Global Youth Fellowship Mentors
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Michael Adams is a noted
commentator on social values and social change in North America.
The founding president of the Environics group of research and communications
consulting companies, Michael has written five books published by
Penguin Canada, including the bestselling Fire and Ice: The
United States, Canada, and the Myth of Converging Values, which
won the Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian public |
policy in 2003. In his most recent book,
Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising
Triumph of Canadian Pluralism, Adams disputes the ominous warnings
of many pundits that Canada is becoming increasingly fragmented along
ethnocultrual lines, and Canadians increasingly skeptical of the multicultural
project. Citing data on public attitudes, demographics, and economic and
political outcomes, Adams argues that immigration and multiculturalism
are working remarkably well in Canada-and that most Canadians, new and
old, are enthusiastic about the diversity that surrounds them. In addition
to his groundbreaking work in social values analysis, he has conducted
traditional polling in Canada for over three decades; his expertise includes
a long-range look at the evolution of Canadian public opinion on a range
of issues from public policy to national identity and diversity. Michael
serves as a mentor to
Michael Wodzicki.
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Kamran Bokhari
is Director of Middle East Analysis with Strategic Forecasting,
Inc (STRATFOR), a private U.S. intelligence firm based in Austin,
Texas. Kamran is currentlypursuing a doctorate in political science.
He has published numerous analytical, scholarly, and theoretical
articles related to the geopolitics of the Islamic world and |
has presented research papers in many academic fora.
A leading media commentator, Kamran's areas of specialization include
international affairs, security, terrorism, comparative political systems,
Islam and democracy, modern Muslim political thought, and Islamist movements.
A former Islamist activist, Kamran has been with Stratfor for nearly
five years during which time he has played a pivotal role in enhancing
Stratfor's understanding on a diverse array of geographical areas, including
Israel/Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan,
and Pakistan. He has been behind the creation of a system to help understand
Islamism and jihadism. Kamran is also the author of the forthcoming
book,
Voices of Jihad: New Writings on Radical Islam, which
will be published in 2008. Kamran serves as a mentor to
Shibil
Siddiqi.
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Stewart Elgie
is a law professor at the University of Ottawa, and co-director
of the University's Environment Research Institute. He has his Masters
of Law from Harvard, and is completing a doctorate at Yale on environmental
law and economics (focus on climate change). In 1991, Stewart |
founded the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, and was its managing lawyer for
many years. He was counsel on many of theprecedent-setting environmental
cases of the past decade, and he led the campaign for federal endangered
species legislation. He left Sierra Legal in 2001 to become founding Executive
Director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative, and took a lead role in building
the national boreal forest campaign. While doing this, he worked as a
part-time professor at three Canadian law schools, and published numerous
articles on a variety of environmental subjects. He has been a member
of or chaired many law reform task forces at the federal and provincial
level. In 2001, Stewart was awarded the Law Society of Upper Canada medal
for exceptional lifetime contributions to law - the youngest man ever
to receive the profession's highest honour. Stewart serves as a mentor
to
Chris
Henschel.
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A co-founder
of INTRAC, for some 30 years Alan Fowler has been active in international
development as an organizational adviser as well as writing about,
publishing and researching the aid system with a special focus on civil society. His wide institutional experience has included
roles as a Ford Foundation programme officer and World Bank Visiting Fellow. |
In addition, he has served on the board of Civicus, the World Alliance
for Citizen Participation and is past president of the International Society
for Third Sector Research. He holds professorial appointments at the Institute
of Social Studies in The Hague and at the Centre for Civil Society, University
of KwaZulu Natal. As well as qualifications in engineering, teaching and
rural development, in 1994 Alan completed a DPhil at the Institute of
Development Studies University of Sussex. Since the mid-seventies Alan
has worked and lived in Africa and Asia and is now resident in South Africa.
Alan serves as a mentor to
Louis
Dorval.
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Joanna Kerr is currently
the Senior Advisor for Program Development for the Stephen Lewis
Foundation. Recently she has been advisor and strategist with numerous
organizations towards advancing women's rights internationally including
Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice, Open Society Institute,
the UN Trust Fund on Violence Against Women (at UNIFEM) and The Mothers Trust. As Executive Director of the |
Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) from 2000 to 2006,
Joanna worked to transform AWID into an international, multigenerational,
feminist, and agenda-setting membership organization working for women's
rights and economic justice. In 2005 she was awarded a leadership prize
by the Sigrid Rausing Trust. Prior to AWID she was a Senior Researcher
at The North-South Institute in Ottawa where she managed the gender program
for almost 7 years and created the Gender and Economic Reforms in Africa
(GERA) Program. Joanna holds an MA in Gender and Development from the
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
She is on the board of the Nobel Women's Initiative, the Gender at Work
Collaborative, and the Society for International Development. She has
authored and edited numerous publications, including co-editing
The
Future of Women's Rights: Global Visions and Strategies (2004) and
Ours by Right: Women's Rights as Human Rights (1993). Joanna
serves as a mentor to
Rita
Soares Pinto.
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Peggy Mason's distinguished
career highlights diplomatic and specialist expertise in the field
of international peace and security, with a particular emphasis
on the United Nations, where she served as Canada's Ambassador for
Disarmament from 1989 through 1994. During this period she headed
the Canadian delegation to numerous diplomatic conferences, chaired
a UN Expert Study in relation to disarmament in Iraq |
(1994-95), and served on the UN Secretary-General's Disarmament Advisory Board from
1993 to 1997. She is a faculty member of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre
since 1996 and a Senior Fellow at The Norman Paterson School of International
Relations (NPSIA), where she chairs the Advisory Board to the new Canadian
Centre for Treaty Compliance. She is Chair of the Canadian Peacebuilding
Coordinating Committee (CPCC), a network of Canadian NGOs engaged in
all aspects of peacebuilding, and is former head of the Ottawa-based
foreign policy NGO, the Group of 78. Peggy serves as a mentor to
Christina
Mai-ling Yeung.
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John
Packer is Professor of International Law and Director of
the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex in the UK. He
is also Senior Adviser for the global Initiative on Conflict Prevention
through Quiet Diplomacy and is on an expert working group of the
Club de Madrid. Until February 2004, John was Director of the Office
of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, where he previously
served as Senior |
Legal Advisor. From 1991 to 1995, he was a Human Rights Officer at the
United Nations, where he investigated serious violations of human rights
in Iraq, Burma, and Afghanistan. John is Associate Editor of the
Human
Rights Law Journal and a member of the editorial boards of the
International
Journal of Minority and Group Rights, the
European Yearbook of
Minority Issues, and the
European Diversity and Autonomy Papers,
and he is a member of the editorial advisory boards of the
Journal
on Ethnopolitics, Minority Issues in Europe, and of
The Global
Review of Ethno-Politics. He also serves on the council of Minority
Rights Group (International) and is Chairman of the Board of the Centre
on Housing Rights and Evictions. Mr. Packer holds degrees in law and politics
and has been a consultant to several international organizations, governments,
and NGOs. John serves as a mentor to
Surendrini
Wijeyaratne.
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Evon Peter
is the Chairman of Native Movement and former Chief of the Neetsaii
Gwich'in from Arctic Village in northeastern Alaska. He has served
as the Co-Chair of the Gwich'in Council International, on the Executive
Board of the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, and as an alternate area
Vice-President to the National Congress of American Indians. Evon
is a well-recognized advocate of Indigenous Peoples rights, youth,
and a balanced |
world, and he is active as a speaker, strategist, writer, and organizer.
His experience includes work within the United Nations and Arctic Council
forum representing Indigenous and environmental interests. He dedicates
a significant portion of his time to youth leadership development, movement
and coalition building, and gathering facilitation. He holds a degree
in Alaska Native studies with a minor in Political Science and is pursuing
a Masters degree in Rural Development. Evon is also featured in the 2005
award winning feature film "Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action,"
that follows the work of four Indigenous people who are working on issues
of Environmental Justice in North America. Evon serves as a mentor to
Eriel
Deranger.
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David Porteous
is the founder and director of Bankable Frontier Associates, a niche
consulting firm based in Boston, Massachusetts USA. He has undertaken
consultancy assignments in the areas of financial strategy and policy
for a wide range of clients including public clients such as DFID,
the World Bank, CGAP and private clients including a banking group
and telco group. Prior to relocating to Boston in 2004, |
he was active in executive leadership roles in the development finance sector of South Africa with private and public financial institutions as well as FinMark Trust, an NGO involved in promoting financial inclusion policies and projects, and a public-private partnership which sought to promote low income housing securitization.
He has written several books including Banking on Change and
a regular weblog, The
Bankable Frontier, which tracks the development of inclusive financial
sectors around the world. David serves as a mentor to Amitabh
Saxena.
