Sakena Yacoobi

BIOGRAPHY DR. SAKENA YACOOBI Dr. Sakena Yacoobi is Executive Director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an Afghan women-led NGO she founded in 1995. Established to provide teacher training, education and health services to women and children, over 7 million have benefited from AIL’s programs to date. Sakena’s vision of a healthier Afghanistan evolved after watching her mother give birth to 15 children, only to have 5 children survive. Under Sakena’s leadership, AIL has established itself as a visionary organization which works at the grassroots level and empowers women and communities to bring education and health services to poor rural and urban girls and women, as well as other disenfranchised Afghans. AIL was the first organization to offer human rights and leadership training to Afghan women in the 1990s. AIL supported 80 underground home schools for 3000 girls in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime. AIL was first to open Women’s Learning Centers for Afghan women—a concept now copied by many organizations throughout Afghanistan. Dr. Yacoobi has received multiple recognition-of-service awards in Afghanistan. Internationally, her awards include: 2004 Women’s Rights Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation. 2006 Senior Ashoka Fellow—first Ashoka Fellow from Afghanistan 2006 Skoll Social Entreprenuer 2007 Gleitsman International Activist Award 2009 UNFPA Board of Advocates Award 2009 Henry R. Kravis Award for Leadership 2010 Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights Sakena was among 1,000 women nominated to receive the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. Sakena has received 3 honorary doctorates from the University of the Pacific, Loma Linda and Santa Clara University for her distinguished contribution to society in the fields of human rights, law and education. Dr. Yacoobi is on the boards of Global Fund for Women and Creating Hope International and is an advisor to the Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation.