We have six members on our board of directors who are authorised to make the final decisions on all legal, policy and financial matters pertaining to our operations. They are:
Shanthi Dairiam
Shanthi is a former executive director of IWRAW Asia Pacific and a founding member of the board. She has had extensive experience managing women’s rights programmes, having been involved in capacity building for women’s rights advocacy for over 20 years, within Malaysia, as well as regionally and internationally. Shanthi has served as an expert assisting key UN agencies such as APGEN, the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights and UNIFEM. She holds a Masters in Literature from the University of Madras, India, and a Masters in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. From 2005 until 2008, she served as an expert member of the CEDAW Committee.
Amal Hadi
Amal is the founding member of New Woman Foundation, Egypt. Her organisation also coordinated the Coalition for Equality Without Reservation (EWR) from 2010 to 2013, which has since moved to Lebanon. This coalition is one of IWRAW Asia Pacific’s regional CEDAW partners in MENA. Amal was also on the planning committee of Musawah, a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, from 2007 until 2010. Amal has published and conducted extensive research and advocacy in the field of women’s rights, particularly with regard to reproductive health, violence against women, and female genital mutilation.
Maria Herminia Graterol
Maria Herminia Graterol is an expert in international women’s human rights law, as well as gender and development. In recent years she has been focusing on women’s economic and social rights, with a special interest in the right to education for women and girls around the world. She regularly provides training, research and programme evaluation support to women’s rights and human rights organisations. She is the executive director and co-founder of HOLA NYC, a Spanish immersion programme that integrates a progressive, creative curriculum with the pedagogical foundations of the Montessori philosophy. HOLA NYC is a not-for-profit organisation that offers opportunities to migrant Latinas to work in a pre-school setting in their native language.
Chee Yoke Ling
Yoke Ling is the director of Third World Network (TWN) and works on sustainable development issues, with a focus on social justice and equity issues and the effects of globalisation on countries of the South. TWN is a non-profit international research and advocacy organisation involved in sustainable development issues, the South and North-South relations. Her current focus areas are: public health (especially access to affordable medicines), agroecology and farmers’ rights, the impact of trade agreements on sustainable development and human rights, and developments on these issues at key United Nations bodies and treaties. She is a member of the Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and is also on the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation board of trustees. Yoke Ling is trained in international law, with degrees from the University of Malaya (Malaysia) and Cambridge University (UK). She was formerly a law lecturer at the University of Malaya and the honorary secretary of Sahabat Alam Malaysia (Friends of the Earth Malaysia).
Nalini Singh
Nalini Singh is a graduate of the University of the South Pacific and has also studied at the Australian National University. Presently she is the executive director of the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Suva, Fiji. Her previous work experience includes programme manager for seven years at the Asian Pacific Resource and Research Center for Women (ARROW), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; programme officer for five years at the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), Chiang Mai, Thailand; and programme assistant for two years at the UNDP Pacific Regional Human Rights Education Resource Team (RRRT), Suva, Fiji. As a social development specialist, Nalini has over 17 years’ experience in design, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of development programmes with a focus on women’s human rights including sexual and reproductive health and rights in Asia Pacific. She is skilled in community-based development interventions carried out in partnership with local and national civil society groups. Nalini has experience in multi-level and multi-sectoral policy advocacy, coalition and partnership building, as well as networking. She also has broad experience in engaging with youth and marginalised communities. Nalini has long-term experience in supporting institutional and organisational strengthening, policy analysis and M&E.
Suri Kempe
Suri Kempe is an intersectional feminist and activist, and frequently consults on issues related to gender and inclusion. She has over 15 years of experience, particularly with advocacy on social justice issues, community and movement building, capacity development, strategic planning, and monitoring, learning and evaluation. She held the gender equality & women’s empowerment portfolio at the United Nations Development Programme in Malaysia, and also worked on parliamentary affairs with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development in Malaysia. Suri is engaged with several civil society organisations, including Family Frontiers, which is currently engaged in a court case advocating for women’s equal citizenship rights, and the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Center for Women (ARROW), where she serves as a board member; and co-founded QueerLapis – the only queer content platform in Malaysia. Suri is also the co-founder of Kemban Kolektif, a feminist consulting practice that supports organisations in meeting their social justice and human rights objectives.