Contributors

Many people have contributed to the WUS at 100 book and we are thankful to them all for their hard work. Choose a contributor below to see their articles.

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Mahnaz Rashidi studied economics at the University of Frankfurt. She came to Germany from Tehran alone in 1987. She started her professional career in 1991 at the Dresdner Bank as an employee. Later after graduation she started to work in different banks and investment companies as an analyst and as a portfolio manager in Germany and in Austria. Since 2012 she is working in Munich. She has been an active member of WUS since 1989 and since 1995 is board-member of WUS Germany.

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Dr. Manfred Kulessa was General Secretary of the WUS German Committee 1959-60, then a board member. He worked in ecumenical, governmental and international development service, from 1974 to 1988 he was director at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Dr Kulessa worked abroad in the USA, India, Turkey, Nepal and China. He was Honorary consul of Bhutan, is presently board member of the Deutsche Bhutan Himalaya Gesellschaft e.V. and works as an author and scientific consultant.

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Manfred Nowak leads as Professor of Human Rights the Vienna Master of Arts in Human Rights at Vienna University and is secretary general of the Global Campus of Human Rights, based in Venice. He was one of the founders of WUS Austria in 1983, served on the Executive Committee of WUS International between 1988 and 1998, and as main author of the 1988 Lima Declaration on Academic Freedom and Autonomy of Institutions of Higher Education.

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Maria Eugenia Bravo Caldera was a Chilean refugee awarded a WUS post-graduate scholarship in the UK, undertaking a PhD on Pablo Neruda. She subsequently worked for the British Refugee Council. She is a published poet and is currently finishing her Memoirs.

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Marilyn Thomson was originally a case worker for the UK WUS Chile Scholarship Programme from 1975 to 1978, she then worked till 1980 on the Reorientation Programme for Chilean academics to return to the region. Rejoining WUS UK in 1987, she was until 1993 Education and Training Adviser for refugee students, then Campaign Officer on women, education. and development. Marilyn was involved in setting up the Central America Women’s Network (CAWN) in 1991 and co-directed till its forced closure in 2016. After leaving WUS she completed her PhD at the Institute of Education; was study officer on a global study on effective HIV/AIDs activities for the UK NGO Consortium on HIV/AIDS, and then worked as Gender Adviser for Save the Children Fund for almost eight years. Since 2004 she has worked as an independent consultant on gender and diversity with different organisations and between 2005 and 2012 was a part-time lecturer and visiting fellow at City University, London.

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Mark Thomson was the programme officer for Latin America and the Caribbean for WUS International from 1988-1991. After editing the final draft of the WUS Lima Declaration, he worked with Manfred Nowak and others to bring NGOs to the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights. He was later involved in a process to open up NGO access to the UN and in the adoption of the UN Declaration on human rights defenders. He has been honoured by the UK for his international work.

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Moacir Gadotti was Director of the Paulo Freire Institute in São Paolo. He is also Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of São Paulo. He made his PhD in Educational Sciences at the University of Geneva. He is author of many widely read and translated books, among others: “Invitation to Read Paulo Freire” (1988), History of Pedagogical Ideas (1993), Pedagogy of Praxis (1994), Pedagogy of the Earth (2001), The Masters of Rousseau (2004), and Education for sustainability: a contribution to the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2009), in which he develops an educational proposal oriented by the paradigm of sustainability.

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From 1976 to 1979 Nigel worked for the WUS UK Field Office, organising campaigns, lobbying government and fundraising for scholarships. After WUS he worked with Oxfam in West Africa for five years then spent 20 years with NGOS and as many with the World Bank.

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Pauline Alvarez Martin joined WUS UK in 1974 as part of the Chile team, working to find placements for scholarship applicants. She set up a WUS office in Quito, Ecuador, in 1978, moving on to Chile in 1979, in both places working to support Chileans returning to Latin America. After WUS, Pauline undertook a Master’s degree in human rights and education in Chile, and then moved to Oxfam International, Action Aid International and Just Associates. She has been honoured by the Chilean government for her work with refugees.