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 Mission/Strategies/Values
History of Spark
Board of Directors
Staff
Advisory Board
 Founders
Press
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The Story Spark was established in 2004 by Maya Garcia, Spark’s Founding President, after she read an article about Sanaa Abu Bhkeet, a young Palestinian runner who overcame incredible adversities to qualify for the Olympics. It was Sanaa's story of determination and courage that inspired Maya to find ways to support women in the global community. Along with co-founders Nealan Afsari, Rohini Gupta, Karen Hennessy, Fiona Hsu, Kathleen Kelly and Mona Motwani, Maya envisioned an organization that would empower young professional women in local communities to address social, political and economic issues that women face globally, by creating a strong local network that worked with grassroots women’s groups worldwide. They also wanted to provide young people the opportunity to channel their energy toward becoming involved in both their local and global communities.
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 Nealan Afsari Nealan Afsari is an attorney currently practicing corporate and securities law. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in Rhetoric, she worked as a journalist, writing news for CNN Headline News in Atlanta and later for San Francisco's own ABC-7 News. Nealan then attended Hastings College of the Law, graduating with a concentration in international law. During law school, she explored her interests in international law, working for a law firm in Tehran, Iran, and contributing to the Hastings International and Comparative Law Review. Nealan writes on issues related to the Iranian-American community here, and tries to travel regularly to Iran. She is a continuing supporter of Spark and Refugee Transitions, a Bay Area organization through which she has worked with refugee youth from Liberia. Maya is currently living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where she is studying Arabic and pursuing opportunities in developing the non-profit sector, especially through organizations that address issues of women's human rights. Before relocating to Dubai, Maya was the Public Policy Director at United Way, managing a public policy agenda to identify and address the Bay Area's most critical health and human services needs. Prior to her public policy work, Maya was a Political Campaign Consultant in San Francisco for five years. Her clientele included President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Senator Barbara Boxer. She also served as the Northern California Deputy Finance Director of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for the 2000 presidential election. Maya is dedicated to furthering the rights and empowerment of women in the global community. Maya serves on the Board of Directors for Women's e-News and is the Co-Founder of Women Leading Change, a network of Silicon Valley women dedicated to empowering single mothers by addressing poverty issues and increasing self-sufficiency through financial education and matched IDAs. Maya graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. in Political Science. Rohini Gupta is a practicing attorney with strong interests in education and international affairs. In 2007, she served as the official writer and editor of the Foreign Policy Association's blog on Latin America, with a focus on Mexico. Rohini previously worked for the American India Foundation (AIF) in New York and the World Affairs Council of Northern California, where she participated in the launch of the Global Philanthropy Forum. In college, she interned in Washington, D.C. for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and the U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration. Rohini graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a B.A. in political science and wrote her honors thesis on democratization in Kenya and Tanzania. She earned a J.D. with a concentration in international law at the University of California, during which she studied in Paris, France and served as an executive editor of the Women's Law Journal. Karen Hennessy graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a major degree in Molecular and Cell Biology, Neurology and a minor in American Literature. During her time in Berkeley, Karen did research for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories research facility, and taught chemistry at the Lawrence Hall of Science educational discovery museum. In 2002, Karen lived abroad in Northern Ireland, from where she traveled throughout Europe. During her time there, Karen taught science in a high school in Belfast, Ireland. Karen now manages Premier Support Services for SalesForce.com in San Francisco. She continues to spend time working with children and education, as a volunteer for the I’m All Ears bilingual literacy program. She helped to found Spark in 2004, and has been a Spark Board member since its inception. In addition to her involvement in Spark and I’m All Ears, Karen serves as a member of the SalesForce.com Foundation Steering Committee. Fiona Hsu is a strong advocate for working families and has worked to promote greater economic opportunities for them through living wages, good jobs, fair taxation, and decent housing. She is currently an affordable housing investor. Fiona previously served on the board of the DC Chapter of the National Asian Pacific Women's Forum. She has also served as a mentor to two young girls through Asian American Leadership Empowerment and Development (AA LEAD) and the Berkeley YMCA. She loves to volunteer with Girls on the Run Bay Area. Fiona is passionate about building strong communities here at home and abroad. With Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program, she traveled to the village of Hosahalli, Bangalore, India to help build a home for Manju and her family, and to the village of La Union, Veracruz, Mexico to help build a home for Anjelica and her family. She is a founding member of Habitat San Francisco’s Young Leadership Circle. Fiona received her undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley, where she studied Economics and Sociology. She received her Master's in Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at U.C. Berkeley. Kathleen Kelly is a teaching fellow at the International Human Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School, where her work focuses on human rights issues in Southern Africa. Prior to that, she spent four years as a commercial litigation attorney at Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner LLP, focusing in the areas of antitrust and white collar. Kathleen is dedicated to furthering the cause of international human rights and has done so through her work at the International Human Rights Clinic at Boalt and the Center for Justice and Accountability, where she conducted extensive research on human rights abuses in El Salvador in the 1980s and particularly the murder of Archbishop Romero. Kathleen is committed to representing immigrants who have experienced human rights abuses in their home countries. She has worked closely with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco and has successfully represented numerous asylum applicants from countries all over the world including Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Kenya. She is also on the board of directors of Circulo de Vida, a comprehensive support center in the Mission for Latinos living with cancer, and is a member of the 2007-2008 class for Leadership San Francisco. Kathleen graduated with highest honors from U.C. Berkeley and received her J.D. at Boalt Hall School of Law at U.C. Berkeley. In her spare time, she enjoys learning languages. She has studied Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Greek and Japanese. Mona Motwani is a civil rights attorney at the Fair Housing Law Project, a program of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. She works in the area of housing discrimination and predatory lending. She graduated from UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco in 2005, and received her B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan. She left her home state of Michigan to live in Breckenridge, Colorado for three years, and then moved to San Francisco. At UC Hastings College of the Law, Motwani was a Board member of the Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, Public Interest Foundation and Hastings Democratic Caucus. She was a volunteer and Student Advisory Board member for General Advocacy Assistance Project (GAAP), a legal services agency that serves homeless clients in the Tenderloin. Mona also volunteered as a tutor for middle school children at the KIPPS Program at Ben Franklin Middle School. Throughout law school, Mona worked at a variety of organizations, including the ACLU where she worked on voting rights, and the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies where she worked on asylum cases for victims of gender persecution. Mona worked on international human rights issues, with a focus on human trafficking, at the United Nations in Sarajevo. She also worked on international human rights litigation under at the Center for Justice and Accountability, a non-profit that brings civil prosecutions against human rights abusers living in the United States. In her free time, she enjoys mountain biking, snowboarding, traveling, cooking, and hiking. |
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