Rubina Feroze Bhatti

Rubina was born in Sargodha, Pakistan, into a Christian family. As a girl from a small village and a minority community, she battled the odds to obtain a BSc in chemistry and become a lecturer in chemistry at the Government Girls College in her hometown. Later, Rubina moved to take on human rights work and improving the situation of minority women in Pakistan.

MMEG awarded Rubina a $15,000 grant in 2013 to support her pursuit of a PhD in leadership studies at the University of San Diego, California. Rubina says the PhD raised her profile, gave her transferrable skills, and increased her influence and credibility.

Rubina’s story perfectly exemplifies what MMEG seeks to do: identify and support exceptional women to acquire the tools provided by higher education to continue to pursue their goals. Today, Rubina is an internationally recognized human rights professional, community leader, researcher, and leadership consultant.

Since 2009, Rubina has worked with and served as Executive Director of the Taangh Wasaib Organization (TWO) in Sargodha, supporting and promoting marginalized communities. TWO’s achievements under Rubina’s leadership include:

• introducing human rights education programming in over 200 schools;

• training women’s groups to report violence against women;

• supporting over 500 victims with counseling and legal aid;

• initiating income-generating and leadership skill programs for women;

• launching “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence” campaigns;

• developing and supervising flooding relief projects for more than 1,000 families; and

• producing documentary films and theater on domestic violence.

Rubina was the first minority woman appointed, in 2020, to Pakistan’s National Commission on the Rights of the Child. Today, she works as a catalyst for change: developing community leaders, breaking the cycle of poverty for many through increased employment opportunities, and providing a strong role model for women in her community.

Rubina’s goals include improving access to employment and education reserve quotas for minorities, bringing minorities into all levels of political decision making, and developing regional and national policies in support of minority children.

A grant from MMEG made a difference in Rubina’s life and, through her, continues to change the lives of numerous women and children.

Ananya Tiwari

Ananya Tiwari is passionate about girls’ education.

At the age of 34, she has already supported thousands of girl students and teachers in the poorest and most remote parts of her native India. Ananya obtained a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2023, where she was the recipient of the outstanding doctoral medallion. Sense of belonging and intrinsic motivation is the focus of her research and a concept that she has introduced to hundreds of teachers in India’s government-owned schools.

Ananya was awarded a MMEG grant in 2022 to support completion of her graduate studies, which was enabled by multiple scholarships.  Most girls in India are less fortunate. Affordable quality secondary education is out of reach for millions of girls in India and dropout rates are high. An unfortunate result is millions of child-age brides. Ananya is helping break this cycle by improving the quality of education the government provides to the poorest of the poor via residential schools for minority girls, known as Kasturba Gandhi Balikpapan Vidylaya or KGBVs.

Ananya co-founded SwaTaleem, an educational startup that helps teachers in clusters of 4–5 KGBVs address pedagogical challenges using intrinsic motivation and social emotional learning while reinforcing the government curriculum. She launched SwaTaleem in Haryana, an Indian state with one of the lowest educational achievement levels and literacy rates for girls. SwaTaleem now works with 31 KGBVs, reaching over 5,000 underrepresented girls.

SwaTaleem uses basic technology to motivate and track students’ daily progress. For example, each student receives a weekly text (coupled with daily in-person sessions) with a learning-based task. Students and their parents are prompted via text to track the completion of those assignments. The assignments reinforce what is being studied in school, and the tracking provides data on how best to change the design of the program before expanding.

Increasing government support of SwaTaleem and improved test scores attest to the effectiveness of SwaTaleem, as does the securing of a long-term Google Impact Challenge for Women and Girls grant. In 2022, Google named Ananya one of seven rising changemakers as a Leader to Watch. 

Ananya plans to eventually expand SwaTaleem’s innovative educational services to all Indian states with KGBVs and keep hundreds of thousands of girls enrolled in school, motivated, and learning.

In 2023 SwaTaleem won a Nature Award for Inspiring Women in Science, in partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies.

This prize recognized the organization’s work encouraging historically underrepresented girls in New Delhi, India, to study natural sciences and increase their retention in STEM areas.

Ananya Tiwari: “It is our honor to be awarded the 2023 Nature Inspiring Women in Science Award for our work focusing on increasing STEM participation and retention in adolescent rural girls in India.

The award hosted by Nature Portfolio and The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. in the presence of UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming, had nominations spanning 45 countries across 6 continents for this year.”

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Elizabeth Vargas Castellanos

Elizabeth Vargas Castellanos is a woman with a mission: to help improve access to medicine and treatment for underserved populations in Colombia. And she is getting results.

A MMEG grant in 2013 allowed Elizabeth to complete her master’s degree in biological science with honors at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota. In 2017, with the aid of a government grant, she began her PhD there. Her thesis, based on the mutational profile in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, revealed a unique mutation in the Afro-Colombian women of the San Andres Islands (Caribbean Sea), in contrast to those found in the other two Afro-Colombian communities on the Pacific coast. Researchers have concluded this mutation is a result of different colonization of the San Andres islands, which are 470 miles north of the Colombian mainland and were initially settled by the British and Dutch and enslaved Africans from Jamaica, before the arrivalof Spanish colonizers.

Elizabeth’s research has aided in the treatment and prevention of breast and ovarian cancers in Afro-Colombian women, who suffer from extremely poor healthcare availability. Geneticists are now able to follow up with families of these patients and perform closer preventive check-ups, as well as offer treatments or interventions.

Elizabeth’s PhD required an internship abroad, which she fulfilled by spending five months at the DKFZ German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. Elizabeth says she benefitted greatly from her work in Heidelberg, and she graduated magna cum laude for academic excellence in 2021.

Elizabeth began her career at the Faculty of Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario. She then moved from teaching to medical research. She was appointed coordinator of the molecular biology laboratory at the Caimed Medical Research and Care Center, an organization dedicated to clinical research, information, and knowledge management to generate health solutions. Elizabeth was in charge of building a highly bio-safe molecular biology laboratory for Caimed in Colombia. Ninety percent of Caimed’s employees are women, but Elizabeth was the only woman and one of only two employees with a doctorate.

As a complement to her breast and ovarian cancer research, Elizabeth has helped create a registry of BRCA1/2 variants in Colombian patients with breast and ovarian cancer, to identify mutations in the regional population and complement similar registries in other countries.

Elizabeth has a passion for teaching. Her long-term goal was to work at a large cancer research facility while teaching doctoral students, and she is well on her way. Elizabeth is now doing a post-doctorate at Colombia’s National Cancer Institute, researching prostate cancer in Colombian patients. This is only the beginning of what Elizabeth hopes to accomplish.

Nohora Constanza Niño Vega

Nohora Constanza Niño Vega, from Colombia, is a 2016 Latin America and Caribbean Program MMEG grantee. 

Nohora is a National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT)  researcher at the Children’s Research Observatory (ODIN), El Colegio de Sonora, Mexico. She leads a project analyzing violence in Sonora from the perspective of its children and adolescents, including those traveling through to seek asylum in the United States. Working on such a complex subject impels Nohora to go beyond analysis to help create policies that minimize the impact of that violence on the lives of children and youths.

Nohora was trained as a psychologist at the National University of Colombia and holds MAs in development studies and in social sciences, and a PhD in research in social sciences with a minor in sociology from FLACSO-Mexico. Her areas of focus include children/youth in armed violence contexts, forced displacement, human security, gender, and peacebuilding processes in Colombia and Mexico, particularly on the Sonora/Arizona and Norte de Santander/Táchira borders.

She began her career as a research coordinator on a project in Tijuana, developing human security agendas in a neighborhood suffering from insecurity violence. Since then, she has collaborated on numerous research projects, including on education for peacebuilding in Medellín and Acapulco, with the University of Glasgow and Colombia’s Fundación Ideas para la Paz. She has researched Venezuelan child and youth migration on the Colombian-Venezuelan border and that of Mexican children and young migrants/refugees on the US-Mexico border. Nohora says, “I am very excited to work on collaborations that directly involve the community; that is what motivates me the most in research projects.”

In addition to her research, Nohora has taught at universities in Colombia, participates in numerous official and professional working groups on adolescents, youth, violence, and migration, publishing extensively on these subjects, and has worked as a psycho-social advisor for refugee children. Nohora now volunteers at a shelter serving internally displaced Mexican and Central American populations, drawing on her experience as a psychologist for such populations in Colombia.

Larisa Kasumagić-Kafedžić

Larisa Kasumagić-Kafedžić, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a 2004 US-Canada Program MMEG grantee.

Larisa is an advocate for peace and nonviolence through education. She is an associate orofessor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Sarajevo and, currently, at Cornell University. As a 2022–23 Fulbright Visiting Scholar Fellow at Cornell, she lectures on and researches the role of teachers as agents of change in education for peace and social responsibility. She founded the Peace Education Hub at the University of Sarajevo in 2000. 

Larisa holds an MPS in International Development and Education from Cornell University and a PhD in English language pedagogy and intercultural education from the University of Sarajevo. She was a 2003–04 Cornell University Hubert Humphrey Fellow. Her peace-building engagement began during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, when she worked on child war trauma, peace education, and nonviolent communication with teachers and schools in conflict-affected communities. 

Larisa’s teaching, writing, and research focus on intercultural, critical, and peace pedagogies in teacher education and language and culture didactics. She recently published Peace Pedagogies in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Theory and Practice in Formal Education, which presents positive examples of successful pedagogical practices in the country and recommends the incorporation of peace pedagogies into formal teacher education.

Larisa has also published on the engagement of youth in community development. She is an advocate of incorporating peace education into community youth development programs in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina; post-war healing and reconciliation through psycho-social support and pedagogical programs; working closely with schools and communities in nonviolence education; using participatory methods of community development; developing modules and educational methodologies of the “Facing History and Ourselves” program that focuses on civic education through teachings of the Holocaust and other instances of extreme violence across the world; and teaching nonviolent communication based on peace pedagogies and humanistic psychology principles.

Hourie Tafech

Hourie Tafech is a 2020 US-Canada Program MMEG grantee, from the West Bank and Gaza. She is a program manager at Refugees International in Washington DC. She is also an Advisor for the United States Refugee Advisory Board (USRAB) and a special Advisor for NASH Refugee Resettlement Initiative. She previously served as program manager for the University Alliance for Refugee and at-Risk Migrants and was a postdoctoral fellow at Guilford College, North Carolina. 

Hourie earned her PhD in global affairs from Rutgers University, and her research focuses on refugee economic integration and entrepreneurial activities. In 2021, Hourie was awarded an international fellowship from AAUW. In Malta, before coming to the United States, Hourie co-founded Spark15, the first refugee-led organization recognized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). As president of Spark15, she advocated for the rights of refugees in Malta before the Office of the President of Malta, the Minister for European Affairs and Inclusion, the Ministry of Education, and UNHCR-Malta.

Hourie’s most recent publication reviews the US refugee resettlement program and examines refugee entrepreneurship in US cities, finding that cities with a smooth business registration process, affordable housing, active resettlement agencies, and minimal social and political discrimination are most encouraging of refugees’ economic inclusion.

Fatima Lawson

Fatima Lawson, a 1994 MMEG grantee, is a global citizen whose professional, academic, and civic leadership in education extends over decades and across continents.

Fatima was born and raised in Kano, Nigeria, where western education (Boko Haram) was forbidden or discouraged, particularly for girls. She managed to attend Nigeria’s University of Ife, where she completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in French/Portuguese and linguistics, respectively. She earned a PhD in education policy and administration at the University of Minnesota in 1995, supported by her MMEG grant. Her intention to return to Nigeria to continue her career was thwarted by the precarious political situation at the time and Fatima and her husband decided to stay in the United States for the sake of their children.

Fatima has been an educator for over 30 years, most often working with and for disadvantaged children. She is now principal of a school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where 89% of the children are from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and many are from immigrant families. A highlight of her career was helping start one of the most successful language immersion schools in the city, where she served as principal for 12 years. She has worked in local universities as an adjunct professor and on a university committee seeking accreditation for doctoral degree program. She is also active in the National Principals’ Leadership Conference. As an educator, Fatima leads with sympathy for—and a deep understanding of—the issues faced by immigrants and their families.

Fatima has remained connected to the wider African diaspora and her Nigerian roots. She is Vice President of the Minnesota Institute for Nigeria’s Development (MIND) and served two terms on the Governor’s Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage. She is Secretary to the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Books for Africa and was instrumental in organizing a shipment of 50,000 books to mainly girls’ secondary schools in Kano. Through Books for Africa Fatima also sent eReaders to health NGOs such as Mercy International, which conduct regular medical missions to rural areas in Nigeria.

In 2020 Fatima received a Mandela-Washington Reciprocal Exchange Fellowship to partner with ministries of education in Nigeria to develop sustainable education goals and attended an alumni symposium in South Africa in 2023.

Fatima continues to focus on a multitude of objectives, all united by her commitment to education in its broadest sense.

Ensa Johnson

Ensa Johnson is an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) specialist and special needs educator. She completed her PhD studies at the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, University of Pretoria, South Africa, in 2015, where she focused on determining pain vocabulary that children aged 6–9 use to communicate their pain. This enabled speech-language pathologists to identify vocabulary for children with complex communication needs to use on their communication boards or speech-generating devices. Ensa received a MMEG grant in 2015 to financially support the completion of her PhD, as well as as well as a National Research Foundation (NRF) sabbatical grant.

Since completion of her doctoral studies, Ensa’s research has focused on children’s pain communication and pain assessment, in collaboration with Prof. Stefan Nilsson. Currently, Ensa is the South African primary investigator, with Prof. Nilsson as her Swedish counterpart, in a collaborative research project that resulted in the development of  the PicPecc app to help children undergoing cancer treatment.  This project has resulted in numerous publications.  

In addition to  her research in pain communication and assessment, Ensa is researching the implementation of AAC in various settings, including hospital intensive care units, schools, and courts. Ensa is rated by the NRF  as an established researcher (C2 rating). To date, she has published more than 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as 3 chapters in scholarly books.

Ensa worked for 11 years at the Centre for AAC and has been employed since January 2022 as a lecturer at the University of South Africa’s Department of Inclusive Education. She has supervised two PhD students and co-supervised three PhD students to successful completion as well as supervising or cosupervising 15 MA students to completion. She is currently supervising two PhD students and 7 MA students.

Detailed information on Dr. Johnson’s work and publications: https://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/corporate/default/Colleges/Education/Schools,-departments,-centres-&-instututes/School-of-Educational-Studies/Department-of-Inclusive-Education/Staff-members/Dr-E-Johnson

Vuledzani Ndanganeni

Vuledzani Ndanganeni is a speech-language pathologist and audiologist with 15 years of experience, including in South Africa’s public sector; at a school for children with special educational needs and developmental disabilities; and in an adult neuro rehabilitation center, dealing with patients with spinal cord injuries and acquired and congenital neurological problems. 

Vuledzani is completing her PhD at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC), where she also earned BA Honours and Master’s degrees.

Vuledzani’s research interests are early childhood intervention and AAC; cultural, linguistic, and contextually relevant interventions; community-based rehabilitation for persons living with disabilities and severe communication disorders in low-resourced contexts; and dysphagia in children and adults. She is passionate about transformation and managing diversity as well decolonization in the speech-language and audiology professions.

Netsai Gwata

Netsai Gwata is pursuing a doctorate in educational psychology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, while working as an educational psychologist at Brighter Futures for Children in the United Kingdom. She is investigating the resilience-enabling factors that protect young adults from resource-constrained or stressed communities from depression.

Netsai herself comes from a resource-constrained community in Zimbabwe. However, thanks to  her own perseverance and support from family and community members, she was able to do well in life. As an educational psychologist, she wants to champion the resilience of young people in similarly disadvantaged communities.

Her professional goal is to help open learning centers for children with learning disabilities that are accessible to families from resource-constrained communities. In Zimbabwe, most children and young people with learning disabilities from such communities have limited access to education that is suited to their needs.

Fatima Omarjee Ebrahim

Fatima Ebrahim is a 2020 South Africa Program grantee. She is pursuing a master’s degree in occupational therapy at the University of Cape Town. Faatima Ebrahim is South African clinical occupational therapist with 20 years’ experience serving the disabled community primarily in pediatric practice, and in a public health managerial capacity. Having a special needs child opened her eyes to the heavy burden on - almost exclusively female – caregivers, and radically changed her views on the role of the therapist. Ebrahim returned to university to better equip herself to research and advocate for caregiver engagement in therapy, as well as promoting inclusive communities, where those with disabilities can integrate and thrive, in collaboration with relevant NPOs.

“I grew up in apartheid South Africa. It was only in my first year at university that I was exposed to other cultures and communities within my own country. My parenting journey of a child with special needs has been a significant influence on the way I view my work. My own lived experiences of discrimination have empowered me to own my identity, and created a yearning for me to create and build the capacity of other women and children.”

Sister Elizabeth Namazzi

Sister Elizabeth Namazzi was inspired to help ostracized unwed teenage mothers in her homeland, Uganda, after witnessing firsthand how a hopeless pregnant girl’s life was transformed with practical support. After teaching secondary school for many years, Sister Elizabeth completed a PhD in curriculum studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, supported by a MMEG grant in 2011, and then returned to Uganda. She is now changing the lives of young people, both at the university where she works and through a center to support and empower young mothers.

While studying in Canada, Sister Elizabeth also worked to advance her ambition to help young unwed mothers. In Uganda’s conservative society, pregnant girls are often expelled from their homes and communities and left to fend for themselves. Homeless and helpless, the girls struggle to survive and too often lose their unborn babies. Sister Elizabeth’s vision was to build a center that could offer the young women a safe place to give birth, provide them and their babies with healthcare, teach them skills that promote self-reliance, and work with their families and communities to end ostracism of pregnant girls and reintegrate unwed mothers into society.

Upon graduation, Sister Elizabeth returned to Uganda Martyrs University, southwest of Kampala, where she is now Dean of the School of Postgraduate Studies and Research. As well teaching, supervising graduate research, and conducting innovative research herself, Sister Elizabeth is responsible for the School’s administration and co-ordination. She also designed the Curriculum of Educational Administration and Management program, a recent addition to the university’s offerings.

While studying at UBC, Sister Elizabeth persuaded engineering students in nearby Seattle to design the center she was dreaming of, based on her hand-drawn sketches. The prize-winning design for the Early Mothers Self-Realization Center is now becoming a reality. The center is being constructed in Sister Elizabeth’s home town with funds raised from well-wishers near and far. (Donors can contribute via https://www.gofundme.com/uganda-mothers-shelter). As of mid-2022, the first building was 80% complete and was already accommodating the urgent needs of young mothers. Once finished, the center will house a dormitory, an education center, and a medical clinic, and the girls will receive training in parenting, childcare and nutrition, and self-reliance skills. The clinic will also provide pre- and postnatal health services.

The center is eventually expected to accommodate and train up to 100 girls a year, supported by 15 staff members. In mid-2022, 18 girls and babies were housed at the Center and 26 others had been assisted with food and clothing. The center grows some of its own food, and plans to start rearing pigs and poultry and train the girls in animal farming as a potential source of income. Girls are also taught sewing skills, on donated machines.  

In her formal role as instructor and dean at Uganda Martyrs University, Sister Elizabeth saw student enrollment grow by 25% since her return in 2015 to 6,189 students in 2019. Sadly, the COVID pandemic has since caused enrollment to drop to 4,632 students, of which some 45% are women. Her own research has focused on child-led households and children’s perspectives on HIV/AIDS.

MMEG’s investment in Sister Elizabeth is having an exponential impact as she supports and empowers young unwed women while working to change community biases against them, researches a range of child-focused issues, and trains future educators.

Sandra Jatoonah

SANDRA JATOONAH, ANTI-POVERTY ADVOCATE

This is the story of a remarkable woman, Sandra Jatoonah from Mauritius, who earned a master’s degree in social development in South Africa and returned to her home country to offer social services to disadvantaged families.

With financial support from MMEG, Sandra completed a master’s degree at the University of Cape Town in 2013.  Upon graduation, she returned to Mauritius determined to make a difference in the lives of others. During her first year back home, she worked with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) as a labour migration and client service assistant. Through IOM’s various programmes, Sandra provided support to locals who were stranded abroad, assisting their repatriation and reintegration into society after they returned to Mauritius. Many were women, some with children, who were very grateful to return with IOM support. Sandra also supported workers and their families who were leaving to work abroad, helping with applications for entry visas and training to help them adapt to life in a new country.

Sandra then worked for four and a half years at the Decentralised Cooperation Programme (DCP), funded by the European Union (EU), facilitating the distribution of EU grants to non-profit organizations and ensuring the funds were properly used to implement social development projects. Her work at the DCP gave Sandra the opportunity to monitor projects of various NGOs and non-state actors in Mauritius and its surrounding islands, while also providing training in project implementation, follow-up, and budgeting. Some of these programs were focused on women’s empowerment, assistance for people with disabilities, women’s health, agriculture, water harvesting, and education.

With this deep understanding of the landscape of social service organizations in Mauritius, in 2018 Sandra joined Lovebridge, a local non-profit that provides services to vulnerable populations and aims to reduce extreme poverty, as a senior social worker. 

Sandra now works closely with about 20, mostly female-headed, households in the most impoverished rural areas, giving them guidance to access the available social services that will support their empowerment end eventual economic independence. Her work with each family addresses six fundamental pillars: education, housing, health, employment, food & nutrition, and MASCO (motivation, attitude, skills and courage). Issues Sandra commonly faces are the lack of basic amenities (electricity, sanitation), illiteracy, the emotional and physical abuse of women and children, disabilities, health issues, and, often, the advanced ages of key household members that make finding adequate employment very difficult. Helping family members find adequate employment is a crucial service, among others, that Sandra provides.   

With its holistic and multifaceted approach to family support, Sandra believes her work with Lovebridge can make a real difference. With time and consistent support, she hopes the families under her guidance and care will graduate from Lovebridge programs and lift themselves out of extreme poverty.     

Sangeeta Chatterji

Sangeeta Chatterji’s research, practice, and teaching focus on helping women live safe, violence-free, and economically secure lives. Over the past 10 years, she has concentrated on understanding the dimensions and causes of gender-based violence (GBV) and identifying and testing interventions that can prevent it. She develops and validates novel methods to measure GBV and examines structural and economic inequalities that underlie gender inequality leading to GVB. She has extensive experience implementing GBV programs in the non-profit sector in India, as well as teaching and mentoring the next generation of social work practitioners and scholars.

Sangeeta Chatterji received her MMEG grant in 2017 while completing her PhD in social work at Rutgers University. She holds a master’s in social work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India and is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of San Diego.

Deirdre Smythe

Deirdre (Dee) Smythe, a barrister with an active law practice, is passionate about access to justice and has sterling expertise in many facets of family and criminal law. She began her career as a child protection officer and children’s rights advocate, and today is renowned internationally for her expertise on sexual aggression, advising schools, universities, and civil society on protecting women and children. Her work encompasses policies and processes for dealing with these complex matters. Dee is also a professor of law and has run research units at universities in South Africa.

Dee received her MMEG grant in 2004 when she was completing her PhD at Stanford University. She earned her BA and LLB at the University of Cape Town.

Bishnu Pariyar

Bishnu Pariyar, from a village to academia 

Bishnu Maya Pariyar, a 2006 US-Canada MMEG grantee, tells a  remarkable story of her transition from a subsistence farming existence in a remote village in western Nepal to co-founding a rights based organization that supports children and Dalit (“untouchable” caste) and marginalized women in Nepal and working on anti-gender  violence in New Jersey. 

Bishnu was born into a poor Dalit family of 10 children whose labor was  essential for the family’s survival as subsistence farmers. 

They had no access to electricity, sanitation, healthcare, or roads, and she was shunned by other children. “Being a  Dalit girl, I experienced discrimination every day and every moment,” recalls Bishnu.  

However, with help from the US Peace Corps, Bishnu earned a BA in Nepal in social and political systems. She then  traveled to the US to study international development and social change at Clark University, Massachusette, where a MMEG  grant help her complete a master’s degree in 2007. 

Bishnu stood out to MMEG for having co-founded, at age 20, a social integration organization, Association for Dalit  Women’s Advancement of Nepal (ADWAN), to foster economic independence, boost self-esteem and dignity, and  instill solidarity among the diverse Dalit community members. ADWAN does so through three main programs— education, income generation and advocacy, and awareness—creating mixed-caste women’s solidarity groups that  became role models for rural community development and social transformation.  

ADWAN has: 

• organized 119 saving and loan groups with more than 2,200 women members; 

• helped over 1,500 high-school students with stipends, some of whom are individually sponsored by US citizens; • assisted 21 female college students via a scholarship program called the “Ambitious Girls’ Fund;”  • provided microloans to 126 women from 20 groups, now engaged in micro enterprises; and • organized 4 ongoing literacy classes and 6 pre-school classes.  

Under Bishnu’s leadership, ADWAN has supported more than 60,000 Dalit and marginalized women and their family  members in Nepal, covering over 390 groups, 35 schools, 25,000 students, and 35,000 family members. Caste and  gender discrimination and domestic violence have dropped. All Dalit children belonging to women’s groups attend  school and their performance in school has improved. Dalit women are increasingly involved in business initiatives,  participating in community development initiatives, and involved in civic and political organizations. ADWAN has  also seen improvements in participants’ economic conditions, home environments, hygiene, mind sets, and social  awareness. 

In 2013, Bishnu was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by her undergrad alma mater, Pine Manor College, MA,  for her pioneering social contributions. She now works in New Jersey as a case manager for survivors of domestic  and sexual violence, while continuing to fundraise for and promote ADWAN’s mission. She has helped hundreds of  South Asian American domestic and sexual violence victims, and has given cultural sensitivity training to local  officials, police, and law enforcement officers in Boston, MA, and Jersey City, NJ. 

MMEG is proud of having identified Bishnu as an extraordinary woman and of supporting her to change the lives of  women and children.  

Source pages: 

https://www.adwan.org/founding-president--dr-bishnu-m-pariyar 

https://clarknow.clarku.edu/2022/02/15/clark-alumna-confronts-gender-and-caste-based-disc

Silvana Andrea del Valle Bustos

Silvana Andrea del Valle Bustos, a lawyer, is a member of the National Coordination of the Chilean Network against Violence against Women and director of the Law School of the University Academy of Christian Humanism. She has written and spoken out with intensity about the deficiencies in Chilean law that fail to protect women from domestic harm, especially during the COVID quarantine, when such violence greatly increased.

She received her MMEG grant in 2013 while completing her PhD in law at the Washington University in St. Louis.

Siglia Camargo

Siglia Camargo Brazil 2011 Grantee US-Canada Program PhD Special Education Texas A & M from College Station in Texas Associate Professor - Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil

Siglia is an educator of elementary school teachers, furthering their  training and qualifications.

The research groups Siglia coordinates develop guides for preschool and elementary school teachers regarding best educational practices to teach students with autism within inclusive, mainstreaming settings. 

Awards:

Distinguished Honor Graduate at Texas A&M University (Fall 2012)

Examples of her work:

CAMARGO, S.P.H.; SILVA, G. L. ; CRESPO, R. ; OLIVEIRA, C. R. ; MAGALHAES, S. L. . DESAFIOS NO PROCESSO DE ESCOLARIZAÇÃO DE CRIANÇAS COM AUTISMO NO CONTEXTO INCLUSIVO: DIRETRIZES PARA FORMAÇÃO CONTINUADA NA PERSPECTIVA DOS PROFESSORES. EDUCAÇÃO EM REVISTA (ONLINE), v. 36, p. 1-22, 2020.

LEAO, A. T. ; CAMARGO, S. P. H. ; FRISON, L. M. B. . Communication of students with ASD: A self-regulation of learning based intervention. Psicologia. Teoria e Prática, v. 21, p. 473-500, 2019.

CAMARGO, S. P. H.; RISPOLI, MANDY ; GANZ, J. B. ; HONG, E. ; DAVIS, H. S. ; Mason, R. Behaviorally-based interventions for teaching social interaction skills to children with ASD in inclusive settings: A meta-analysis. Journal of Behavioral Education, v. 25, p. 223-248, 2016.

CAMARGO, S.P.H.; RISPOLI, M. ; GANZ, J. B. ; HONG, E. ; DAVIS, H. ; Mason, R. . A review of the quality of behaviorally-based intervention research to improve social interaction skills of children with ASD in inclusive settings. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, v. 44, p. 2096-2116, 2014.

RISPOLI, M. ; CAMARGO, S. P. ; Machalicek, W. ; LANG, R. ; SIGAFOOS, J. . Functional Communication Training in the Treatment of Challenging Behavior Maintained by Access to Rituals. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, v. 47, p. 1-14, 2014.

CAMARGO, S. P. H.; RISPOLI, M. ; GANZ, J. B. ; HONG, E. ; DAVIS, H. ; Mason, R. . A review of the quality of behaviorally-based intervention research to improve social interaction skills of children with ASD in inclusive settings. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, v. 44, p. 2096-2116, 2014.

NEELY, L. ; RISPOLI, M. ; CAMARGO, S. P. ; DAVIS, H. ; BOLES, M. . The effect of instructional use of an iPad® on challenging behavior and academic engagement for two students with autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, v. 7, p. 509-516, 2013.

GANZ, J. B. ; HEATH, A. K. ; LUND, E. M. ; CAMARGO, S. P. ; RISPOLI, M. J. ; BOLES, M. ; PLAISANCE, L. . Effects of Peer-Mediated Implementation of Visual Scripts in Middle School. Behavior Modification, v. 36, p. 378-398, 2012.

Yina Rivera Brios

Peru

2019 grantee

Master of Arts in Sociology of Education and International, Comparative and Development education from OISE at the University of Toronto

BA in Secondary Education from Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP)

 Yina is part of the first generation in her family to have been born in Lima. Her grandmother taught in a rural school in Sierra Ancash and her mother taught at a public school. After getting her BA in secondary education from PUCP, she taught Spanish at schools in Peru and Holy Cross College in Massachusetts, through a Fulbright Teacher Exchange Scholarship. In her pursuit to teach Spanish at Peruvian rural schools with an intercultural focus, she completed a master’s degree in education at the University of Toronto, thanks to a Rotary International scholarship. Her thesis presented the emergence of the Cajamarca Quechua Academy (Peru) and the path that the regional community members had to take in order to lead the institution, as well as their strategies to teach Quechua as a political act.

Back in Peru, Yina ventured into the field of educational policy, working as an advisor for the National Council of Education, where she promoted an inter-institutional project for the formulation of national criteria for proficient teacher performance, as well as the design and implementation of a biannual national teacher survey. At the same time, she worked as a consultant for the Social Responsibility area of Pepsi & Co, designing and implementing a project to create a school system in an agricultural area in the Central Andes, where the public educational system had no coverage. Upon the project’s completion, she has continued working with the families and the school of Pichipampa up to now.

Currently, she is about to obtain a PhD in anthropology of education from the Andean Studies Program at PUCP, she works as a consultant for the Peruvian Ministry of Education and Unesco, and coordinates the implementation of a project on democracy, philosophy and education with teachers and children from a network of single-teacher rural schools, to which Pichipampa belongs. The latter has been made possible by the Federal Assistance Awards for Community Development Projects funded by the U.S. Embassy and Department of State.

Bertha Maribel Pech Polanco

Mexico

2021 Grantee -Latin America and Caribbean Program

PhD in Education

MA in Pedagogy, Education and Cultural Diversity from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

BA in Education, Secondary Schools from Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UAY)

BA in Pedagogy, Education and Cultural Diversity from Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN)

Born in Maxcanu, Yucatán, Bertha migrated to Merida, the state capital, to study and work. She began teaching and doing research in 2010 at the UPN. She was a technical assistant at the Gender Program of the Universidad Iberoamericana, which joined the “He for She” campaign of the UN. She taught at the Instituto Superior Intercultural Ayuuk – ISIA (part of the Jesuit University System), Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, and UNAM.

Bertha has been working for the inclusion and independence of Maya women and children through her intensive social work and in her role as an educator. She believes that there is a lot to be done to promote education in indigenous communities, especially for women, and has focused on helping minorities to be better received in the academic environment and on avoiding the exclusion and fear that she, like many other indigenous children, suffered while being at school.

She has participated in several rural and indigenous education research projects at the Universidad Iberoamericana and the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan. She is a promoter not only of indigenous students of higher education, but of indigenous teachers and researchers to bring about greater diversity and inclusion, as well as a broader cultural outlook and ways of learning.

Bertha has an impressive history of community work; she is a former fellow with the Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program, she has participated in the Interdisciplinary Network of Researchers of Indian Peoples of Mexico, the Activists Network for Indigenous Languages of Latin America (within Global Voices), the Indigenous Leaders of the World Network, and the Initiative for the Eradication of Racism in Higher Education, within the UNESCO ESIAL Chair in “Higher Education and Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America.” She was the coordinator for the “Southern Yucatan Maya Women’s Political Promotion and Participation” project with Ecomunnis A.C. She has authored many articles published in academic journals and books.

Her thesis, “Educational Experiences of Maya Women from Yucatan with PhD’s, and Identity Reconfiguration Processes,” presents the effects that higher education has on the way that Maya women rethink their leadership roles at community, national and international levels, on their decision making, and on the reconstruction and representation of their identities as migrant Maya women with PhD’s.

 “To demand the right to education is to place myself in the principles of social justice, a dignified life and respect for our native languages, which continues to be a struggle for indigenous and Afro- Mexican people, in the workplaces and at schools.”