WNN Staff

WNN – Women News Network staff, interns and freelance journalists

Lys Anzia – WNN founder / director / editor-at-large / Global

In 1979, WNN founder/director, award-winning playwright, (2007) Pushcart Prize nominee, (2010) United Nations panelist on media and human rights journalist – Lys Anzia, was the first woman on the programming board for US Public TV Channel12 KBDI in Denver, CO (US). With an early career that began in public radio via Pacifica affiliate radio station WPFW-FM in Washington, DC, Lys has a strong dedication in bringing the highest quality online journalism available to the public. WNN currently covers hard news stories on women from 5+ global regions. Lys is also a radio producer for WINGS – Women’s International News Gathering Service and is director/curator for Women News Network Video collection.

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JOURNALISTS

Elahe Amani – humanitarian journalist – gender specialist – peace activist / Southern Asia – Iran – Northern America – U.S.

Peace activist and WNN special reporter on Iran, Elahe Amani, works with immigrant women who are part of the South Asian, Iranian and the Middle Eastern ethnic communities in Southern California to help women from these communities build peace at home and in society. She is former co-chair of Women Intercultural Network, a global women’s organization with grassroot circles in Uganda, Japan and Afghanistan. Elahe has also lectured through the Women’s Studies Department and is also on the advisory board of The Women Center at CSU – California State University in Long Beach, California.

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Yohana de Andrade – social justice – women’s issues – Brazil / Latin America

WNN freelance journalist Yohana de Andrade is a Brazilian correspondent who is passionate about women issues as she stays focused on social justice and inequality. Yohana received a scholarship to study globalization with experience as a content producer for internet, radio and new technologies at Voice of America – Africa division in Washington, D.C. . With a degree in Journalism, Andrade also writes about feminism and poverty for her personal blog where she connects with fellow Brazilians and internationals worldwide.
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Synne Hall Arnøy – freelance human rights journalist / Norway – Northern Europe – Global

WNN correspondent in Norway, Synne Hall Arnøy, is a human rights journalist focusing on social justice issues. She has worked on philanthropic projects worldwide and has served on the board of directors of many Norwegian NGOs. Synne has worked as a social media consultant with the global organization, Women’s Intercultural Network. She moderated panels for WIN at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and serves on their Global Advisory Council.
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Cynthia Arvide – investigative reporter – human rights journalist / Mexico – Latin America

WNN correspondent in Mexico City, Cynthia Arvide, is a freelance journalist who specializes in women issues, her stories have been published in Marie Claire magazine, the Latin American edition. She also writes human interest stories, travel features and investigative reports about diverse cultural and social issues in Mexico and every country has the opportunity to visit.

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Svetlana Bachevanova – photographer – photojournalist / Bulgaria – Eastern Europe -Northern America – U.S.

Bulgarian photojournalist for WNN and National Geographic (Bulgaria) award winning photographer, Svetlana Bachevanova, has exhibited her work in Europe and the United States in galleries and museums and has been published by numerous major newspapers, agencies and magazines including the l’Humanitie, Soar, Biography, Reuters, National Geographic and Associated Press.

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Lillian Banda – womens rights – legal investigative reporter / Zambia – Sub-Saharan Africa

WNN correspondent in Zambia, Lillian Banda, has worked for Sun Publishers, Legal Resources Foundation (LRF) and the International Justice Mission (IJM). She has also been a volunteer for Amnesty International Zambia and has volunteered as a Paralegal officer for Zambia Civic Education Association (ZCEA). As a journalist she has worked through the Media Network on Environment and Agriculture Development (MEAD), Zambia Media Women Association (ZAMWA) and Media Network on Child’s Rights and Development (MNCD).

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Jessica Buchleitner – women’s rights and empowerment / U.S. – Global

Sally Chiwama – gender development journalist / Eastern Africa – Zambia

Sally Chiwama is a board member of FEMNET, the woman in development NGO that is working to empower and educate women throughout the Africa region. Using her professional training in journalism as ammunition to inform society on the importance of information, Sally is also part of the Zambia Media Women Association (ZAMWA) Secretariat, She has represented ZAMWA in Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa. Sally is also a distinguished recipient of the 2008 EHHR Media Awards – Every Human Has Rights Media Awards, sponsored in-part by humanitarian luminaries THE ELDERS.

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Leigh Cuen – freelance journalist / Middle East-Israel – Northern America – U.S.

Freelance journalist and creative writer, Leigh Cuen has written for the Earth Island Journal, the San Francisco Public Press, the Palestinian News Network, J. weekly newspaper and El Tecolote newspaper. She contributed research to the Middle Eastern Media Research Institute in Jerusalem on transnational digital infrastructures, international media relations, civil-military relations in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and the Levant, the political culture of English-speakers from the Middle East and the Muslim communities of Chechnya and China. She specializes in reporting on human rights issues, the environment, identity, cross cultural communication, multicultural art and contemporary literature.

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Bijoyeta Das – multimedia journalist and photojournalist / South Asia – U.S.

Bijoyeta Das is a freelance photographer and multimedia journalist. Focusing on culture, development, women and migration Das started as a print journalist and now also uses radio, videos and photos to tell her stories. She has reported from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Turkey and USA and holds a masters degree in Journalism from Northeastern University, Boston USA. Her photo story “Dreams of a Goddess” won the Silver Medal at the TashkentAle-2010 photo festival in Uzbekistan, and her short documentary film “Branded Girls” was a finalist at the 2011 Women’s Voices Now Film Festival in Los Angeles. In addition to WNN her work has been published in Deutsche Welle, Women’s eNews, WAMC Northeast Public Radio and All India Radio

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Aida Dervishi – women and justice – human rights media / Eastern – Southern Europe – Albania

WNN – Women News Network Eastern Europe correspondent, Aida Dervishi, is a native of Albania, who holds a BA in International and European Studies from the University of Piraeus. She is a writer for Balkanalysis.com and is presently working with the NGO Vote Women in Politics, a non-partisan organization dedicated to helping women run for office and be elected in countries around the world; which also works to inspire young women to participate in politics. Her special focus on coverage includes women and justice, government and media outreach.

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Lakshmi Eassey – global women and human rights – society reporter / India – Global

Born and raised in California, WNN journalist Lakshmi Eassey is currently a freelance journalist based in India. With roots in Kochi, Prague and San Francisco she currently divides her time between the places she feels at home. Over the past few years, Lakshmi has worked with newspapers and magazines from Gaborone, Botswana to Los Angeles, California. She has also taught in Ladakh, India, and spent a year as a Fulbright Fellow teaching, and doing freelance work in Hamburg, Germany. She studied Global Communications at Pitzer College in California.

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Hanna Hindstrom – international development and human rights journalist / Latin America – Global

WNN journalist Hanna Hindstrom covers stories on international development, human rights and gender justice. With a degree in Journalism and Contemporary History and a Masters in International Public Policy from University College London (UCL), Hindstrom work was shortlisted this year for an award from The Guardian International Development Journalism Competition 2011.

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Drea Knufken – media analyst & rights journalist / Northern America – U.S. – Global

WNN reporter Drea Knufken is a freelance writer and journalist living in Boulder, Colorado. She first became aware of international women’s issues when she studied abroad in Accra, Ghana, and saw first-hand the powerful role women had in keeping that country thriving.

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Shuriah Niazi – health and development journalist / South Asia – Central India

WNN correspondent Shuriah Niazi is based in the Central Madhya Pradesh region of India. In 2006, he received award recognition at the sixth Sarojini Naidu journalism awards hosted by The Hunger Project – India. In 2011 Niazi received a UNFPA Ladlii Media Award for Best web writing for a WNN story on dalit women who have suffered severely under accusations of witchcraft in Chhattisgarh rural India. Another WNN article (via Niazi) also received international attention through a 2011 ELi Lilly / REACH MDR-TB Award for outstanding writing on tuberculosis with a story covering India’s TB and the widows of miners who often die shortly after their husbands. This WNN story was also featured with our media partner The Guardian News Global Development Network.

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Gitonga Njeru – investigative rights journalist / Eastern Africa – Kenya

WNN Nairobi correspondent Gitonga Njeru is a Kenyan journalist who specializes in investigative reporting, women’s rights and science reporting. His news stories have been published by Reuters News AlertNet, The Guardian (UK), Africa Science News, along with The Daily Nation and The Nairobi Star Newspaper in Kenya. Njeru’s work has also been featured by Spore Magazine (Brussels) and Ooskanews (US) covering water, land and sanitation issues in developing countries. Gitonga is also a very recent recipient of an award grant from The Fund for Investigative Journalism in Washington, D.C.
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Eva Fernández Ortiz – foreign affairs journalist / UK – Western Europe – Middle Africa

WNN U.K. correspondent Eva Fernández is a native of Barcelona,Spain with an M.A. in Journalism from Cardiff University, U.K. with a specialty in women and gender, current affairs and international development. As a WNN reporter she is also a broadcast and video producer. In 2010 Fernández finished an in-depth study on the women of Cameroon on female self-mutilation in “‘Why breast ironing’? – Women’s Rights and Gender Inequalities”.
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Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente – social critic – women and rights in society / Latin America – Global

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Punita Rimal – gender and development journalist / Asia-Pacific – Nepal

With a 1997 graduate degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from  Dhaka University Bangladesh, along with in-depth training from UNESCO, Deutsche Welle and Ritcha publications, WNN Nepal correspondent, Punita Rimal, created the community radio show “Kantipur Diary” for KantipurFM. She has also been a consultant for UNICEF Nepal production BALAWAZ.  Her interest in programming and in-print news covers many human rights issues specific to her training with Development, Communication and Gender in Kathmandu Center for Women and Development. Rimal was also media interpreter for the 1998 2^nd International Conference on Women and Water in Kathmandu, Nepal. Currently Rimal is also director of the board for the Media Foundation-Nepal.
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Shubhi Tandon – gender correspondent – social justice / India – Global

WNN India correspondent in Dehli, Shubhi Tandon has a background in print journalism. As a  postgraduate from Cardiff University, U.K. she completed her degree with a dissertation examining the pervasive attitudes towards women in India. Gender discrimination and the global crimes committed against women have been a focus of Tandon’s since her undergraduate days in English Literature from Delhi. Shubhi believes strongly by reporting the struggles that women face everyday, she can help usher a shift in global attitudes and awareness.

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PROGRAM COORDINATORS

Deborah Mazon – media watch officer / women and development – human rights / U.S. – Global

Deborah Mazon is a dedicated rights defender who actively assisted and participated in Cesar Chavez marches and apartheid South Africa protests. She has been involved in numerous campaigns to empower women through the use of media. Her current work for women in development includes: “Mijiza’s Blog – (Global) African  Descent History, News & Culture” and her visual arts blog, “International Women in Photography,” published through PNN – Personal News Network (founded by award winning journalist, Lauren Elliot, creator of the educational global geo-game series, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?”)

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Maggie Hazvinei Mapondera – women’s advocate – human rights / Africa – Global

Maggie Hazvinei Mapondera, from Zimbabwe, is a recent Yale graduate who has worked to educate the public on searing issues surrounding today’s global slavery, human trafficking, and the denial of rights for global women. Maggie is especially passionate about finding ways to address the realities of the human experience through writing and other creative outlets. She is currently assisting WNN from Washington D.C., where she works as a program assistant for Just Associates (JASS), a global women’s advocacy network grounded in local and national action in more than 25 countries.

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JOURNALIST INTERNS

Dana Anderson – human rights journalist – social media blogger / U.S. – South Asia – Global

WNN journalism intern and social media human rights advocate Dana Anderson is a senior at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she studies journalism and international media. Her passion for media activism and women’s advocacy grew from a variety of international experiences, including her former role as a delegate at the United Nations representing an Indian-based NGO. Anderson has traveled extensively in the Asia-Pacific region. After being awarded a journalism research grant, she recently traveled to Andhra Pradesh, India, to research a community radio station run by farm women. She plans to return to India to continue writing about the impact of community radio on marginalized communities.

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Madhubhashini Rangika Rathnayaka – gender rights journalist – South Asia – Sri Lanka

WNN journalist intern Madhubhashini Rangika Rathnayaka is in the final stages toward a major in Mass Communication from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. She also works as a freelance journalist for Sri Lanka’s oldest newspaper “Daily News.” As a writer and award-winning author in the National Youth Awards Competion (Sinhala) and a translator for Youth Leader magazine Rathnayaka works to bring human rights issues for global women to the front of the story. In 2011 Madhubhashini directed her first short film “The Wind and the Silence” covering Sri Lankan women in Jaffna and their “post war psychological status,” covering war and conflict in Sri Lanka from a gender perspective.

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SENIOR INTERNS

Bineta Diop – children’s advocate and sponsor – advocacy intern / Senegal – West Africa

Senegal, West Africa native, Bineta Diop is the founder and board chair for the SAMA TATA Foundation. A mother, a wife and a child’s advocate,  Bineta has been involved with advocacy and welfare programs since 1999, including work with local  Senegal law-makers with efforts to eradicate the old practice of child beggars in Senegal. Her work has reunited street kids with their parents as well as providing a safe environment for the continuation street kids education. She is a Founding member of Nayloul Maaram Senegal an organization that assists foster kids and provide basics hygienic materials and food to impoverished villages.

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Hannah Fageeh – global women’s rights advocacy – social media intern / Saudi Arabia – Global

Fageeh is a senior in High School from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She is interested in women’s movements in the middle east, abortion/reproductive rights, and policy and politics in Saudi Arabia. She is also part of a nonprofit community, Young Initiative Group (YIG), in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia that deals with community outreach and civic engagement.  Fageeh co-coordinated the “Pretty/Fat Campaign” that raises awareness of women’s body issues and eating disorders, with the overall emphasis of learning to love oneself. The campaign was targeted at girls/women in middle school up until the university/college students in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Fageeh plans on finishing her high school education in the United States and pursue future studies at an American university with a women’s studies/International relations major.

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Taylor Ann Gonzalez – global women’s advocate – rights defender /U.S. – Africa – Rwanda

Taylor Ann Gonzalez is a recent graduate of Florida State University with a B.A. in International Affairs and Religion. Spending the past two years working in rural Rwanda on development projects Gonzalez has been part of local education for women in technology, English training and skills. Traveling around East Africa she wrote “Gender Development in East Africa; Rwanda.” As a developing actor Taylor Ann has performed in “The Vagina Monologues” for the past three years, and is an active member of the Women’s Center and the F word – a feminist group on campus. “Women’s advocacy and closing the gender gap has been one of my priorities. . . ,” says Gonzalez.

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Anam Zehra – journalism and media – women and social justice / Southern Asia – Pakistan

WNN women’s advocacy and media intern, Anam Zehra, life experiences in Pakistan have made her a staunch advocate of activism and social justice. She has also worked as an intern for the editorial department of the highest ranked English newspaper in Pakistan, The News International. In addition to this, Zehra is co-founder of Shajareilm, an emerging youth organization in Pakistan. Currently, she is finishing her degree at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, US where she is a radio producer on WMHC South Hadley 91.5 FM, covering political news and affairs in South Asia.

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