Chairman, Kuwait-America Foundation

 Chairman, National Campaign to Stop Violence

Executive Director
Basma thrives on helping others. Beginning her career as a TV presenter in Kuwait, then dabbling for a couple of years in the financial investment industry in New York, she decided to re-evaluate the direction her career was taking. She craved a life more rewarding, not just for herself, but also for others. In 1995 the Kuwait-America Foundation (KAF), the founding and primary sponsor of the Do the Write Thing Challenge (DtWT), offered Basma the opportunity to create and implement programs, at a local and global level, that would help provide a safer community for future generations. For the past 25 years, through DtWT, Basma and her team at KAF have successfully provided over 2.5 million US middle school students an outlet to examine the impact of violence on their lives and communicating solutions to changing the culture of violence that plagues their communities. Basma attended the University of Kent in England, graduating with an honors degree in Politics and International Relations, then went on to earn a Master's Degree in Public Communication from The American University in Washington, DC. After a 17-year break in academia, Basma received a graduate degree in Arab Studies from Georgetown University.

Program Director, National Campaign to Stop Violence
Lisa has been the Program Director of the National Campaign to Stop Violence for the past nine years.  She is a native to Washington, D.C. and raised her six children in the Washington area.  Four of the six live in the area as do 7 grandchildren so family plays a big part in her out of the office hours.  She wears many hats including the grandmother hat and the construction manager hat as she just finished the renovation of a historic carriage house on Capitol Hill. She is as comfortable holding a pen as a paintbrush or a Wet One (for messy little fingers).  Lisa's main job in the office is to bring blondeness into a sea of brunettes!

 Program Director, Kuwait-America Foundation
Shereen Abdel-Nabi is Program Director at the Kuwait-America Foundation, where she is responsible for programs initiated or supported by the organization, including philanthropic endeavors and community partnerships. She joined KAF in 2005, having spent several years working in the non-profit sector, including two summers as an intern for “Do the Write Thing’s” National Recognition Week in Washington, D.C. Currently pursuing a PhD in Anthropology from American University, Shereen holds an MA in Arab Studies with a focus on women and gender from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and a BA in Foreign Affairs and Middle East Studies with a minor in Arabic from the University of Virginia. She is fluent in Arabic and while at Georgetown, was awarded a Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship to study Hebrew. She is also a mother of two – her 11-year old son, Jad, and her 3-year old cavapoo, Fairouz.

Program Coordinator