Binta Jammeh-Sidibe is the Executive Director of the Association for the Promotion of Girls’ and Women’s Advancement in the Gambia (APGWA). She is a gender activist and a women’s rights activist who co-ordinates women’s groups across 90 villages to advance their economic empowerment, health and reproductive rights and their political and religious rights. Having studied in the United States in the mid 70’s Ms. Jammeh-Sidibe has been championing the cause of women throughout Africa, Europe and the United States. She operates Skills Training Centres to train young disadvantaged women on livelihood skills. In 1998 she received an International Award from Amnesty International in Germany, in Commemoration of the 50 years Anniversary of the UNDHR for her work on Human Rights. She is a member of many national and international networks and the mother of five children.
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Asma is a member of the ASMA Society and has been involved in promoting both intra-faith and inter-faith dialogue. She has actively supported many of the Asma Society events including “Muslim Artists response to 9/11” and the “Cordoba Bread feast”. She has done teaching circles for visiting students at the Masjid-al Farah and lectured on Islam and women and Sufism and Qawwali as part of a lecture series at the Madison Ave Presbyterian Church. Asma has been active in supporting “Virsa Pakistan” in promoting Qawwali performances in the Tri-state area. She has done introduction lectures on Qawwali and Sufism at the Interfaith Center, Washington Square Church and the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium at the United Nations.
Asma was one of the initial Board members and is now on the Advisory Board of “Turning Point”, which is a community based, non-for profit organization addressing the needs of Muslim women and children through crisis intervention especially in the area of domestic violence by providing individual and group counseling, advocacy, outreach education and youth training programs. Asma helped organize a collaborative work-shop on “The Huddood Ordinance” with the ASMA Society and the Women’s caucus group of the APPNA ( Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America) at the Annual convention in Washington D.C.
Asma Jamil was born in Karachi, Pakistan. She came to the United States almost 22 years ago for post-Graduate training in Pediatrics. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband Hasan, son Danyal and daughter Amra Noor Sadiq.
Dr. Sadiq works at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York as Director of Child Development and is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y. She was awarded a Special Grant by the United Hospital Fund for Project DOCS, in which parents act as teachers for residents to better understand the needs of children with disabilities. She has recently been awarded a scholarship by the Brave-well Collaborative and is a Graduate Fellow of the Program of Integrative Medicine –University of Arizona. (Class 2006-2008). Dr. Sadiq has lectured and published as well as organized a series of academic conferences to facilitate and actualize an integrative and holistic approach in the care of children and families. She works with families to facilitate self-care and self awareness and is respectful of modalities and paradigms that emphasize the balance of mind-body-spirit in healing and wellness.
Benazir Bhutto was the first female leader of a Muslim country in modern history. She was the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996.
Born to a politically influential and wealthy family, she was educated at Harvard and Oxford University. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was Prime Minister before being ousted by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and hanged in 1979. In subsequent years, Benazir was imprisoned multiple times on charges of conspiring against the government. She then moved to Britain, organizing a movement against the military government from exile. In 1986, anti-Zia protests spread across the country, and she was allowed back into Pakistan. She was elected co-chairwoman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), along with her mother. In 1988 she was elected Prime Minister.
In 1990, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed Benazir from office, citing corruption. In 1993, she was re-elected as Prime Minister, after which she focused on rural development and education. Three years later, in 1996, she was dismissed on corruption and mismanagement charges by then President Leghari. Soon after that, she went into exile while her husband served a prison sentence on corruption charges.
In 2007 she returned to Pakistan after she reached an understanding with President Pervez Musharraf. She was the leading opposition candidate in the Pakistani general election of 2008 when she was assassinated outside the city of Rawalpindi in December 2007.
Kulsum Dawood is a Trustee on the Board of Dawood Foundation, a philanthropic organization of The Dawood Group, Imhotep-Organics (SMC Pvt.) Limited, that grows and sells organic herbs and vegetables. Ms. Dawood is also a Trustee of the Family Welfare Co-operative Society, an organization geared for the betterment of under-privileged Pakistani young women.
Ms. Dawood takes her social and civic responsibilities seriously. She has supported various charities in healthcare, education and economic development. She is a member of SOS, a charity known for the care of orphans, as well as a Depilex Smile Again Foundation, an NGO for the treatment and rehabilitation of burn victims. She supports other charitable organizations such as CARE (Cooperation for Advancement, Rehabilitation & Education), The Lahore Hospital Welfare Society, The Pakistan Society for the Welfare of Mentally Retarded Children and All Pakistan Women’s Association. Ms. Dawood has also served as the President of Women’s Voluntary Service and the Punjab Women’s Swimming Association (2000-2005).
She has attended Family Business courses from the world’s leading Business Schools, The International Institute for Management Development (IMD), in Switzerland in 2004 and 2005 and the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD) in 2007. She regularly attends the World Economic Forum Annual Meetings in Davos.
Anjum Malik is the CEO of the Alhambra US Chamber of Commerce and is actively involved in the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women. Ms. Malik was born in India, moved to Austin in 1977 and in 1982, started the Intensive American English Institute (IAEI), a division of House of Tutors, a private educational company which is family-run and family-oriented, values that Anjum holds in high regard in all aspects of her life.
At the WISE conference, Ms. Malik will be speaking to participants on F-1 and J-1 visa matters, informing foreign students on how they can get guaranteed acceptance to a US university, how TOEFL & SAT requirements can be waived and how young adults can come to the United States through work/study/travel programs.
Asha A. Samad is a human rights specialist based in New York City. Professor Samad has taught Violations of Human Rights and Violations of Women’s Human Rights (alternatively); Immigrant and Refugee Movements and Issues; and Islamic Cultures and Issues at The City University of New York for over two decades. She has also served as Director of The Human Rights Center and Executive Director of SAFRAD-Somali Association. Her publications are on Islamic Migration Issues, Refugee Situation, and Female Genital Mutilation. She has also directed FCIRSI-The Female Circumcision Research Support and Information Institute for fourteen years. Professor Samad speaks annually at International and N. American conferences, seminars and media on Islamic, immigration, and women’s topics related to Africa and The Middle East. She has lectured at universities in Africa, Cuba and South Asia.
Dr. Sa’diyya Shaikh is a Professor at the University of Cape Town. Dr. Shaikh’s research and teaching are focused in the area of Islamic Studies with a twin focus on Sufism and feminism. She has previously published on issues of Muslim women and gender violence; feminist approaches to hadith and Quranic exegesis; contraception and abortion in Islam; theoretical reflections on Islam and feminism; Sufism, gender and Islamic law; and “Engaged Sufism”. Currently she is completing a manuscript on gender and sexuality in the works of a 13th century Sufi thinker, Ibn Arabi. In collaboration with the Department of Psychology at the University of Stellenbosch and an NGO, *Positive Muslims*, Dr Shaikh has initiated and is co-directing a research project that focuses on sexuality, marriage, HIV/Aids and reproductive choices amongst South African Muslim women.
Rasha Hefzi is the MD of Think N Link Cooperation, a Saudi based company that provides different services such as opinion polling research, public awareness campaigns, youth advancement program, and socioeconomic research. Ms. Hefzi has founded different community groups and organization such as MWATANA, Youth and More Organization, and Bridge Building Society. Her goal is to empower various communities and the private sector to participate in the decision making in Saudi Arabia, especially for women and youth.
She started her civic engagement at the age of 15 with an interest for feminism, interfaith dialogue, comparative religion, world issues’, and local governess and democracy. She has been a member of different NGO’S including the Islamic Relief Organization, the International Organization for Women and Family, the Jeddah Dawah Center, and the World Assembly for Muslim Youth (WAMY). Her experiences with these groups motivated Ms. Hefzi to lead different community initiatives within the government and the public sector. She was the first to lobby for the first meeting of JEDDAH female citizens with the municipality council. In addition to her civic engagement, she has held positions with the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), among others.
Ms. Hefzi has contributed in different conferences and many exchange programs, and is a mentor for Saudi female student under the Babson University in Boston. She is currently working on her first book which will be a perspective on the social engineering in the Saudi community in the last ten year.
