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This new initiative is designed to create a context in which women leaders from different geopolitical and cultural areas can share experiences and knowledge about trends in women's research, public policy, and program development. Through this program, international activists participate in NCRW's Annual Conference, visit NCRW member centers, and meet with UN officials, funders, activists, and the media in the New York City Area.

The Program Format consists of the following four components:

1. Participation in an international orientation and NCRW's Annual Conference;
2. Travel to appropriate NCRW member centers, where guests will speak with scholars, students, and local community activists;
3. Meetings with United Nations officials, NGO leaders, and New York-based funders; and,
4. Continued communication with NCRW and its member centers after the visit, via its website and as an international affiliate member, receiving publications and updates.

1998 Global Exchange Scholars

Ruth Meena
Professor of Political Science
University of Dar as Salaam
Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA

Penina Mlama
University of Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA

Miglena Nikolchina
Director
Program on Gender and Culture
Central European University
Budapest, HUNGARY

Biljana Kasic
Director
Centre for Women's Studies
Zagreb, CROATIA

Nomcebo Simelane
Department of Geography, Environmental Science, and Planning
University of Swaziland
Kwaluseni, SWAZILAND

1999 Global Exchange Scholars

Tatiana Abdushukurova
University of New Mexico

Currently a visiting professor in the Women’s Studies Department at the University of New Mexico, Tatiana Abdushukurova did her doctorate work in Political Science at the Institute of Philosophy and Law, Tajik Academy of Science. She has published widely on issues of gender and governance within the context of democratization, national consciousness and national culture, and democracy and cultural development. In 1996, Ms. Abdushukurova was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of Washington. At home in the Republic of Tajikistan, she is a Program Coordinator with the Open Society Institute, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Tajik State National University.

Raquel Bittar de Oliveira
Programa Estadual da Alimentacao e Melhoria da Qualidade de Vida
Centro Palmas, BRAZIL

Raquel Bittar, an architect by training, currently directs Provida - the Programa Estadual de Alimentacão e Melhoria da Qualidade de Vida (State Program of Health and Improving the Quality of Life) for the Governo do Estado do Tocantins (State of Tocantins) in Brazil. This program works to facilitate environmentally-sustainable development projects with women, and to provide education with respect to nutrition and economic self-sufficiency, especially in rural areas. Her ten year old brainchild is the “Associacão Rural Artesenal Mãos Mineiras” project, by which women (and their families) in the state of Minas Gerais are encouraged to start small businesses that would exploit the environment around them in sound and safe ways. Ms. Bittar received her undergraduate degree in 1985 in Urbanism and Architecture from the Federal University of Fluminense (Brazil), and her Masters degree in Social Psychology and Social Ecology from the Institute of Psychology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1998

P. Kassey Garba
Senior Lecturer
Department of Economics
University of Ibadan
NIGERIA

P. Kassey Garba is the Director of the MBA program at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She is also a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics and, since 1995, a member of the University Senate. In addition, she serves as a member of the board of the Women Research and Documentation Center (WORDOC), is a steering committee member for the Network on Gender and Economic Reforms in Africa (GERA), and a member of the External Gender Consultative Group (EGCG) of the World Bank. Dr. Garba has research and published extensively on a broad range of gender related topics, including the effects on trade liberalization on gender equity in Sub-Saharan Africa, women and economic reform in Nigeria, and economic empowerment strategies for women. She has also conducted research and published in other areas such as management theory, exchange rate policy, lessons of globalization for the Southern Africa Development Corporation, and indicators and measures of governance. Dr. Garba received her Ph.D. from the University of Ibadan, an MBA from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a BBA from Georgia State University.

Bozena Kujawa
Ministry of Economy
Department of Craft, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Warsaw, POLAND

Bozena Kujawa is the Director of the Department of Craft, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Ministry of Economy in Poland, a post she has held since 1997. She is the Head of the Policy Programming and Monitoring Division in this Department, and is responsible for formulating policy with respect to micro- and meso-enterprise projects, as well as reporting on the implementation of programs supporting these projects. In 1990, she received her master’s degree in Economics from the Warsaw School of Economics.

Mmatshilo Motsei
Director
ADAPT
Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA

Mmatshilo Motsei is the Founding Director of ADAPT, an organization in Johannesburg, South Africa that is geared toward the prevention and reduction of domestic abuse. In addition to providing support for women, men, and young people in situations of domestic violence, ADAPT works to raise community awareness about the nature and extent of domestic and sexual violence, and trains health workers and other service providers toward the accurate identification of and appropriate interventions for abused women. ADAPT is also engaged in research, policy formulation, advocacy, and lobbying. Originally trained as a nurse, Ms. Motsei’s undergraduate studies focused on Psychology, Nursing Education, Nursing Administration, and Community Health. She received her BA in Psychology in 1990, and is registered for her MSc Med in Community Health at the University of Witwatersrand where she is focusing on putting gender violence on the reproductive health agenda. Ms. Motsei was one of the original Ashoka Fellows, and in 1996, was given an International Human Rights Award by Human Rights Watch in New York. She has worked as a Consultant for the Ford Foundation and in the Office of the President of South Africa. For the latter, she developed a policy for women’s empowerment, established gender units in government departments, and facilitated the process of establishing an Office on the Status of Women and a Gender Commission. Ms. Motsei serves on several Boards, and is a member of various committees including the Women’s National Coalition, the UN Safer Cities Project, and the Non-Profit Partnership.

Raikhan Sabirova
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Raikhan Sabirova received her undergraduate training as a Technical Engineer at the Almaty Technological Institute in Kazakhstan, and is currently studying for her master’s degree in Public Administration at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. During the summer of 1999, she worked as a research intern for the Network Women’s Program at the Open Society Institute, designing the framework for the Women in Drugs Conference in Tajikistan (November 1999) and conducting research on Women in Islam, Drug Policy, and Trafficking of Women. Prior to that, she was a Project Coordinator for the POLICY Project in Reproductive Health and Demography in Kazakhstan, and a reproductive rights activist working with Planned Parenthood, Kazakstan.

Zumrat Salmorbekova
Indiana University

Zumrat Salmorbekova is a Visiting Scholar at Indiana University working on her Ph.D. dissertation in history entitled Gender Aspects of an Emerging Civil Society. At home in Kyrgyzstan, she is the Coordinator of the Gender Studies Center at the Institute for Regional Studies in the Faculty of History, Kyrgyz State University. She has presented several papers on women and politics in Kyrgystan and the impact of the transition to democracy, and has coordinated or participated in several programs related to human rights and conflict resolution.

Dina Shukurova
Co-ordinator
Women in Leadership Project, GID Bureau
Bishkek, KYRGYZSTAN

Dina Shukurova works as a coordinator of the Promoting Women in Leadership Project funded by the UNDP Kyrgyzstan. She has also participated in such projects as Young Women and Democracy (1995-1997, the Netherlands) and Combating Violence Against Women: Best Practices (1998-1999, the Netherlands). Ms. Shukurova has conducted gender training for NGO leaders, community workers, and civil servants, including a large six-day workshop organized by the Gender in Development Bureau in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1998. Additionally, she has worked as a lecturer at the Kyrgyz State Institute of Arts, and has administered projects on civic education and minority rights. As an active member of the women’s movement in Kyrgyzstan, she participated in the Fourth World Conference on the Status of Women in Beijing in 1995. She wrote several chapters and edited the Report on the Status of Women in Kyrgyzstan for the Beijing Plus Five Meetings that will occur in New York next year, and was one of the authors of the “Gender Training Manual,” the first publication of its kind for the countries of Central Asia and Caucasus. Ms. Shukurova’s post-graduate study was conducted at the Philosophy Institute of the Kyrgyz National Academy of Sciences, and her dissertation was devoted to the analyses of the impact of transition on Kyrgyz intelligentsia.

2002 Global Exchange Scholars

Daša Duhacek is Coordinator of the Belgrade Women’s Studies Center, where she also lectures on philosophy and feminist theory. She helped initiate the Center in 1992, playing an integral role in the recent development of women’s studies in Belgrade. A scholar of Eastern European feminist philosophy, Duhacek has served as the Deputy Executive Director of the Alternative Educational Network and has previously taught at Rutgers University, the Belgrade Fifth Gimnasium, and Central European University in Budapest. Her publications include Glendista (Views): Feminist Views and Views on Feminism (edited, 1990), “East European Feminist Philosophy” (1997), and introductions to Mary Wallstonecraft’s The Vindication of the Rights of Women (1994) and John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill’s Essays on Sex Equality (1995).


Elmira Shishkaraeva
Director
Civil Society Program, Open Society Institute
Bishkek, KYRGYZSTAN