Faiza Ruksar Arif

Lead at One Billion Literates, India

Faiza leads program design, impact evaluation and donor partnerships at One Billion Literates Foundation (OBLF), a nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of rural communities through a focus on primary education, public health, developing socio-economic capacity for women, and rehabilitating the severely poor. For the past 5 years, Faiza has been working with a community of semi-educated women in rural Bangalore, up-skilling and employing them as community teachers in rural primary schools. The current focus has been on building English literacy as a gateway to improved access and opportunity.

Faiza also works on training the LGBTQ+ community and sensitizing corporate workspaces to build equity and inclusion. She’s formally trained in research methodology, policy analysis, and intersectional paradigms, her research extends to identity politics of minority groups, gender-based violence, gender and sexuality identity, and mental health issues. She also combines her creativity with her critical thinking as a way to build sustainable models for rural transformation through mixed-media art.