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MEET THE CREATIVE FORCES BEHIND GLOBAL FUND FOR CHILDREN BOOKS

Maya Ajmera

Coauthor, A Kid's Best Friend, Animal Friends, Back to School, Be My Neighbor, Children from Australia to Zimbabwe, Come Out and Play, Extraordinary Girls, Let the Games Begin, To Be a Kid, and To Be an Artist.
Coeditor, Xanadu: The Imaginary Place

Maya Ajmera is the founder and president of the Global Fund for Children. Maya’s vision for the Global Fund for Children and its books was influenced by her personal experience as a South Asian American girl growing up in eastern North Carolina. Reflecting on her upbringing, Maya said, “I have always considered myself to be a global citizen. I am an American but also South Asian. I was raised in Greenville, North Carolina. I had the incredible opportunity to visit my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins in India when I was a young girl. I spoke English and Hindi. I grew up eating French fries and pizza and puris [fried bread] and chicken curry. . . . Most of the time I would wear blue jeans and dresses, but on special occasions I would dress in a salwar kameez [a long shirt and long baggy pants worn with a colorful scarf]. The two very different experiences made me develop a strong curiosity about other people and cultures.”

Maya received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Bryn Mawr College and a master’s degree in public policy from the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. She also studied and traveled in Southeast Asia as a Rotary scholar. Her previous professional positions include special assistant to the president of the Population Institute and consultant for Family Health International.

She serves on the boards of directors of Echoing Green, the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Washington Area Women's Foundation, and on the advisory boards of Youth Philanthropy Worldwide, Whole Child Initiative, Global Philanthropy Forum, the American India Foundation, and the Emerging Markets Foundation.

Click here to read an interview with Maya Ajmera in Book Links.