Gisele Umutoniwase | Executive Director
Gisele Umutoniwase is a young feminist leader with over 6 years of experience leading programs and supporting organizational growth in the women’s rights and public health sectors. Before joining Paper Crown Rwanda as the Executive Director, Gisele occupied program and project management roles in local NGOs focused on women’s rights and empowerment. Gisele has a bachelors degree in Pharmacy, holds a global project management certification (PMP), and has been a recipient of prestigious fellowships and trainings in business and leadership, including the Mandela Washington Fellowship. She is a passionate feminist who believes that the key to creating sustainable social change is by fostering full and equal participation of women and girls in all areas.
Clementine Nyirarukundo | Programs & Partnerships
Clementine is our Programs & Partnerships Manager leading Paper Crown’s activities on the ground in Rwanda, and a passionate activist for gender equality in Africa and around the world. She has been working with Paper Crown since 2014 and is a skilled gender trainer in both English and Kinyarwanda, as well as a qualitative and quantitative gender field researcher. Clementine is also a member of UN Women’s National Gender Youth Activist Task Force in Rwanda.
Clementine leads the development of partner relationships as well as project/program management, field implementation and evaluation, and has intensively developed her skills over the last six years as a master gender trainer, working closely with our Founder to increase the depth and richness of her knowledge and understanding around gender issues in Rwanda and beyond. Clementine strongly believes in investing in girls for social change as a way of breaking the cycle of violence, inequality and poverty, and as a means to creating a better future for themselves, their families, their communities and the world.
Martine Uzumukunda | Project Coordination
Martine handles Paper Crown’s Project Coordination in Rwanda. Martine graduated from Akilah Institute in 2017 and is a passionate activist for gender equality and the meaningful empowerment of women and girls. She has a background in Human Resources management and extensive experience with administration, project coordination and customer care. Martine has previously worked as a Community Coordinator for social change projects within Akilah, where she deepened her dedication to supporting girls in Rwanda to know their rights and achieve their dreams.
Rahmat Umuhoza | Communications Officer
Rahmat is a dedicated gender activist, international multimedia journalist, and communication professional, boasting nine years of expertise in journalism, media, and communications. Starting her career as a radio presenter in both public and private media, Rahmat later transitioned her focus to behavior change communication. In this role, she adeptly created, developed, and disseminated strategized content for a desired outcome across different platforms.
Passionate about Gender, Rahmat has collaborated with numerous institutions and NGOs to empower women, girls and young people, through training on gender, Sexual reproductive health and rights, leadership, public speaking, and storytelling.
Recently, she has shifted her attention to corporate communications, utilizing her skills in strategy and campaign design, alongside her storytelling skills, to leverage and amplify the work and impact of different organizations.
Katie Carlson-Akuno, Founder | Board Member | Technical Advisor
Katie Carlson-Akuno is the Founder of Paper Crown Rwanda. She is an international gender specialist and a vocal advocate for the rights of women and girls around the world.
Katie has been participating in gender study and feminist activism across many different contexts for over 20 years, and has been working on gender issues in Rwanda for over a decade. As a technical and strategic advisor on the Board of Paper Crown, Katie supports the organization with thought leadership and technical guidance for the design and development of projects and interventions engaging Rwanda’s young people in gender norms change.
As a technical specialist, Katie works with a variety of organizations in both the public and private sector, specializing in gender transformative analysis and mainstreaming for program, strategy and policy design and development, as well as participatory gender capacity building and coaching for adults and adolescents. She is distinctly passionate about gender transformative approaches that bring about lasting, positive social change and are inclusive of men and boys as key players in shifting gender norms. Over the years, Katie has presented her work at various international conferences and has been academically published for her research regarding the importance of engaging men and boys in dialogue about gender-based violence, as well as contributing to additional published work on the value of women’s safe spaces for IPV prevention in Rwanda. Her areas of expertise include gender transformative approaches to equality, gender and youth, gender norms, gender-based violence, gender and agriculture, gender mainstreaming, adolescent sexual and reproductive health, education and engaging men and boys.
At the grassroots level, Katie supports Paper Crown to host community dialogue sessions around Rwanda’s most pressing gender issues, involving participants from civil society and Rwandan gender activists. She has also conducted pro-bono site visits for project evaluations in the East African region on behalf of the Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund, which provides project grants to organizations that benefit women and girls, and actively mentors young Rwandan women in the early stages of their career development. To learn more about Katie’s work as a gender specialist, please visit www.katie-carlson.co.
Board of Directors
Sylvie Nsanga
Sylvie Nsanga is a social justice activist and radical feminist with a passion for ICT for Development and more than 13 years’ experience in digitalization policies and strategies. She is currently working as a digitalization specialist with the Government of Rwanda. She is passionate about digital and inclusive innovations to solve society most pressing challenges.
Growing up in patriarchal societies, seeing and living with gender injustices and inequalities from early age, Sylvie realized her calling and the many privileges she possessed to fight for social justice. For the last 25 years, she has served in different human rights organizations to promote women’s rights and access to justice. In addition, she contributed to the social and economic development of youth in her country and served as Secretary General of the Rwanda National Youth Council (2005-2010).
She has made gender equality, women’s rights and digital justice her life’s purpose. Her research and advocacy link ICT to social justice with the goal of bridging the widespread gender digital divide. She is currently working on exciting new projects to promote children’s and women’s digital freedom, safety and building their digital footprint. Sylvie holds a Bachelors degree in Information Technology from the former Kigali Institute of Science and Technology and a Master’s degree in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University.
Yvette Nyinawumuntu
Yvette Nyinawumuntu is a Rwandan women’s rights activist and the Founder and Director of Save Generations Organization, an NGO that promotes women’s rights and gender equality. She is also the General Secretary of the Rwanda Civil Society Platform. Yvette holds a Master’s degree in Development Studies, specializing in Women, Gender and Development from Erasmus University of Rotterdam at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, in the Netherlands, and a Bachelor’s degree in Political and Administrative Sciences from the University of Rwanda. She participates in different platforms for women activists and feminists, and has more than 10 years of experience at the local and international level in the domain of gender, youth and women’s empowerment. She is a leader, a creative and strategic thinker, and is fluent in English, French and Kinyarwanda.
Grace Nyakanini
Grace Nyakanini is a digital development professional with 15 years of experience in digital development programs, having worked with the Government of Rwanda and Smart Africa Secretariat, a Pan-African organization on digital development. She was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya but has been residing in Kigali, Rwanda for the last 20 years.
She has delivered various digital transformation programs for the Government of Rwanda and Smart Africa including the Smart Africa Digital Economy Initiative, Kigali Innovation City project, and Digital Government Programs, among others.
Grace is passionate about social justice programs especially for women and girls. This passion was inspired through her mother who took part in the 3rd World Conference on Women in 1985 in Nairobi, an event that was considered a tipping point for global feminism and gender equality. With her experience in digital development, Grace became increasingly aware of the fact that the internet is both an opportunity and a challenge for women’s empowerment and equality. She has therefore been on the forefront of bridging gender digital divides in Africa and is currently working with Smart Africa to support a program on Smart Women and Girls as well as an advocate for reducing this critical divide in Africa.
Juliette Karitanyi
Juliette ‘Juju’ Karitanyi is a health communications specialist, women’s rights activist and vocal advocate for the promotion of gender equality in Rwanda. She began her feminist activism hosting her own talk show on Hot FM as a radio presenter in 2015, raising awareness around different issues such as unpaid care work, rape, teenage pregnancy, child defilement, unsafe abortion, GBV, intimate partner violence, and sexual and reproductive health rights. Juju believes in changing and challenging social norms and culture to foster an enabling environment for meaningful gender equality.
Claudine Nishimwe
Claudine Nishimwe works with the US Embassy in Kigali as the Public Affairs Specialist. Her every day role is to create and/or strengthen linkages between the Rwandan and American population mainly through culture for community development. Her passion lies in the empowerment of women and youth, pushing boundaries in discussions and debates to challenge what is socially and culturally acceptable. Claudine holds an MBA in International Business and has extensive experience with diplomacy and international relations. She also speaks Kinyarwanda, English and French. Claudine is a skilled communicator beyond business pursuits, as her other passion lies in coaching, therapy and counselling.
Shamimu Mukeshimana
Shamimu Mukeshimana is an educator with more than 19 years of experience who speaks four languages fluently - French, English, Swahili and Kinyarwanda. She is a mentor and a professional supervisor who enjoys sharing creative endeavours with others and working as part of broader education and community team for children.
Shamimu believes that every young person is capable of learning and growing. She sees value in allowing students opportunities to make mistakes and embrace their imperfections as part of the process of growing and creating an environment where young people feel safe, welcomed, and supported, and which involves students directly in their own learning.
Dominique Uwase Alonga
Dominique is a young woman leader and a feminist who is passionate about the intellectual growth and skills improvement of her fellow Africans. She is the Founder and CEO of Imagine We Rwanda, an award-winning social enterprise and publishing house with the aim of empowering the reading and creative writing culture in Rwanda. Dominique believes that her organization impacts Africans through their accurate representation in stories around the world. She also volunteers her time speaking with young girls with the aim of boosting their self-esteem and inspiring them to dream bigger. Dominique has proven her ability to strengthen her entrepreneurial and business skills to improve the lives of young people in Rwanda through a variety of sustainable ventures and projects.
Ilaria Buscaglia
With a Ph.D in anthropology from the University of Siena, Ilaria has been working as a qualitative research specialist in Rwanda since 2007, and has carried out both academic and applied research projects, mainly in the field of gender, women’s rights, youth and SRHR. She has worked for different universities, both in Italy and Rwanda, as a lecturer and researcher in cultural anthropology and gender studies.
Since 2015, Ilaria has also been working as an independent consultant, supporting different NGOs in Rwanda with formative and evaluative research to inform their strategies and interventions with evidence to promote a more transformative and sustainable change.
Ilaria is very passionate about the application of academic and feminist theories and concepts to the work of practitioners in the field of gender and ASRHR. She is also the President of Turi Kumwe (‘we are together’ in Kinyarwanda), a small non-profit organisation based in Italy, which funds small-scale youth-led initiatives in Rwanda.
Prudent Gatera
Prudent Gatera is a gender activist who holds a Master’s degree in Project Planning and Management, a Bachelor's degree in Education and a Bachelor's degree in English, with a specialization in Translation. His passion for the promotion of gender equality grew when he joined Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre as a member in 2010 and later as an employee in charge of capacity building from 2013-2017.
Over the years, he has contributed to various research studies, written successful proposals and supported numerous gender projects both in schools and communities (Boys4Change, Girls Take the Lead, Women’s Economic Empowerment Projects, and others). He also coordinated the ‘Ending Domestic Violence’ Project in 7 sectors of Rulindo District, Rwanda.
He is currently the Monitoring and Evaluation Manager at SOS Children’s Villages Rwanda. His greatest passion around gender norms change focuses on helping men to discover the rights and opportunities that both women and men must share equally within families and society.
Theophile Zigirumugabe
Theophile Zigirumugabe has an impressive career track record of over 23 years in the areas of project management, gender equality promotion, child protection, inclusive education and development. Theo previously managed the coordination of the ‘Building Learning Foundations’ (BLF) Program in three districts of Rwanda and is an experienced trainer in gender equality, the promotion of positive masculinities and gender-based violence prevention across various sectors and contexts, including agriculture, refugee camps, youth, health services, schools, community leaders, and orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).
His professional experience also includes community awareness raising around saving and borrowing using the popular Voluntary Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) model, as well as women’s empowerment in socioeconomic spheres. He has experience in community mobilization, organizational and institutional development through capacity building, strengthening of community-based groups and associations, and the management and coaching of diverse project teams.
Theo has worked with many different national and international organizations including Care International, Women for Women International, Rwanda Women’s Network, Concern Worldwide, Norwegian People’s Aid, Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre (RWAMREC), Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), Barakabaho Foundation, the Anglican Church of Rwanda, and Kids Alive International.
Virgile Uzabumugabo
Virgile Uzabumugabo is the Chief Commissioner of the Rwanda Scouts Association, and over the last 25 years has developed a passion for working with children and youth in the areas of rights and livelihoods development. He is currently working with Oxfam in Rwanda as their Network and Influencing Coordinator, where he oversees a project that aims at strengthening women’s networks for greater impact in the areas of women’s rights and gender equity. Virgile previously worked with Palladium International, on the project ‘Ikiraro cy’Iterambere’ as a Partnership Facilitator, where he coordinated all project activities under the thematic areas of disability and GBV.
He has extensive experience in using community-based approaches to build new programming models, as well as organizational efforts to develop consensus and ensuring stakeholder commitments through participatory processes. In his free time, Virgile uses social media to discuss issues related to family, children and youth development. He holds a Masters in Development Studies and a Bachelors Degree in Clinical Psychology, and speaks Kinyarwanda, English, French and Swahili.