I collaborate with advocates, activists and academics on human rights and women's leadership/movement building through training and joint learning and research initiatives to promote social transformation around the world
A hillside of wild flowers and forests between Strafford and Thetford Vermont where the you can see ridge after ridge of purple green hills and morning mists nestled in river valleys.
equality for women
I have worked in advocacy, international development, human rights and women's issues for more than 35years -- collaborating with grassroots organizations, NGOs, and international agencies in many capacities as an organizer, trainer, advocate, evaluator, editor, on-line instructor and researcher. In the seventies I finished my doctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts and served as a paramedic in Nicaragua and later as an advisor to the director of the Nicaraguan Literacy campaign. In the mid eighties I served as co-coordinator of a national human rights and peace coalition in the US composed of main-line churches and independent labor groups dedicated to ending US military support to Central America. Over the past 15 years, I have been policy advocacy director at Oxfam America, director of policy and environmental exchange programs at the Institute for Development Research, and advisor and associate of a wide variety of organizations including ActionAid International, UNICEF, the Institute for Development Studies-Participation Group at Sussex, and the Highlander Center in Tennessee. In 2001, I co-founded Just Associates, a worldwide network of activists, academics, popular educators and organizers working on social transformation and women's leaderhsip and movement building.
I have published numerous articles and books on issues of advocacy, development, education, and politics. My research on advocacy coalitions and power dynamics provided important insights for a book with Lisa VeneKlasen, A New Weave of People, Power and Politics: The Action Guide to Advocacy and Citizen Participation, and for a subsequent collaboration with an ActionAid International team on advocacy planning, evaluation and learning which resulted in the book, Critical Webs of Power and Change.
