Introducing myself and my journal: Grace, Love and Power

About Me:

A writer and instructional designer, I have been in the education and training field for 35 years and combine my passion for writing with my passion for educating people in every project I take on.

I am the foster mother of Shakib, a college student from Afghanistan, who first came to live with my husband and I when he was 17-years-old. That relationship has changed my life, and I am currently writing a novel for teens set in Afghanistan.

I currently serve on the US committee for the Afghan Refugee Girls Schools, a community-based project inAkora Khattak, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. We fund two K-6 schools for girls in the Akora Khattak refugee camp, educating 600 girls annually.

I am a program leader for Landmark Education -- an international training and development company -- where I have trained thousands of people in how to create, implement and sustain transformational community projects and initiatives that make a real and lasting difference to the quality of life.

I am a founding board officer and currently serve on the advisory board for Aid Still Required, an international NGO that brings awareness and long-term sustainable solutions to forgotten people and causes throughout the world.

Since 2003, I have run marathons for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and am deeply committed to finding a cure for blood cancers which have affected too many of my friends and family members.

My Vision for the Future:My vision is that all people everywhere experience themselves as the source of what is possible and live lives of full self-expression. And I am especially passionate about the status of women and girls, closing the gender gap in literacy, and empowering women to shape their own destiny and transform social norms and expectations from within their own countries.

My Areas of Expertise:community - transformation - leadership - self-expression - women's empowerment - writing: fiction, poetry and memoir