Samina Masood

 
Having been raised in a developing country, Pakistan, where there are severe lack of human and women’s rights, I began fighting against poverty, illiteracy and child abuse at a very early age. While my parents were educated, my surroundings reeked of poverty, hunger and dismay. The children I played with had no shoes, no school to go to, and no health care. Every evening I would gather my friends in my back yard, and share with them some pieces of bread my mother allowed me to distribute. My heart hurt to see my friends hungry. I remember at the age of five laying awake at night as my father, a college professor, read me bed time stories. My friends were laying on bare floors, hungry, with no one to read to them or feed them like my parents did. I found the best solution I could as a five year old. I asked my dad to get me a black board. Each evening, everything I had learned at the Convent, I shared with my friends. I taught them to read, to count, to recite poems. I have not stopped since. Whatever is in my power to share, where ever my life has taken me, I have shared. My job at Heather House is more than a job. It is my new back yard. The people I work with, and for, are my new family. I want to do everything in my power to help change their lives for the better.
MS in Clinical Psychology and an additional Masters in Communications Sciences. Thirty years international and local work experience in nonprofits which specialize in offering educational and empowerment services to youth in marginalized ethnic and economic groups. Worked with local, state, federal, school district and private foundations for educational enhancement and children and family services programs. Served internationally with the Foreign Policy Services division of US Department of State, United States Agency for International Development, World Health Organization and Harvard Business School. Led projects for economic and social empowerment in developing areas internationally and locally, as well as a pioneering MBA school inception project in collaboration with the Harvard Business School and South East Asia to develop educational facilities. Published columnist and public speaker.
In CA worked with state and federal nonprofit projects with educational nonprofits in the following counties: San Bernardino, Central Valley, South Bay, Alameda, Sonoma, Solano, and Bay Area, connecting foster and incarcerated youth to family and social resources via probation and foster care agencies.
Served as Executive Chair of the Vernon Davis Foundation of the Arts, a foundation which reaches children from impoverished areas to empower them vocationally and educationally by raising funds for academic scholarships. Executive Director of the Asian Women’s Shelter from July 2012 – January 2013. From 2009-2012. Executive Director of the Vinewood Center for Children and Families, an agency which provided educational programs and mental health services to children via after school programs.
Op Ed writer for a central valley newspaper called The Tracy Press,as well as a blog web site. I write Op Ed pieces on society, culture.
World Health Organization for children unable to access basic educational and health services. Senior Adviser to the US State Department, Unites States Agency for International Development, (USAID), Harvard Business School, World Health Organization (WHO), and United State Department’s Diplomatic Services in South East Asia, serving human rights and women’s rights and development causes internationally. Served under the head of the IMF mission, with a 22.2 million dollar grant educational project established in collaboration with the Harvard Business School.
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