Avideh Shashaani is the founder and president of the Fund for the Future of our Children, established in 1993 focusing on youth leadership for peace. She is the 6th recipient of the “Waging Peace” award first given to George Clooney by President Jimmy Carter.

She is the author of three books, Tell Me Where To Be Born, Promised Paradise and Remember Me. She is the editor of “Something Deeper Happened: Young Voices and the 2008 US Election” with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Her poetry and articles have appeared in anthologies, books and journals. Her poems have been featured in a one-hour program in the Library of Congress radio series.

She was the first co-director of the International Institute for Rehabilitation in Developing Countries founded by the UN, UNESCO, and UNDP and was appointed by the UN Secretary General to the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on the “Socio-Economic Implication of Investments in Rehabilitation of the Disabled”.

She served as Vice-President of the DC Public Library, board chair of Refugee Women in Development, founding chair of MOSAICA and currently serves on the board of the Faith & Politics Institute. She has a BA in Experimental Psychology and a Ph.D. in Sufi Studies.