2019 Asherah Foundation Annual Report
Happy Women’s Day! Asherah Foundation is delighted to announce the official release of the 2019 Annual Report! Thank you for your constant support and interest in Asherah Foundation! In 2019 together we managed to change the lives of 5 women, from 4 different countries.
Letter from Executive Director Heather MacCleoud
March 8, 2020
In 2019, the Asherah Foundation was able to provide scholarships to five amazing women! Each of these women inspired us with their resilience and persistence in the face of adversity. They are all working hard to complete their education and improve their communities. They range in age from 29 – 46 years, with an average age of 34. Three of them have dependents and two are single mothers. Their degrees are focused on finance, economics, human development, and environmental studies.
Abeer Mohammed Ghamdhan escaped the violence in her home in Yemen. She has already built programs and developed projects that have supported access to education for more than 6000 children. She is conducting research for her thesis on the effect of social media on the development of children in Yemen with a focus on strengthening civil society to create positive change. She is attending the Universiti Malaysia Perlis in Malaysia.
Evelyne Manishimwe is working on a Bachelor of Business Administration degree at the International University of Equator in Burundi. She had been a victim of the Tutsi and Hutu civil war, her survival’s price being her left leg. She has transformed her adversity into power by becoming an active member of the Association of Handicapped Women of Burundi, and by demonstrating the importance of resilience by continuing her studies.
Jackline Samuel is a South Sudanese single mother of two with three dependents. She works full time while going to school for her baccalaureate degree in Accounting & Finance at Cavendish University in Uganda. She wants to use this degree to create change on three different levels. The first level is individual women to whom she hopes to impart financial literacy and management. Capacity building for the financial management of community-based organizations is the next level. Finally, she hopes to facilitate the development of educational capacity so that public sectors in South Sudan have the appropriate human resources to be effective.
Maklin Hussein Al-Ahmadi is a single mother who escaped Yemen’s violence with her daughter. She fought to access and afford the PhD program in Economy & Monetary Policy at The Institute for Arab Research and Studies in Egypt. She currently teaches while researching and writing about the effects of monetary policy on Egyptian inflation and balance of payments for her dissertation. Her goals are two-fold: she hopes to use her education to impact policy and help rebuild Yemen. She also has begun to teach others some of the more advanced statistical techniques and research methods she has learned – working to fill the gap in educational opportunities in these topics she had experienced.
Maryline Jabar is a mother of two from Liberia. She started college later in life due to violence from the Liberian civil war, as well as from the effects of an abusive marriage when she was a teenager. She is making progress on her degree in Environmental Studies at Stella Maris Polytechnic in Liberia. With her studies, she aims to have an independent life, and empower disadvantaged women and children in her community. She has already set up three working groups with a total of 30 women working towards alleviating hunger.
These amazing women remind us all what is possible when one persists through adversity. They also remind us of the power of education to transform individuals and to transform society.
With gratitude for everyone who has supported these women, we hope you will continue to celebrate their successes with us, and to help support them as they transform their worlds.
Heather MacCleoud, PhD
Executive Director