Zainab Salbi co-founded Women for Women International in 1993 to provide women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency.
Salbi describes her life in Iraq in the best-selling memoir, "Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam." Her new book, "The Other Side of War: Women's Stories of Survival and Hope," chronicles the stories of women who have overcome the devastation of war. She has been interviewed by numerous media outlets, including the BBC, NPR, CNN, Fox News, PBS, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and Newsweek.
In 2006, Salbi spoke to global business leaders at the Clinton Global Initiative and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. That same year she received Auburn Theological Seminary's highest honor, the Lives of Commitment Award, and was named "Washingtonian of the Year" by Washingtonian magazine. Salbi serves on the advisory boards of the Tￃﾤllberg Foundation International Advisory Council, the Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation Women's Rights Prize, World Pulse magazine, and the International Museum of Women. She also serves as a young global leader for the World Economic Forum and is a member of the International Women's Forum.
Salbi earned a master's degree in development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2001 and a bachelor's degree in sociology and women's studies from George Mason University in 1996.
This event is made possible through the generous support of the Kelly Day Endowment on the Status of Women and Human Rights in the Middle East and the Ghada Irani Discretionary Fund.
