Sakina Dhorajiwala

Sakina Dhorajiwala holds a Master's in Public Policy and a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Mumbai, India. Most recently she has worked as an action researcher with Liberation Technology (LibTech India) - a group of researchers, activists, and engineers that works on transparency and accountability of various government to citizen programmes in several parts of rural India. She has over seven years of experience in working on 'rights based frameworks' in India such as the right to food and nutrition and the right to work among others. Sakina has collaborated with various levels of the government, judiciary, civil society groups & researchers for improved implementation of the laws like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the National Food Security Act (NFSA)

Her research interests include understanding rural citizen experience in times of technology mediated policy initiatives with the aim to make information "actionable" for increasing political capacity of the marginalised and monitoring public programmes. Prior to this, Sakina was a Fellow with Teach for India (TFI). She served as full-time teacher to children in two under-resourced schools for two years in Hyderabad, India.

Sakina is also the co-founder of WeSpeakOut, a group of Muslim women who have come together to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in their community. Their aim to end FGM during their lifetimes.

She hopes the Master's program in International Development Policy at Duke University will enable her to build on her current work, learn through diverse experiences of others in the cohort and expand to other development initiatives. Thereafter, she aims to work on themes which are at the intersection of politics of information and social security with a keen focus on women's rights and communal harmony.