Country Directors
We could not complete our work on the ground without the efforts of our dedicated Country Directors. In eight war-torn and post-conflict nations in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East, our Country Directors provide the oversight to run our field offices and implement the programs that forever change the lives of women survivors of war.
Sweeta Noori
Afghanistan
Sweeta Noori currently serves as the Afghanistan Country Director for Women for Women International. She directs programs that have helped more than 20,000 women by providing direct financial assistance, rights education, vocational skills training and microcredit loans. In October 2005, she addressed the United Nations Security Council and the U.S. Congress about the challenges Afghan women continue to face.
In July 2004, Sweeta launched the country’s first microcredit lending program targeting women which has since disbursed over $16 million to approximately 64,400 women. Under Sweeta’s leadership, Women for Women International teamed up with the Afghanistan Ministry of Women’s Affairs to register 2,000 women to vote in the historic 2004 presidential elections and 1,800 women in the 2005 parliamentary elections.
Prior to joining Women for Women International, Sweeta served as an assistant for the Chair of the Loya Jirga Commission in forming the interim administration of Afghanistan and traveled with the delegation to Belgium for talks with donors and representatives of the international community. She has also worked for International Human Rights Law Group and the International Rescue Committee. During the mid-1990s, Sweeta was forced to move from Kabul to Pakistan, where she worked with the International Rescue Committee on health and agriculture projects. In 2001, she returned to Kabul and continued her work with IRC as a team leader for implementing health and education initiatives in various parts of Afghanistan.
CloseSeida Saric
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Christine Karumba
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Christine Karumba, the Country Director of Women for Women International-DRC, has vivid recollection of the overall growing climate of uncertainty leading up to the country's civil war in the early 1990s and the years of destruction that followed. The trauma of living day by day not knowing if it was going to be your last became an everyday occurrence for many. The affects of war were particularly trying on the women as gender-based violence began to replace armed combat as a war tactic. Women were reduced to mere pawns in a war they had nothing to do with. Christine witnessed what she calls two types of death- the physical and the emotional death. The physical death is where you are no longer alive to walk the earth, and the emotional death is where you no longer see signs of hope and are dead inside. Hope and help are precisely what the Women for Women International program have brought to the women of DRC. Christine has helped more than 39,000 women rebuild their lives after what has been considered the deadliest war in documented African history.
Under her leadership, Women for Women International-DRC has implemented a program of direct financial assistance, rights education, vocational skills training, and income-generating opportunities and has helped thousands of returnees from neighboring countries and other socially excluded women in Congo gain economic autonomy while raising their political voices in voting in the country’s first democratic elections in over 40 years held in June 2006.
Prior to joining Women for Women International, she worked with Cooperazione Italiano, an Italian NGO; UNICEF; GTZ/Goma in the Democratic Republic; Kapeeka Orphanage and Martha and Mary Ministries Christian Organization in Uganda Kampala. Her experiences include over six years working on community development and gender issues. She has technical expertise on issues ranging from women's rights to project development to monitoring and evaluation. Christine holds a degree from Institute of Rural Development in Bukavu, DRC with an emphasis on rural development. Additionally, she has a Diploma on Discipleship and Ministry Church Administration from Miracle Bible College Robert Kayanja Ministries in Uganda, Kampala.
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Iraq
Iliriana Jaka Gashi
Kosovo
Iliriana Jaka Gashi is a medical doctor with a Masters degree in Management of Health Care Administration from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. She has worked for the Canadian International Development Agency, World Vision, French Embassy in Kosovo, World Bank Project in Public Expenditures Management and the American International Health Alliance (AIHA). She was also a member of the Policy and Planning Committee in the Ministry of Health of Kosovo and is thrilled to be turning her efforts toward the active citizenship of women in Kosovo.
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Nigeria
Ngozi Eze has been the Country Director in Nigeria since 2003 and has helped more than 30,000 women forge a future in a country ravaged by corruption and civil unrest. In 2005, Ngozi received the Amelia Earhart Pioneering Achievement Award for making a difference in the lives of thousands of survivors of civil conflict in her home country of Nigeria.
Under her leadership, Women for Women International-Nigeria has implemented a program of direct financial assistance, rights education, vocational skills training and income-generating opportunities. Ngozi has instituted specialized programs to educate women about HIV/AIDS and the harmful effects of some traditional practices, including female genital cutting and widowhood rituals. She also pioneered a men’s training program to sensitize community leaders to women’s rights. In the wake of increased community violence between Christian and Muslim communities in northern Nigeria, Ngozi launched joint training sessions to offer women from both religious backgrounds the opportunity to meet and rebuild their trust.
Ngozi has over 18 years of experience working in both private and public institutions on advancing the status of women and children through international development. Before coming to Women for Women International, she worked in Nigeria with a number of NGOs and private firms, including the Ohio African Trade office based in Lagos.
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