FAWCO

What is it? FAWCO was born over 60 years ago when members from the original seven [American Women’s Clubs] met in Berlin in May 1932. In a city then violent with political clashes, delegates to that first FAWCO Conference voted “to promote friendship and cooperation among American women’s efforts which they believe might help to bring about a better understanding between the United States of America and other nations.” Today FAWCO with [over] 52 member clubs spanning the globe is still guided by this principle. (AWC of Curaçao joined FAWCO in 1989.)

FAWCO has represented the huge numbers of Americans abroad - this “51st state”-, and has successfully moved new legislation to deal with dual citizenship and the rights of overseas Americans to vote, etc.

The FAWCO Foundation was established in 1967 to assist FAWCO in its charitable and educational projects. In 1971 a scholarship program was developed and recently more than $90,000 was awarded to sons and daughters of FAWCO members for study in the U.S. and abroad at the high school, college and post graduate levels, as well as to members of FAWCO-affiliated clubs for their own continuing education. Donations to both the Relief Fund and FAWCO foundation are U.S. tax-deductible.

FAWCO is also a resource for vital information on many topics useful to Americans living abroad, such as:

US citizens moving abroad for the first time

Finding jobs and schools abroad

Citizens returning to the US

Lliving abroad and applying to college in the US

Citizenship and voting rights for Americans living abroad

New club fund-raising ideas

Creating new club constitutions

Providing an emergency relief fund for US women and children in the Third World

All this and more is FAWCO. In a 1990 survey conducted by USA Today, Americans living abroad voted FAWCO the second most effective organization in their lives after the American Chamber of Commerce.

(Parts reprinted by Georgia Regnault, FAWCO brochure and AWC of ZURICH newsletter).