Sakena Yacoobi

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Sakena Yacoobi (born Herat, Afghanistan) is the founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL).

AIL was founded in 1995 in Peshawar, Pakistan and it now provides services to more than 350,000 Afghan women and children each year.

[edit] Recognition

Yacoobi received the Gruber Prize for Women’s Rights in 2004 and the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy in 2005. AIL has also received a 2006 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. [1][2][3]

Yacoobi was one of the 1000 women worldwide who was collectively nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She was elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2006, recognising her leading work as a social entrepreneur.[4] In 2007, Yacoobi received the Gleitsman International Activist Award from the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's JFK School of Government. [5]

[edit] Further reading

  • Sakena Yacoobi, Women Educating Women in the Afghan Diaspora: Why and How, in Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women (ed. Courtney W. Howland), Palgrave MacMillan (2001), ISBN 0312293062

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Sakena Yacoobi Honored with Largest International Women's Rights Prize, Global Fund for Women
  2. ^ National Endowment for Democracy Honors Three Afghan Activists
  3. ^ Recipients of 2006 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship
  4. ^ Profile, Ashoka Fellows
  5. ^ Center for Public Leadership | John F. Kennedy School of Government | Harvard University - CPL Honors Pioneering Woman from Afghanistan with 2007 Gleitsman International Activist Award



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