Bondita Acharya has worked with WEA since 2011 as a partner in the South Asia Small Grants Initiative and for the last 2 years as the regional coordinator for the Together for H2OPE Initiative in partnership with Numi Foundation. Bondita is the Director of Purva Bharati Educational Trust and a human rights activist in Northeast India. She has vast grassroots experience working on issues of women’s leadership, climate change, gender, women’s security and human rights. She was part of several fact-finding missions to document cases of sexual violence, human rights violations, witch hunting, and conflict situation in the Assam region of India. Bondita has been engaging with UN mechanisms since 2010 in Geneva, New York and Bangkok, and has been part of various international reviews, sessions, and bodies throughout her career. She was also a fellow at the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) at the University of York under their Human Rights Defenders at Risk program from September to December 2015. Bondita is a member of the Steering Committee of Women in Governance (WinG)-India, a Women Human Rights Defenders network, the Coordinating Committee of Asia-Pacific Women Alliance on Peace and Security (APWAPS), and is an advisor to Urgent Action Fund for South Asia.