I want is to give them a place where they can feel safe falling asleep," Fels says.