Mercedes de Miranda (Chair)
Mercedes de Miranda has a general management background with a strong experience in developing and implementing new businesses, as well as growing businesses beyond the early stages. She has gained this experience while working in a number of different positions, ranging form consultant, to business development manager, business director and finance director and has held a number of board positions. She has experience in both the profit and non-profit sector and has been active in both corporate and the startup settings.

Carrie van der Kroon
Carrie obtained her Master’s in Law at the University of Utrecht, with specialization in children’s rights. She is programme coordinator at Defence for Children-ECPAT in Leiden, the Netherlands where she coordinates child rights programmes in the global south with regards to sexual exploitation and gender. She holds several  (supervisory) board positions.

Maayke Botman
Maayke is project advisor at Oranje Fonds. She brings expertise in gender, diversity and inclusion, Surinamese and Caribbean studies and fundraising to the Supervisory board of the Rutu Foundation.

The international advisory board provides advice to the foundation to help shape its strategy, form partnerships and define programmes.

Jenne de Beer, Philippines
Jenne is an award winning anthropologist, the founder and former executive director of the Non-Timber Forest Product Exchange Programme for South and South East Asia. Jenne is based in Manila, The Philippines where he works as advisor of the SPNKK, an umbrella group of the indigenous Negrito peoples.

Carol Benson, USA
Carol is an international consultant on language issues in education currently teaching at Teachers College Columbia University, USA after many years at Stockholm University in Sweden. She has guided the development curriculum by national professionals, trained teachers and researchers in mother tongue-based multilingual education and provided technical assistance to educational reform programs that emphasize learner-centered pedagogy and democratic participation. Her work experience spans the globe and she has published extensively.

Deena Hurwitz, USA
Deena is an international human rights law consultant based in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Her work is broadly focused, including the right to education and other social and economic rights; indigenous and Afrodescendant peoples’ rights; legal literacy and empowerment; Islamic law and gender justice. She taught international human rights law clinics for over 15 years and was professor of law and founding director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Emmanuelle Le Pichon-Vorstman, Canada
Emmanuelle Le Pichon-Vorstman is Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, OISE. Previously, she has worked at the Department of Languages, Literature and Communication and at the Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, in the Netherlands. Since 2009, she has led several projects on the inclusion of minority students in education. Emmanuelle has worked as a consultant, researcher, evaluator and reviewer for several international organisations and international journals. Together with Ellen-Rose Kambel she is the co-founder of the Language Friendly School.

Martha Many Grey Horses, Canada
Martha is member of the Kainai First Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy, Alberta (Canada) and a fluent speaker of the Blackfoot language. Her doctoral thesis focused on the reading performance of American Indian children in secondary public schools in the USA. Martha was Director of the First Nations Métis and Inuit Centre, University of Lethbridge, Canada and currently works in Toronto

Carol Anne M. Spreen, USA
Carol Anne is Professor of Education at New York University. Her research centers on political and socio-cultural studies of educational change, particularly the influences of globalization on teaching and learning. Internationally, she has worked with many educational development and planning organizations, and assisted numerous schools, districts and educational Ministries with various reform innovations.

Sabine Severiens, the Netherlands
Sabine is Professor of Education at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, with a special focus on diversity. She has devoted most of her research to diversity and inequality in education. She was managing director of the Risbo Institute in Rotterdam, an independent research institute at the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Salim Vally, South-Africa
Salim is the director of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation and an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg. He is also the coordinator of the Education Rights Project. He has been a visiting  lecturer at the Universities of Virginia, Columbia and York. He is a visiting professor at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

Paul Wolvekamp, the Netherlands
Paul is Advisor with Both ENDS. He served as the Chair of the Supervisory Board of the Rutu Foundation (until 2021) and is vice chair of the Non-Timber Forest Products Exchange Programme Asia, member of the Board of Governors of RSPO (Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil), co-chair of the RSPO Dispute Settlement Facility Advisory Board and also serves on the IUCN-NL Members Council.