Cultural Boundaries & Cyber Spaces: Speakers

Innovative Tools and Strategies for Strengthening Women's Leadership in Muslim Societies

Speaker's Biographies

MAHNAZ AFKHAMI is Founder and President of the Women's Learning Partnership, Executive Director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies, and former Minister of State for Women's Affairs in Iran. In exile in the United States, Ms. Afkhami is a leading advocate of women's rights having founded and served as director and president of several international non-governmental organizations whose work focuses on advancing the status of women. Most recently she was President of Sisterhood Is Global Institute. Her numerous publications have been widely translated and distributed internationally.

DAVAR ARDALAN is Producer of National Public Radio's (NPR) Weekend All Things Considered, among numerous other in-depth news and cultural features. In 1995, she co-produced with correspondent Lynn Neary a series on the growth of Islam in America and conducted research, field, and studio production. She also produced with correspondent Jacki Lyden "Iran at the Crossroads." Her honors include two first place Associated Press awards in the categories of documentaries and investigative news.

JANICE BRODMAN is Director of the Education Development Center's Center for Innovative Technologies. She has 20 years of experience in designing, evaluating, and implementing organizational development programs in the U.S. and in developing countries. She has produced multi-media training programs, information and communication technology (ICTs) strategies, and World Wide Web resources, and managed virtual conferences. Among her aims has been to enhance the opportunities ICTs provide for women's access to knowledge, economic resources, and political power. She has developed and taught courses on effective use of information technology by public sector organizations at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

CHARLOTTE BUNCH is Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University. She has been an activist, author, and organizer in the women's and civil rights movement for over three decades. She was Founding Director of the Public Resource Center, a tenured Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and Founder of DC Women's Liberation. Currently a Professor in the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, she serves on the Boards of the Ms. Foundation and Human Rights Watch's Women's Rights Division.

GILLIAN CALDWELL is Director of Witness, an organization that has pioneered the use of video and technology in the fight for human rights. At various non-governmental organizations around the world, she has worked on a range of rights issues including worldwide migration policies, torture, women's rights, and trafficking in women. Before coming to Witness she co-directed Global Survival Network where she coordinated a two-year undercover investigation into the trafficking of women for forced prostitution from Russia and the Newly Independent States, and produced a documentary based on the investigation which received widespread coverage on CNN, BBC, and ABC News.

NOELEEN HEYZER is Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) where she serves as the United Nations chief advocate for gender mainstreaming within the institution and internationally. She is the former head of the Gender and Development Programme in the Asian and Pacific Development Centre (APDC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and founding member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), a network of women leaders. She has lectured and published extensively, most recently on the subject of women and the process of globalization.

BUSHRA JABRE is Coordinator of Arab Women Speak Out, a project representing role models for Arab women through case studies and video profiles in the Middle East and North Africa. She is currently Senior Communications Advisor at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and Hygiene, Center for Communication Programs (JHU/PCS), where she develops regional and country specific communication strategies, projects, and activities, and conducts needs assessments in reproductive health and family planning. She has spent twenty years in the Near East and Central Asia assisting local agencies and non-governmental organizations implement communications activities.

ZAHIRA KAMAL is General Director of the Directorate for Gender Planning and Development at the Palestinian Ministry of Planning. In this capacity she initiated the establishment of the Inter-ministerial Coordinating Committee for the Advancement of Palestinian Women. She was among the Founders and is presently the Foreign Affairs Director of the Palestinian Federation of Women's Action, a member of the Women's Affairs Technical Committee, and member on the boards of both Israeli and Palestinian Networking and the Jerusalem Link, two cooperating women's centers in East and West Jerusalem.

ASMA KHADER is former President of the Jordanian Women's Union, the Coordinator for Sisterhood Is Global Institute in Jordan, and member of the Arab Lawyer's Union and Arab Organization for Human Rights. She was instrumental in creating a Legal Literacy/Legal Assistance program for Jordanian women. Elected to the Permanent Arab Court as Counsel on violence against women, she is well known for her campaigns to strengthen legislation outlawing honor killing. She was recently appointed to the Executive Committee of the International Commission of Jurists.

AMINA LEMRINI is a Founder and Member of the Moroccan Human Rights Organization (OMDH). She is currently the President of the Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM), a non-governmental organization working on the promotion and defense of women's rights. She is also on the Board of Directors of Collectif 95 Maghreb-Egalite, a women's regional NGO working in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Ms. Lemrini has lectured and published on a variety of issues dealing with human rights, in particular on the rights of the child and women's rights.

JACKI LYDEN is the Alternate Host and Senior Correspondent on National Public Radio's (NPR) Weekend All Things Considered. An award winning NPR veteran, she contributes regularly to NPR's highly respected news magazines, Morning Edition, and All Things Considered from various points around the globe. During the 1990s, beginning with the Gulf War, Lyden frequently reported on the Middle East. In 1995, she created a series of reports entitled, "Iran at the Crossroads," which presented some of the first ever voices on tape of dissidents critical of the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini. She is author of Daughter of the Queen of Sheeba, the critically acclaimed memoir about growing up with her manic-depressive mother.

THORAYA OBAID is Director of the Division for Arab States and Europe at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and a long time advocate for the advancement of women's rights. In 1975 she joined the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) where she developed its then new program to advance the status of women. In 1993 she was appointed ESCWA's Deputy Executive Secretary. In 1998 she was appointed to her present position at UNFPA where she undertakes strategic planning, oversees integration of regional and country programs, and assists governments to develop and implement country-wide population strategies.

AYO OBE is President of Nigeria's Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), the oldest indigenous human rights organization in Nigeria. At CLO, education and empowerment are among her key strategies to address basic human rights issues in Nigeria, including prison conditions, police brutality, and the condition of women. Ms. Obe is also currently Chair of the Co-ordinating Committee of the Transition Monitoring Group, a coalition of over 60 Nigerian NGOs that came together to monitor Nigeria's transition to civil rule. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy and has represented the CLO at numerous local and international fora.

SHAZIA RAFI is Secretary-General of Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), an association of over 1300 legislators from 99 parliaments, and formerly served as its Director of Democracy and Development Programs. Prior to joining PGA, Ms. Rafi served for six years as the United Nations Representative for the All Pakistan Women's Association and as a consultant to the UN Center for Transnational Corporations and the Women's Action Alliance. She has published articles in several leading periodicals in the United States and in Pakistan.

ARUNA RAO is an independent scholar and practitioner specializing in gender and institutional change. Former President of the Board of the Association of Women in Development, she has over twenty years experience in addressing gender issues in a variety of development organizations, primarily in Asia. She headed the Gender Team at BRAC, a large rural development NGO in Bangladesh, which pioneered a new approach to gender and organizational change. Earlier based in Bangkok, she coordinated a program on research and training on women's roles and gender differences in development projects for several years. She has consulted with numerous international organizations and written extensively on gender related topics.

NAJAT ROCHDI is President of the Morocco Internet Society and senior advisor on numerous projects to implement information and technology policy for economic and social development in developing countries. She is Advisor to the Minister for Information Technology in Morocco and leads the national commission for the "Information Technology National Action Plan." She serves as a consultant for the "Internet Initiative for Africa" of the United Nations Development Programme's Regional Bureau for Africa.

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