Women, Faith & Leadership: UHRP’s Zubayra Shamseden Completes Fellowship

By Omer Kanat, Director

UHRP’s Chinese Outreach Coordinator Zubayra Shamseden recently completed a two-year fellowship with the Institute for Global Engagement’s Center for Women, Faith & Leadership. During her fellowship, Zubayra created “Save the Uyghur Women,” an advocacy folio to mobilize international action on behalf of Uyghur women leaders who are suffering for their faith, professional work, or support for human rights. She also wrote “How the ’empowered voices’ of American Muslim women give me hope and strength: Reflections of a Uyghur human rights activist.”

The Fellowship deepened Zubayra’s connections with a strong community of women leaders, especially her Fellowship cohort, sisters Patricia Oranefo of Nigeria, Olga Sanchez of Mexico, Cecilia Espenilla of the Philippines, Ghada Ghazal of Syria, Yvonne Kamugisha of Burundi, Reyhana Patel of Caribbean/Canada, Robbie Pentecos of the USA; committed staff members of IGE Kristen Lundquist, Afeefa Syeed, and Margaret Weber; and her fellowship mentor, Louisa Greve. Zubayra will continue to give public presentations based on her research, and welcomes speaking invitations.

Zubayra’s “Save the Uyghur Women” folio and essay are available here: http://www.centerforwomenfaithandleadership.org/fellowship-capstone-projects.html.