Susan Fowler - California, USA-Advisor,

Program Resources and Development, for Direct Relief, an international disaster relief, and health assistance organization.  Susan work with the organization started in 1987, following the completion of a Master degree in international health. Her Master  thesis concentrated on the appropriateness of drug donations, a topic crucial to the impact of medical material assistance programs. For over 30 years, Susan has held a number of different positions at Direct Relief including In-kind Contributions Manager, Senior Program Officer for Asia, Tsunami Relief Coordinator, Director of Programs, and Interim Executive Director. In collaboration with other program staff members, Susan has helped to provide over $1 billion of medical goods and over $35 million in program grants to meritorious healthcare facilities and organizations around the world. Over 50 million people in more than 80 different countries have benefited from this critically needed assistance. 

In 2003, Susan was a recipient of the Diwaliben Mohanlal Mehta Award, a humanitarian award previously received by the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Albert Schweitzer.

Chelo Alvarez-Stehle- California, USA;-Advisor,

As a reporter, documentary filmmaker and advocate Chelo has spent over two decades denouncing sexual violence and trafficking through her creative and humanitarian work. Born in Spain, she worked in Japan in documentaries for NHK and became Tokyo  and then Los Angeles  correspondent for Spain El Mundo daily. In 1995, she moved to California and in 2002, Canal+ Spain turned her first reportage on child trafficking; from Nepal to India into the documentary film Tin Girls for which Chelo was the interviewer and assistant director.

She later co-founded the Masala Project, an income-generating spice factory and animal farm in Southern Nepal for survivors of sex trafficking and young women wishing to leave a life of prostitution  After creating short documentaries like  Sold in America: A Modern-Day Tale of Sex-Slavery, Chelo created her first feature-length documentary, Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage. She has received humanitarian, cultural, and journalism awards such as Best Documentary at the 59th Southern California Journalism Awards by the Los Angeles Press Club, and at film festivals from the U.S. to Spain, Portugal, Ecuador, and Brazil. In 2017, she was invited to present the film at the United Nations in New York and at the European Parliament. 

Rita Dhungel- Alberta, Canada;-Ph.D. in Social Work, Advisor,

University of Calgary (2017) with her dissertation topic focused on the reintegration of sex trafficking survivors in Nepal.  Rita immigrated to Canada twelve years ago from Nepal. She has two Master degrees in Cultural Anthropology and Sociology from the Tribhuvan University in Nepal. Rita has been an instructor/facilitator at Columbia College in Calgary for three years and a sessional instructor and graduate research assistant at the Faculty of Social Work in Calgary and also taught at several post-secondary institutions in Nepal. 

Purushottam Prajapati - Kathmandu, Nepal;-Legal Advisor,

Ashok Pandey - Kathmandu, Nepal;-Research Officer, National Health Research Council,

Goma Wati Pun (Srijana) - Kathmandu, Nepal;-Program Advisor,