Board changes at the GFCF: Rita Thapa leaves, Hope Chigudu joins

Rita Thapa, who joined the GFCF’s founding board in 2009, has announced her resignation as board member. Founder of Tewa, the Nepal Women’s Fund, Rita has played a key role in the GFCF board for the past five years, bringing her hands-on experience of establishing a community philanthropy organization in the Global South (she transitioned out of Tewa in 2001) as well as a strong sense of social and gender justice to board discussions. The GFCF would like to thank Rita for her support – moral and intellectual – and wishes her all the best in her future endeavours.

Rita Thapa on a recent GFCF visit to Northeast India

We are delighted to announce that Hope Chigudu, will be joining the GFCF board. A sociologist by training, Hope holds an MA in Development Studies with a focus on women’s studies. After a start in the corporate world, feminism opened Hope’s eyes and she joined the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Zimbabwe “a changed woman.” Later, recognizing the need for women’s autonomous spaces, she became a founding member of the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network. Her experience includes periods working with European funders and the UN, before she set up her own consulting organization.

Hope Chigudu

As a renowned gender equality activist and consultant, and an organizational development expert and strategist, she has supported a great many African and international justice groups, working in most African countries from Ghana to South Africa and serving on the boards of the Global Fund for Women and Urgent Action and on the working committee of the African Feminist Forum. She is also a board member of the new Oxfam South Afria. (Bio courtesy of the Just Associates website, for whom Hope is a regional advisor).

Hope will join the GFCF board at its next meeting in May 2015.