FRIDA is experiencing a profound transformation period, both internally and as a young feminist fund experiencing itself in a global climate of continued oppression and crises that are the legacy of systemic injustices – from the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic, climate crises, violence and genocide by occupation states, and growing right-wing movements pushing dehumanising and criminalising agendas and deliberately blocking and hindering the work of feminist activism. Young feminist movements, however, remain at the forefront of response and organizing across social justice movements with creativity, agility, and courage – meeting growing and acute demands. These young feminist activists and movements are our goal, our purpose, and guiding compass.
As we navigate this moment of both transformation and deep reflection we are excited to introduce you to each new incoming member of the FRIDAverse.
Interim Executive Director
In 2023, Majandra and Anahita, former Co-Executive Directors, announced their transition and FRIDA began its search for a new Interim Executive Director to help meet the institution’s needs in the current context. With increasing pressure on the feminist movement and the need for ways to contribute to the sustainability of the young feminists at the centre of our work, these dynamics require that we reflect on what FRIDA must fortify to best support and contribute to the sustenance of the larger FRIDA community. The task at hand feels necessary and urgent, as dynamic shocks from historical and current injustices continue to impact the FRIDA community at an accelerated pace. We understand this moment to be an exercise to continue translating feminist principles into actions and institution-building.
Through a process led by FRIDA staff and Board members, Uma Mishra (she/her) was selected as the Interim Executive Director. Uma is a global social justice and women’s rights leader, anti-racist and somatic facilitator and coach, former Executive Director of Women’s March Global, the initiator of the Racial Equity Index, and a former organizational development and racial equity senior consultant with The Better Org. Uma joins FRIDA as the Interim Executive Director fully from 1 March 2024. Throughout her multifaceted career, Uma has dedicated her work to people and individuals first and has been a vocal champion and advocate for human rights defenders and their families, speaking boldly across platforms about systemic issues embedded in the global development and philanthropic sector. She has committed to continual learning and understanding as a somatic abolitionist the impact that race and white body supremacy have on the physical body and utilises this learning to lead in a grounded way through the difficult work that can present around race, racism, and racial equity within organizations. Uma is a celebrated children’s picture book author and fluent in Hindi, English, and conversational French.
In addition to Uma’s appointment, FRIDA is excited to announce our new and incoming board members who have joined the board in March 2024.
“The Interim Executive Director and Board members bring wisdom, strategies, and life-long commitments to young feminist movements. In our current moment, where young feminists and, especially BICOP and Queer activists and organizers, are facing increasing threats, violence, and criminalisation while having to manage the instability and lack of clear commitment toward social justice and liberation from the philanthropic sector – their experience brings intergenerational and liberatory strategies to collectively meet the moment.” Laura Vergara, Board Member
We take this opportunity to thank our amazing outgoing board members who have helped hold and support FRIDA over these past years in moving through a difficult change moment and welcome our new board members to FRIDA. Our incoming board members bring deep experience in feminist philanthropy, organizational change and transition, and movement work. We are thrilled to have such a strong, skilled, and caring new cohort of leaders in our FRIDA community.
In addition to Uma’s appointment, FRIDA is excited to announce our new and incoming board members who have joined the board in March 2024.
“The Interim Executive Director and Board members bring wisdom, strategies, and life-long commitments to young feminist movements. In our current moment, where young feminists and, especially BICOP and Queer activists and organizers, are facing increasing threats, violence, and criminalisation while having to manage the instability and lack of clear commitment toward social justice and liberation from the philanthropic sector – their experience brings intergenerational and liberatory strategies to collectively meet the moment.” Laura Vergara, Board Member
We take this opportunity to thank our amazing outgoing board members who have helped hold and support FRIDA over these past years in moving through a difficult change moment and welcome our new board members to FRIDA. Our incoming board members bring deep experience in feminist philanthropy, organizational change and transition, and movement work. We are thrilled to have such a strong, skilled, and caring new cohort of leaders in our FRIDA community!
Divya Sooryakumar, Co-Chair
Divya is a South Asian feminist with roots across India, Sri Lanka, and the United States. As a strategist and connector, she is deeply curious about the lessons embedded in intergenerational stories of power and organizing. She is interested in how young feminists living at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities come to understand their own lived experiences within the broader context of historical and current injustices and use that awareness to power their activism. She is committed to building funding ecosystems in service of young feminists so that they can thrive. Divya is the incoming Vice President of Programs and Impact at Every Mother Counts, a maternal health organization advancing maternity care through grantmaking, policy advocacy, and storytelling initiatives. She is the former Director of Grantmaking at MADRE, an International Women’s Rights organization and Feminist Fund. Divya brings over a decade of experience working with women and girls through grassroots feminist organizing in India, including with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA Bharat) and the Chandigarh-based Chhoti Si Asha. Divya serves on the Board of Free to Run, an organization transforming community gender norms in Afghanistan and Iraq through running, and is an Advisor to Parity Lab, an institution fostering an ecosystem of grassroots organizations and activists working to end gender-based violence in India. She received her M.Ed in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University.
Masana Mulaudzi, Treasurer
Masana is an economic analyst and civil society actor with over 15 years’ experience, working on violence prevention, social cohesion, economic justice, feminist and social movements in Africa, South America and the Middle East. At the Wikimedia Foundation, Masana is the Senior Manager for Campaigns Programs where she supports organizers working to advance knowledge equity, including in gender, across the globe. Previously, Masana was Programs Director at Sonke Gender Juyastice, where she oversaw over 15 projects across Africa and a multi-national team working to enhance gender equality through a lens of feminist leadership. She is lead researcher on the UNDP report (and journal article) “Forging a ResilientSocial Contract in South Africa: States and
Societies Sustaining Peace in the Post-Apartheid Era” and author of the book chapter, “The Necessity of Rage in Feminist Parenting.” She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equality at the London School of Economics, where she produced the documentary and research series “Triple Jeopardy: Race, Class and Gender among the Black Middle Class in South Africa.” Masana volunteers as a Peer Reviewer for the seminal research collective, the Racial Equity Index and on several boards. In 2021, Masana was recognized by aPolitical as one of the Top 100 Women in Gender Policy globally for her work on Feminist Movements and Leadership. She has a multidisciplinary background with an MSc in Political Economy of Late Development from the London School of Economics and a B.Com. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and B.A. (Hons) in African Studies from the University of Cape Town. Masana was the first Machel-Mandela Fellow at The Brenthurst Foundation in Johannesburg and is an alumnus of the South African Washington International Program and the David & Elaine Potter Fellowship. Masana is a Chevening Scholar from 2012–13 and an Anglo-American Open Scholarship recipient. She is fiercely passionate about feminist parenting, queer, racial and economic justice in Africa through the transformation of the international political economy for greater accountability by governments and corporations.
Purity Kagwiria, Co-Chair
Purity is a feminist activist, a philanthropic advisor, a feminist life coach, and a storyweaver based in Nairobi Kenya. Purity is passionate about girls’ and young feminists’ freedoms. She has dedicated her life to ensuring that these groups can have opportunities and spaces to dream and journey toward the futures they envision. Purity has previously served as the Director for the With and For Girls Fund and Collective and as the Executive Director at Akili Dada. Purity has previously been recognized as one of the Most Influential Women in Governance and Business in Africa and 2021 was named one of APolitical’s 100 Most
Influential People in Gender Policy. In 2022, she was recognized among Bad*ss Women Who Are Changing The World.Purity currently serves as a board member for Humanity United and Kakenya’s Dream; she is also an advisory member for Eyala Blog. Purity has previously served as a founding advisory committee member of the FRIDA|The Young Feminist Fund and has been an advisor for several funds over the years. Purity holds an MBA from the African Leadership University School of Business, Rwanda, an undergraduate degree in Gender and Development from the University of Nairobi, Kenya and a Diploma in Journalism from the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication.
Sharanya Sekaram, Secretary
Sharanya Sekaram is a feminist consultant, storyteller, writer, and teacher based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She currently works as an international Policy and Advocacy Consultant, primarily in the development and humanitarian space, and is currently focused on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in humanitarian and emergency contexts, resourcing women and girl-led organizations, movement building, and working with girls and young women.
She holds an LLB (Hons) from Staffordshire University and a Masters in Conflict and Peace Studies from the University of Colombo. She is also currently reading for an MA in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colombo, and her thesis is focused on exploring feminist agency within the context of transnational commercial surrogacy. Sharanya works with VOICE – a global feminist humanitarian organization – as their Global Women’s Movements Engagement Team Lead based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, is an advisor for The Global Resilience Fund and Purposeful, and a visiting lecturer with the Bandaranaike Center for International Studies, Colombo. In 2018, she co-founded a feminist collective called Everystory Sri Lanka, alongside Widya Kumarasinghe, and has held the organization in many roles, including as the lead for the work on Stories of Girls Resilience: South Asia.
In her career as a consultant, she has worked with state institutions, local and international CSOs and NGOs, and private sector organizations, including UNICEF, WHO, the Coalition of Feminists for Social Change (COFEM), the Equality Fund, The British Council, Oxfam in Sri Lanka, IREX/MEND, the Novo Foundation, and the Association for Progressive Communications. As a writer, she has been published in print and digital media outlets locally and internationally, including the Stimson Institutes South Asian Voices and the Global Policy Journal. Until 2020, she wrote a weekly column, ‘The F Word,’ for The Sunday Morning in Sri Lanka.
