Who We Are
Patricia Schneidewind
Patricia Schneidewind the Executive Director and a Founder of Bakhita Girls. As director, she is primarily responsible for providing leadership and vision for the organization’s mission of promoting the academic, social and economic empowerment of underprivileged young women through education and psycho-social support.Her inexhaustible passion for gender equality and human rights, coupled with a singular dedication to self-sustaining, holistic and community-based solutions to sexual, social and economic injustice that are constructed as platforms of psycho-social support, has helped define the innovative character of the organization’s mission and methodology.
A Catherine B. Reynolds Scholar at New York University, Patricia brings to Bakhita Girls substantial expertise on issues ranging from African history, politics and culture to economic growth and social development in addition to a wealth of experience and a keen awareness of cultural sensitivity obtained through years of learning, teaching, and working abroad. Originally from Germany, Patricia has lived and worked in 6 countries on four continents.
Mohammad Barkeshli
Mohammad Barkeshli is the Managing Director of Bakhita Girls. In this role, he is responsible for directing the operational activities of the team by scheduling the utilization of the project’s resources, including volunteers, staff and capital equipment. His ardent enthusiasm for sustainable development and his fascination and energy for education as a basis for socioeconomic growth has contributed to the project’s expansion and progress.
Born in Ann Arbor Michigan, raised in Tehran and living in New York, Mohammad brings to the project a dossier of experience from working with The United Nations Economic and Social Council (NGO Section), UNICEF, and ORAM International.
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Ahmadu Fandey
Ahmadu Fandey is the first teacher of Bakhita Girls. He started his journey with us in August 2010 by teaching our first pre-form pilot class of 15 students. Now he serves as our Teacher Coordinator and acts as our main point of contact and representative in Ifakara. His vision and interests are fully aligned with that of Bakhita Girls, and he strives daily for the success of the project. Mr. Fandy holds a diploma in Education from Morogoro Teachers’ College. His vast experience includes teaching at numerous governmental teachers’ colleges and secondary schools. Additionally, he has completed a three year counseling training at the Morogoro Teacher’s College and has been actively involved in providing counseling to youth in matters of life guidance, human rights, adolescent sexuality, family problems, sexual abuse, early pregnancy and early marriage, drug abuse, health and sexually transmitted diseases.
Mr. Fandey’s background growing up as one of seven underprivileged children in a harsh socio-economic environment inspires him to help and support Bakhita Girls. To him, the school is a portal that will provide girls and women with the opportunity to learn, become self-aware and raise their voices.
Charles Newman
Charles Newman is a trained architect and has built numerous structures in East Africa. Charles specializes in sustainable design practices that extend beyond design and construction oversight to larger development and planning responsibilities. His commitment to responsible design is accompanied by a strong desire to teach, learn and to work along side communities that are most in need.
Recently, Charles visited the the Bakhita Girls School to gather needed measurements of the proposed building site, document local building practices, and to investigate the available rescources of local government ministries and NGOs working in the area. Charles has been working to create a new, self sufficient, and innovative school plan that nutures the self-empowerment mission of the Bakhita Girls School.
Charles is concurrently involved with Community 2 Community, and team deidcated to development efforts in rural Haiti. He speaks French and is learning Kiswahili. Charles’ work has been published in various magazines including Architectural Record and Interior Design Magazine.
Natalie Olshevski
Natalie Olshevski is in charge of our Need Assessment and Student Identification process. She has designed our main survey which ranks candidate households on a measure of socio-economic status and helps us identify girls most in need of Bakhita Girls assistance. On a recent volunteer trip to Ifakara, she led our identification effort by surveying dozens of families and households in the community and training some of our local Tanzanian volunteers to carry out the project for consequent semesters and years.
Natalie holds a B.S in Applied Psychology from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She has a passion for adolescent education and has worked at numerous international schools.
Mohammad Tavakoli
Mohammad Tavakoli is our Creative Director. He is responsible for narrating the story of Bakhita Girls through the lens of his camera. He is a passionate storyteller and documentarian. Currently, he is a student of film and television at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
On a recent volunteer trip to Tanzania he has documented the progress and impact of Bakhita Girls within the local community.
Erika Hval
Erika Hval is a student of Nutrition, Dietetics and Public Health at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She is interested in addressing the prevalence of diet-related diseases within low-income communities, and is involved in everything from international research on nutrition labeling to local health fairs in Harlem and health education in the Bronx. Through her various activist experiences Erika has become increasingly aware of the multitude and variety of barriers to accessing nutritious foods. Recognizing a need to systematically alter our food systems, Erika has begun work on radically increasing investments in small, local food enterprises for the benefit of community health in both physical and economic terms.
Additionally interested in the role that the government plays in the accessibility of nutritious food, Erika has researched policy-based initiatives and regulations that impact dietetics practitioners as well as utilize the new USDA ERS mapping application to analyze food availability and nutrition programs throughout the country. At Bakhita Girls, she provides us with an expanded expertise of public policy’s influence on citizens’ health and an unparalleled ambition to ally governmental power with decentralized and non-industrial nutrition initiatives.
Pajmon Zarrineghbal
Pajmon Zarrineghbal is the West Coat/Administrative Director. In this capacity, he oversees, manages and performs a variety of tasks associated with the day-to-day operations of our organization. Specific duties include fundraising, recruitment, and evaluation of volunteers on the west coast and also advising on clerical issues associated with the organization.
As a California resident and a Graduate of the University of California, Irvine, Pajmon is helping expand the reach of this cause across the nation. He has be an active lobbyist in the “Keep the Doors Open” campaign, where his efforts helped limit the increase of tuition for community colleges in CA so that low-income individuals could still seek out and attain a college education.
Pajmon is our point of contact for legal/ administrative affairs.
Margot Terc
Margot Terc is currently a senior at SUNY Geneseo, where she is majoring in Sociology and completing a minor in Anthropology.Born in the Dominican Republic, and partly raised in the Bronx, Margot understands the importance of education and sustainability to help a community prosper. Upon returning from a semester abroad, Margot felt it was time to follow her interests with action, and contribute to the development of her local and global community
Margot is our point of contact for sociological research.
Chayanne Khosravi
Chayanne Khosravi is a student at Orange Coast College in California. He is studying Biology and hopes to become a doctor. He started volunteering in High School and has devoted time and energy to libraries and school fundraisers. He discovered his passion for helping underprivileged children after volunteering at a local church carnival for impoverished children in the area. Chayanne currently volunteers at a non-profit in Costa Mesa, CA, called Share Our Selves (SOS) where he helps distribute food to families in need. Through Bakhita Girls, he seeks to contribute to his global community in the same fashion he does to his local community.
Chayanne is our point of contact for West Coast fundraising and remote research.
