Grant Review Committee

Agness Chindimba is Deaf and has over 15 years of experience working with deaf children and young women with disabilities. Agness is actively involved in advocating for equitable rights, access, and opportunities for women and girls with disabilities. Among her many achievements, Agness was coordinating the team that translated the national constitution into Sign Language in 2018. Agness is a Mandela Washington Fellow (2016), on the Board of various nonprofits working on disability rights and access in Zimbabwe, and is a nominee of the AMH100 Great Zimbabweans in Civic Leadership. Agness holds a BA with Honors in English and a Graduate Diploma in Education from the University of Zimbabwe, and Masters in Educational Management, Leadership and Development from Africa University.  She is currently studying for Doctorate in Social Policy at Atlantic International University. She is passionate about social justice.

Maria Clara Araújo dos Passos (she/her) is a Brazilian Afrotransfeminist, educator and political articulator with activist and professional experiences in social education, articulation with social movements, advocacy and political institutionality. She has a degree in Pedagogy from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. Currently, she is a Master’s student in Education (Sociology of Education) at the University of São Paulo. She holds a Certificate in Afro-Latin American Studies from the Institute for Afro-Latin American Studies at the Hutchins Center at Harvard University. Her current research investigates anti-trans political-legislative attacks and their implications for Brazilian education. She has addressed issues such as the intersections between gender (identity) and race, decolonial curricula, progressive social movements in Latin America, trans+feminism, and more recently far-right transnational movements and their anti-gender educational agendas. 

Raphaella Servius-Harmois (Ella/Ela/She) is an Afro-Guianese woman, originally Arowaka from the geographical lands of Guiana in the Amazon. She is a translator, freelance researcher in language systems of the African diaspora, and language teacher at INTERRMUN’Ã Centro de Línguas e Tradições da Amazônia, which she founded in 2007. She conceptualized the “FANMNÈG FÓ” [Re-empowered Black Woman] workshop as a decolonial process of self-affirmation and self-esteem for Afro-descendant women of the Amazon. She participates in seminars, regional and international symposiums in which she contributes to the valorization of ancestral oral traditions. Committed to the recognition and respect of the realities and self-affirmed identities of women of African descent in her region, she is a member of CICA, the International Commission of Afro-descendant Colloquia.

Vanessa serves as the Director for Global Programs at Decolonizing Wealth Project, a foundation disrupting the flow of wealth and capital through reparative giving.  She leads the strategy and management of Decolonizing Wealth’s activities outside North America. Dedicated to power shifting philanthropy, equity, and everything Black. Vanessa has spent her career disrupting sector norms, from single story African narratives in communications, and pervasive anti-Black racism, to the way and who donors fund. She recently joined FORWARD, the African women’s led charity, as a Trustee, sits on the steering group for The Baobab Foundation, an organisation led by, down and for, African heritage and Global Majority people, and is the Co-Founder and Director of Diasporic Development, a community for Black professionals interested in or working in social justice.

Leila Yahaya (they/them/theirs) is a Black, Queer, Muslim, feminist, and a human rights activist who lives their life as a political statement and as a way to create more opportunities for LBQTI persons to claim their spaces, own and speak up against all sort of abuses and violations. Leila is an activist in the women’s, LGBTIQ+ rights field and administration whose work has positively impacted the field of gender, sexual & reproductive health, consent, LGBT+ rights, and environmental activism work through art and feminism. They are currently the co-founder and director of One Love Sisters Ghana and doubles up as the project lead as well as a consent facilitator for Ghana House. In kicking against gender-based violence, Leila adopted an intervention that focuses on promoting relationships based on respect and equality through education.  They believe in identifying and removing gender inequalities which is denying LGBTQ+ persons fair access to their fundamental rights, employment opportunities, advancement and academic achievement.

Roya Hassan (Sudan) is a Program coordinator, podcaster and feminist writer whose areas of expertise as a disability justice advocate & feminist knowledge producer is vast. Roya is interested in writing, documenting, and producing feminist knowledge, part of “the feminist school project” through coordinating and facilitating sessions discussing “colonialism, capitalism, and feminism in the south”. Roya believes in social and economic justice. Roya is also interested in participating in the repositioning of women’s oral history, with an interest in feminist organizing, renewing solidarity tools and building bridges. Roya also volunteers with a number of grassroots feminist organizations inside Sudan, and feminist platforms in the Middle East and North Africa.