The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination's Project on Gender in the Global Community will host a lunch seminar on Thursday, November 21, 2013, at 12:00 p.m. in 012 Bendheim Hall. Manizha Naderi, Executive Director of Women for Afghan Women, will be the featured speaker. Lunch will be served at the session. To attend, RSVP to Angella Matheney.

Manizha Naderi was born in Kabul and raised in New York. She joined Women for Afghan Women (WAW) in 2002 as the director of the organization’s Community Outreach Program. In 2006, she moved permanently to Kabul to direct WAW’s work in Afghanistan. There she created groundbreaking projects, including the Family Guidance Center, which offers counseling and mediation to families in crisis and to women and girls who are experiencing domestic violence, forced and underage marriages, rape, sex trafficking, and other gross violations of their human rights. Women for Afghan Women now operates 8 Family Guidance Centers in 8 Provinces and has helped some 7,000 women since 2007, including Bibi Aisha who famously appeared on the cover of Time in 2010 after the attack that mutilated her face.

As part of Women for Afghan Women's work, Naderi has also opened 7 shelters for women and girls who could not return home because of threats of violence, initiated literacy and vocational training classes to help women earn a living and achieve financial independence, and started 3 Children Support Centers for children who were residing with their mothers in prison. Over two hunderd children are now living and receiving an education at WAW’s Children Support Centers. Naderi is currently working to expand the Centers to other provinces in Afghanistan.