Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz

Dr.Noorjehan Safia Niaz is Ph.D in Sociology from the Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University and an MASW from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, graduated in 1992. She worked as Development Officer with Mahila Arthic Vikas Mahamandal, a Maharashtra State Government Corporation. Thereafter she joined YUVA as Project Coordinator with special focus on the Muslim women’s groups. She has worked with SAHARA in Anjuman-e-Islam, an institution working for the educational and social development of the Muslim community. From 1999 till 2008 she worked in Women’s Research and Action Group [WRAG] as Project Coordinator and thereafter as the Co-Director. There she worked on developing educational material on Muslim personal law and also initiated and coordinated the Community Outreach Programme, which worked in 30 communities of Mumbai.

She has done an Advanced Diploma in Management Programmes for Executives with specialization in Management of Voluntary Service Organisations from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. She has completed the 6-month long Common Purpose Leadership Development Programme, called Meridian. She has graduated from the 7th Cohort of the Dasra Social Impact, an executive education program, which provides successful non profits and social businesses with transformational skills necessary to build sustainable and scalable organizations to accelerate their impact. She is also an Ashoka Fellow working towards codification of Muslim family law.

She is the Founder member of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, a secular, autonomous mass based national movement of Muslim women. She is also the Founder member and Managing Trustee of Ashana Trust which works towards supporting initiatives of women from marginalized communities for justice, peace and development. Through the years she has concentrated on developing the capacities of marginalized Muslim women, locally and nationally.

She was also a Visiting Faculty and Field Work Coordinator with the Centre of Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, SNDT Women’s University. She taught gender and human rights.