Senior Leadership
Senior Leadership
Shira Graubart
Girl Up Scotland
Shira Graubart’s personal, academic, and professional passion is gender equality. Shira believes in sustainable empowerment as an effective strategy for targeting global gender challenges - which is why she formed the Advisory Council as a sustainable network for international advocacy and support. In positions like Coalition Leader for Girl Up Scotland, Shira is not afraid to spotlight highly-stigmatised gender issues in a digestible and tangible manner, like menstruation. Shira is in her third year of a joint degree in International Relations and International Law at the University of Edinburgh.
Girl Up is a global leadership development initiative, positioning girls to be leaders in the movement for gender equality. With resources in five languages and more than 2,200 Girl Up Clubs in over 100 countries, we’ve trained 40,000 girls of all backgrounds to create tangible change for girls everywhere. Girl Up provides leadership training and gives girls tools to become gender equality advocates and activists. Our girl leaders create real policy change at local and national levels, raise millions of dollars to support programs, and build community-based movements.
Karen Sugar
Women's Global Empowerment Fund
Karen Sugar has worked for social justice and improving the lives of women for most of her adult life. While in graduate school, Sugar was introduced to the concept of microfinance. She became passionate about the potential for poverty alleviation and women’s empowerment. Before she even walked across the stage to get her diploma, she was planting the seeds for Women’s Global Empowerment Fund, which she founded in 2007. Her motivation is the belief that poverty is imposed, and entirely possible to eradicate extreme poverty. In 2015 Sugar received the Global Changemakers Lifetime Leadership award from the Foundation of Global Scholars.
Women’s Global Empowerment Fund strives to develop programs that produce reductions in poverty and the marginalization of women and their families by providing economic, social and political opportunities for sustainability and self-determination. Investing in women and families, by creating a social network, helps women build livelihoods and address inequality.
Martine Irakoze
Linda Initiative
Martine is a Burundian MasterCard Scholar at the University of Edinburgh in International Relations & International Law. In her first year at university, she cofounded Linda Initiative, a social enterprise that aims to tackle sexual reproductive health issues that young teenagers face due to misinformation and taboo.
Linda is a social enterprise run by University of Edinburgh students. Out of passion and personal experience, we decided to create this initiative. Our name in Kiswahili means “Protect” with a goal to protect young people from early teenage pregnancies and other related sexual and reproductive health issues due to lack of information. We welcome you on board of this journey, leading through the uncomfortable.
Amy Goodman
Sanitree Scotland
Amy works at Sanitree, a social enterprise which tackles period poverty through reusable menstrual pads, operating in India and Scotland. She was at the forefront of the fight against period poverty in Scotland, coordinating a campaign to lobby the Scottish Government to support the Bill for free period products which has now passed. Amy is also a fourth year History student at the University of Edinburgh.
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Sanitree is a social enterprise that was established in 2017 by undergraduate students at the University of Edinburgh. Sanitree tackles period poverty and the stigma surrounding menstruation in a sustainable, collaborative and ethical way.