Pakistani-born Somy Ali is a former Bollywood actress who is also a model and journalist as well as a purveyor of her own line of clothing. But she's getting a lot of attention these days for her work with No More Tears, an organization she founded in 2006 in South Florida to help immigrant women who are facing domestic abuse.
Here's how the Miami Herald describes her work:
Today, her four-bedroom Plantation home is the headquarters of No More Tears, a nonprofit Ali founded in 2006 to help immigrant women in South Florida escape domestic abuse.
The women (46 so far) hail from distant lands -- India, Russia, Guyana -- and nearby countries including Cuba and the Bahamas. They come from many faiths, and often arrive in South Florida via arranged marriages. They're cleaning women. Homemakers. Teachers.
Ali, 34, finds them apartments and rounds up donated furnishings. She lines up jobs or training, registers their kids in school and baby-sits when needed. All the while, she inches the women toward independence.
``It is like they are being held captive. They don't have a say,'' she says. ``It's ridiculous that this is happening in the United States. We have to learn about it and do something about it.''
