Urvashi Sahni: Founder and CEO of Study Hall Educational Foundation, India - Mona partner since 2008

          By the time Urvashi Sahni was 17, she was married. At 23, she had given birth to two children, both girls, both unwelcome in a patriarchal culture. Four years later, Dr. Sahni’s sister was burnt to death over dowry. Throughout her early life, Dr. Sahni had witnessed first-hand the injustice, oppression, and dehumanization of girls and women in incredibly personal ways, and she refused to allow the status quo to go unchallenged. In 1983, she founded SURAKSHA, a women’s rights organization with the aim to provide relief and help to women who were victims of abusive marriages and families.

          “It was the beginning of my feminist thinking…I soon began to work with school girls, having conversations around marriage and what it meant for women, leading to discussions around patriarchy and how it impacted girls and women," she said in an interview for India CSR Network. “It is during this work that I began to understand how incomplete even the highest quality education in high quality schools was. It gave us many academic skills, but didn’t give us the important knowledge that as girls and women, we had the right to use these to construct a life of our own choosing. It didn’t teach us we were equal!”

          In response to this realization, she was urged by her mentor, Ahalya Chari, to start a school. In 1986, Dr. Sahni founded Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF). The mission of this non-profit project, consisting of six unique schools and four outreach programs, is to provide quality education to underprivileged girls and youth in both rural and urban areas of India. Using “feminist-based pedagogy, gender sensitization techniques and adolescent empowerment discussions on social issuesin the classrooms,” SHEF has trained over 100,000 teachers and impacted over 5 million children through direct and indirect initiatives in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

          Dr. Sahni earned her M.A. and Ph.D in Education at UC Berkeley. She’s an Ashoka Fellow, a non-resident fellow at the Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution, USA, and was named 2017 Social Entrepreneur of the Year India by the Schwab-Jubilant Bhartiya Foundation. She’s also co-founder of Catalyst 2030 (a global network to expedite the SDGs through innovation).

          Dr. Sahni deeply believes in the power of education to transform the lives of youth, girls especially; and in turn, shape a safer, more equitable society for all.

Ferial Farzin: Founder of ADCAM, Brazil - Mona partner since 2006

           In 1985, Ferial Farzin moved to Manaus, a city along the banks of the Amazon River. Farzin was struck by the appalling effects of poverty, and was moved to take in five abandoned toddlers left on the streets, and cared for them until they were adopted. This number quickly multiplied, and over the next seven years, over 300 children were served. 

          Within this time frame, the project expanded exponentially. She officially founded Associação para o Desenvolvimento Coesivo da Amazônia (ADCAM)–Association for the Cohesive Development of the Amazon. Upon acquiring the land and financial resources necessary to extend the project, ADCAM now has a full K-12 curriculum, provides parental support and training, and has even established a Program for the Elderly. The association’s mission is to “promote the well-being and prosperity of the Amazonian people through quality education that empowers individual and social transformation.”

          "There are of course many groups attacking the problem of street children in Brazil," said Farzin in an interview for the newsletter for the Bahá’í International Community. "What makes our approach different is that we search for the jewel that we believe exists inside of each person.”

          Today, Farzin’s foundational acts of compassion have grown to manifest an entire four-year technical school known as Masrour Technology Institute, providing vital vocational training opportunities to the community. A Youth Apprenticeship program was later put in place to ensure placement of graduates in local companies. In recognition of this significant accomplishment, the government of Brazil awarded Farzin with Brazil’s equivalent of the Medal of Honor for her outstanding services to the people of Brazil. 

          Since 1985, ADCAM has educated thousands of underserved children, youth, and adults and helped transform entire communities. Although the locality was once a place of severe poverty, ADCAM played a vital role in transforming the surrounding area into a fully developed community surrounded by businesses who are becoming the engines of growth. 

          Farzin’s ability to see the potential inherent in every person, and their deservedness of unconditional care and nurturing, is at the heart of her deeply meaningful work over the past 37 years. Although Farzin herself has since retired and now resides in Chile, she worked hard to ensure that all of her efforts since the Association’s inception were made sustainable as she passed the reins to other capable leaders who are currently taking ADCAM to the next level. 

Rosa Beatriz Torres: Founder of Badi School, Panama - Mona partner since 2003

           Rosa Beatriz Torres, known affectionately as Loty, gathered a small group of children, including her own, in the carport of a trailer park in 1993 with the purpose of giving them an enriching educational foundation. From this humble beginning, Torres and her husband worked tirelessly to build the momentum for the flourishing institution that exists today, known as Badi School. Today, Badi School serves over 500 students from 1st grade through 12th grade, 57% of whom are girls. The school is widely acknowledged as one of the best in South and Central America and recognized for excellence in its academics, arts, music and technology programs. 

          In 2003, Mona Foundation established a partnership with Badi School, resulting in an eventual increase in the number of classrooms, the building of a common room, a library, technological and scientific labs, and the development of the school’s music, arts, and character building programs.

          The school is located next to a town called San Miguelito, which at the school’s inception, was known for its unsafe and sometimes violent living conditions. More than 90% of Badi School’s students come from this area. Over time, the presence of Badi School has been an important factor in the development of the surrounding community, uplifting its residents and existing as a focal point of social and economic development. “The kids that come from these difficult areas, the way they look at life really changed,” Alexis Torres (son of Rosa Beatriz Torres), said in a 2019 interview with Mona Foundation. “They know the situation they have back home, they understand their parents. Now they are educating their parents, and parents are embracing these new values and virtues of their kids.” As the impact of the school’s presence deepens its roots through the community’s generations over time, the upliftment of the local population accelerates.

          Torres’s initial vision, which was to provide educational support to children in the area, has now grown to encircle parents and other community members in the mission to uplift their community through education. Her work is proof of the unifying power of education and the animation of youth; through the education of the community’s young people, the entire community is transformed.

Madeline Isatou Mendy (Mama Kujabi): Founder of the Skills and Business Center at Starfish International, The Gambia - Mona partner since 2019

          As a child bride, young mother, and someone who survived abuse, abandonment, homelessness, and severe poverty, Madeline Isatou Mendy had always dreamed of founding a skills center for young girls as a means to give young women the ability to elevate themselves out of oppression and social or familial degradation. Lovingly known by all as Mama Kujabi, she lifted herself and her three daughters out of abject poverty by teaching herself to sew and then starting her own small business, but she didn’t stop there. 

         In 2008, Mam Yassin, without whose indispensable work the Skills Center would have never met its inception, founded Starfish International, whose mission is to empower Gambian girls by providing them with advanced education and other opportunities. Mama Kujabi was later brought in by Mam Yassin, and she went on to establish the Skills Center which oversees technical training, entrepreneurship, and the skills necessary to achieve financial independence. Her strength of vision and fortitude in the face of adversity is now having a real impact for the girls in her community. 

          In 2020 alone, Starfish International trained 100 women ages 15-25 in sewing and tailoring, hairdressing, and cooking and catering skills. In 2021, the Skills Center began expansion of their program to include a practical element: a salon and restaurant to put students’ learning into practice as well as generate further income. 

          Beyond simply providing participants with the practical skills necessary to achieve financial stability, Starfish International also has a Character Development program designed to help students “learn about, further develop, and exhibit the virtues they were born with.” The program highlights nobility, independence, courtesy, knowledge, and service as essential toward the goal of both material and spiritual development. 

          “I am a gift to this world, a pride to my culture and a hope for all other girls who do not have the opportunity to realize their dreams and achieve their goals.” - Starfish International student

          Because of Mama Kujabi’s resilience and ingenuity, hundreds of girls and youth do not have to experience the hardships that she did.

Duy-Loan Le: Founder of Sunflower Mission, Vietnam - Mona partner since 2007

           In 1975, Duy-Loan Le arrived in Houston, Texas at the age of 16. Upon teaching herself English and graduating magna cum laude with a degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Texas at Austin, by the time she was 19, she had already begun her career at Texas Instruments. At the same time, she was working to obtain her MBA from the University of Houston, which she received in 1989. Twenty years after beginning at Texas Instruments, she became the first Asian-American and female to be elected as a senior fellow, equivalent to senior Vice President. To this day, she is the only woman to hold this title. Over the course of her 35 years at Texas Instruments, she has expanded the company’s memory product line across five countries and three continents, accumulating 24 patents throughout her career.

          In 1999, Le was approached by Mona Foundation founder, Mahnaz Javid, after she had given a talk at a technology conference. Javid invited Le’s support in forming Mona Foundation. Le officially joined the foundation a few months later, and now serves as the Chair of Mona’s Board of Directors.

          Three years later, Le founded the Sunflower Mission, an organization focused on establishing educational centers in Vietnam’s most rural communities. To date, approximately 20,000 K-12 students from across rural Vietnam have been provided educational scholarships, with 525 acquiring university degrees. Since Sunflower Mission’s establishment in 2002, 165 classrooms have been built at approximately $8,500 a piece.

Riḍván Foxhall: Founder of New Era Creative Space, United States - Mona partner since 2021

          Although Riḍván Foxhall had originally started the Children’s Theater Company (CTC) in Peekskill, New York as a means to both uplift the youth in her community as well as involve her own children in theater creativity, she continues her work as a force of youth empowerment in Peekskill today, despite the locality’s evolving needs. Despite her own kids’ having grown up, she continues to work tirelessly for the youth of Peekskill, whose populace has “historically been subjected to the disparities of systemic racism and segregated housing policies which have negatively impacted the people in the community.”

          Foxhall is also the founder and director of New Era Creative Space (NECS), bringing her own expertise in the field of occupational therapy as well as over 20 years of experience in the advancement of education, the arts, and racial healing to create a safe space for Peekskill’s youth to thrive. Through the expression of visual and performing arts, nature and environmental programs, and STEM and leadership workshops, NECS serves as a catalyst for broad social change through development of participants’ social, emotional, and artistic means of expression. Its "EmpowerED Girls Leadership Program" helps middle and high school girls build resiliency, develop strong and healthy identities, champion their worth, and demand gender equality. NECS believes that with the core values of creativity, joy, nobility, empathy, justice, and service, children and youth are armed with “the skills required to build up themselves and their communities.” In empowering the young people of Peekskill, NECS aims to empower the broader community from the younger generations upward.

          “We believe that children are the most precious treasure a community can possess and that all children, regardless of circumstances, have the potential to be a force for positive change in the world. Education is the key to tapping into the moral and intellectual potential of each individual.”

Aliea Kamara: Founder of Hope Academy for Girls, Sierra Leone - Mona partner since 2022

          Born in the Northern Rural Region of Sierra Leone, Aliea Kamara  was fortunate to attend an all-girls boarding school in the country's Southern Province run by Irish Catholic nuns from the St Joseph of Cluny Order.  Like many schools of that era, it provided its students with a strong academic foundation combined with in-depth knowledge of local traditions and the natural environment. This resulted in an ethos of self-sufficiency, community service and an appreciation for local resources.

          Aliea’s education inspired her to become a teacher herself. Her highly successful teaching career spanned four decades and two continents. Returning to Sierra Leone after the war that devastated the country, she was deeply saddened at the state of the country and the toll the war had taken on the standard of education. Girls in particular, and especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, were at risk from dropping out or not receiving the opportunity to attend school at all. This spurred Aliea to create Hope Academy as a place of last hope for girls who otherwise would have prematurely come to the end of their school career, never realising their full potential.

          “As a daughter of the soil, I was able to accomplish great things as a result of the well-rounded education I received in my homeland during my formative years. As young women graduating from high school we knew we had something of value to offer our immediate communities and our Country, and we were eager to make our contribution. My heart bleeds at the thought that the current generation of girl children have fewer opportunities now than my counterparts and I had little more than half a century ago. This I cannot accept.“