Meet our newest Board members!
Thank you to all members who participated in the process of nominating and electing our new Board members. Your engagement was crucial in identifying committed and brilliant feminists who will play a vital role in AWID’s governance, provide organizational oversight, and help guide our strategic direction.
Welcome to Sarah Mukasa and Elina Margarita Castillo Jiménez as our newest Board members!
Sarah Mukasa
Sarah is a pan Africanist feminist with over 15 years’ experience in leadership and management at senior levels in the not for profit sector in Africa and Europe. She is currently the Deputy Director at the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa where for the past 5 years she has strengthened the organisation’s support for feminist organizing in Eastern Africa. She has insisted on supporting local, autonomous organizing of women and gender non-conforming led initiatives with core support in order build institutional resilience. She has also been pivotal in mobilizing support for continental feminist initiatives with OSF. Before joining OSIEA, Sarah was the Director of Programmes at the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) where she was instrumental in ensuring the growth of the organisation to become one of the largest women’s funds in Africa with a series of award winning and cutting edge programmes.
Sarah has extensive experience in advocacy, policy development, resource mobilization, organizational development, programme management and movement building. She has written extensively on human rights, women’s rights, and is a founding member of highly influential initiatives such as African Women Leaders Institute and the African Feminist Forum. Sarah has served on numerous boards and advisory bodies including the African Grantmakers Network, Akina Mama wa Afrika, Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR), and the African Social Justice Philanthropy Group.
Elina Margarita Castillo Jiménez
Elina Margarita is a young afro-Dominican intersectional feminist and human rights lawyer, committed to use her voice and skills to build a more just, empathic and inclusive world. She started Law school at 16, convinced it would give her the tools to understand and promote social justice. After a J.D. in the Dominican Republic, she pursued an LL.M. in Public International Law and Human Rights in the UK as a Chevening Scholar. She was the only Latinx-Caribbean woman in her class, graduating with honours. Elina has worked at the intersection of human rights, gender, migration and policy, from government, grassroots collectives and international organizations. She helped litigate cases on gender-based violence before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. As a member of the Youth Advisory Panel of UNFPA, she contributed to strengthening sexual and reproductive rights in the Dominican Republic. She co-led Amnesty International’s first campaign on sex workers’ rights in the Americas, developing strong partnerships with sex-worker led organizations and using Amnesty’s position to amplify women human rights defenders and sex workers’ voices. Elina is part of Foro Feminista Magaly Pineda and the Global Shapers Community. She speaks Spanish, French and English. Thanks to her diverse background, Elina brings strong governance and strategic planning skills, substantive expertise on the United Nations and regional human rights mechanisms and her bold determination to keep AWID as an inclusive organization for all women, especially young and Caribbean feminists. With these offerings, joins a global sisterhood of feminist badasses, where she can keep nurturing her feminist leadership and never again feel alone in her path.
Read the biographies of all of our Board members
The years ahead will see us through the end of our current strategic plan and the development and launch of our next strategic plan - a critical process for board engagement and direction, especially in such a rapidly evolving context. We are excited to benefit from the wealth of skills, insights and experiences that Sarah and Elina will bring to our work.
We would also like to express our appreciation for the contributions of our departing Board members who have served AWID over the past several years.
Meerim Ilyas, Nukila Evanty, Robyn Charlery-White, and Charlotte Bunch helped us oversee the development of our current strategic plan and AWID’s transition to co-leadership. They supported our navigation of the complex decisions around the AWID Forum, and contributed to deepening our Board learning and development.
Please continue to follow their work, and join us in thanking them for their leadership and support. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with them to support feminist movements around the world.
Psst… didn’t get a notice to vote in the AWID Board elections? Then you aren’t an AWID member yet!