Leadership

Atieno is a professional with international legal experience advocating for the rights of marginalised populations through policy and legal reform. She is the Director of – the Legal Empowerment Fund at The Fund for Global Human Rights. She is the past Chief of Party (Kenya) for Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), a global pro bono law firm that provides legal assistance to states, governments, and civil society organisations. Before taking up her position at PILPG, Atieno worked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Kenya.

Prior to joining the Supreme Court of Kenya, Atieno worked on immigrant and human rights issues in Washington State at Microsoft Corporation, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and Columbia Legal Services. Atieno received her undergraduate degree in History from Rice University in Houston, Texas and her law degree from Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Françoise Mukuku is a human rights activist and an independent consultant on women and sexual minorities’ issues. She has twenty years of activism. 

She is currently the Executive Director of Amazone Consultancy- a gender justice and communications firm based in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC). Francoise works mainly in the Great Lakes Region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania) as well as francophone Africa (Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Benin, Togo and Senegal) where she has specialised in research and communications. 

In her consultancy work, Françoise has worked with organisations such as Akina Mama wa Africa, APC, UHAI, UNECA and the University of Sussex, UK. Francoise is an engaged activist who founded SJS, a DRCongo-inclusive young feminist group, in 2001. She regularly organises trainings in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Agency, and Voice and is particularly passionate about the intersections between development, human rights and social justice. 

Before being an independent consultant, she worked for renowned organisations such as Oxfam GB, MONUC/MONUSCO (UN Peacekeeping Mission in DRCongo) and the International Music Council (IMC). Francoise has good language skills; she speaks Lingala, Kiluba, Kibembe, Kiswahili, French, and English and has a working knowledge of Spanish. She holds a BA in public law from the Université Protestante au Congo (2005) and an MA from Mercure International (2012). 

Françoise is a storyteller who enjoys travelling, reading books and the performing arts

Amel Gorani is an international development, peace and conflict, gender, and inclusion specialist with over twenty years of experience in diverse sectors. She has worked for several international development agencies, governments, private foundations, academic institutions, and NGOs in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the US. She has worked extensively on migration and refugee issues, marginalised and vulnerable groups, gender and human rights, political participation, conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and post-conflict reconstruction.

Amel is an independent consultant with NGOs and funders in Africa and the Middle East. She recently relocated to Charlottesville from Beirut, Lebanon. Before that, she served as Director for the Center for Community and Civic Engagement at Carleton College in Minnesota. She has worked as a Senior Advisor on Marginalized Groups for USAID- Sudan, as Inclusion Coordinator for the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, and as a program officer with the Swedish International Development Agency, Sudan and Somalia programs, and the Open Society Foundations- International Women’s Program in New York. She also served as Executive Director for Sudan Future Care, an organisation operating in the war-torn areas in Eastern Sudan out of Eritrea.  

Amel holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Stockholm University and a master’s in Political Science from Uppsala University. She is a native Arabic speaker and fluent in Swedish.

Faye has over 20 years of finance, operations, and development experience. She is currently responsible for the strategic operations function at AWID, where she upholds feminist principles and values.

Faye previously held a Head of Finance and Operations role at Paediatric Adolescent Treatment for Africa and Just Associates Incorporated Southern Africa. She also held directorship roles for international Computer Driving License (ICDL) in Central and Southern Africa.

Faye is a board member for ICDL in South Africa and P World Link Trust. She also holds a B. Compt in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa and is a member of the Southern African Institute for Business Accountants.

Passionate about gender equality, sexual reproductive health, and women and girls’ empowerment, Balkissa Brah is an international development specialist with over 18 years of experience in diverse sectors.

Currently working as the Program Advisor for the “Girls First Fund” in Niger, an international donor collaborative grants funding mechanism to support community-led efforts to end child marriage, Balkissa has developed solid expertise in programmatic strategy and Feminist Philanthropy Principles.

She has worked before as Coordinator of the Sarraounia Project, a pilot project implemented by the Belgian Development Agency (ENABEL) in Niger, which gave her the excellent opportunity to publish a paper in Toronto’s International Conference of Education (CICE 2018) about a successful innovative methodology of “Relationship-based awareness approach” experimented by the project. Departing from the classic communication for social norms approaches, her new paradigm reflects an endogenous perspective of communication for social norms change based on a combination of gender social justice principles, participatory approaches, and the realities of advocacy work in the field.

Balkissa has conducted multiple consultancies for international development agencies, INGOs, and private research firms, focusing on technical support and capacity-building missions for projects/programs promoting women’s rights to health and education.

In 2018, Balkissa became a Fellow of “The Sahel Leadership Program” (PLS), implemented by the Oasis Initiative from Berkeley University, a program to create a critical mass of emerging leaders dedicated to girls and women’s empowerment to improve family well-being across francophone Africa.

Balkissa holds a master’s degree in International Management from Ecole des Hautes Commerciales (HEC), University of Montreal, and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from HEC, University of Montreal. She recently graduated from the International Graduate Institute of Geneva with a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Gender and Development. Fluent in English and French, Balkissa speaks Haoussa Djerma and has a working knowledge of German.

Ndana Bofu-Tawamba is the Chief Executive Officer of Urgent Action Fund Africa (UAF-Africa). She brings to the global human and womn’s rights movements a wealth of international experience across a broad spectrum of equity-focused issues. Ndana has built bridges between civil society and social justice funders for over two decades to address gender, racial, socio-political, economic, environmental and climate injustices.

Ndana is a staunch feminist voice for enhanced womn’s rights investments. She has leveraged over USD200 million towards strengthening African feminist and womn’s rights movements. She is a published writer and public speaker on Pan-African and Feminist Philanthropies, African Womn’s Leadership, and the Power of Social Movements in Africa.

Ndana is an alumnus of Harvard Kennedy School of Government in the USA, the University of Stellenbosch Business School in South Africa, and INSEAD Business Schools in France and Singapore. She is a Senior International Fellow at the Centre on Philanthropy and Civil Society at CUNY, USA. She earned her Master’s Degree in Women’s Studies from Lancaster University, UK, and obtained her Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Social Psychology from the University of Zimbabwe.

Ndana serves on the Board of the African Philanthropy Network. Her leadership at UAF-Africa, the UN, academia, international civil society boards, and regional consultancies on philanthropy, human rights, social movements & governance has meant extensive engagements across the world, thereby presenting her the opportunity to weave her commitment to social justice with an opportunity further to explore womn and girls’ realities across the globe.