Linda Eckerbom Cole is the co-founder and executive director of African Women Rising, a non-profit organization working to empower women affected by war in Africa. Linda is committed to gender-based analyses and programming of humanitarian and development initiatives in the African context. She has extensive fieldwork experience in community needs assessments, preventive health interventions, and small-scale farming in Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique, and Uganda. Linda has a master’s degree in Humanitarian Assistance from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. She is the co-author of “Women, Girls, Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR)” with Dyan Mazurana, published in “Women and Wars,” edited by Carol Cohn. Linda is the recipient of the 2014 Leah Horowitz Humanitarian Award.
Other Team Members
Thomas Cole
Co-Founder, Vice President
For more than 25 years, Thomas has worked in sustainable agriculture, livelihoods, community development, and humanitarian response work in both…
Josiah Hamilton
Co-Founder, Board Member
Josiah Hamilton's great great-grandfather, Hezekiah Chase, came to Santa Barbara in 1900 and was the first president of the Board…
Abe Powell
Co-Founder, CEO
John Abraham Powell was born in Stanford and raised in Santa Barbara. As an infant, his parents called him Abie-Baby,…