The IWA 2018 Woman Extraordinaire Award Celebration
will be held on Friday, October 19th
We are proud to announce Shermin Kruse will be our recipient
Ms. Kruse is being honored for her many accomplishments as an international human rights activist focusing on women and children and for her dedication to cross-cultural peace dialogue and negotiation, diversity, and women in leadership. Ms. Kruse is a director of RefuSHE, the international refugee center formerly known as Heshima Kenya, and co-founder and director of the Pasfarda Arts and Culture Exchange, which promotes understanding between Iran and the United States through the arts. She has worked to strengthen cross-cultural understanding and to empower refugee women, even traveling to the Turkey-Syria border. Additionally, she is an Emerging Leader Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a director of the ACLU of Illinois, and a partner in the law firm of Barack Ferrazzano.
Ms. Kruse is the epitome of a global renaissance woman. She moved from childhood in Iran, to teenage years in Canada, to adult life in the United States as a lawyer and author, obtaining her law degree cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School. Her semi-autobiographical novel, Butterfly Stitching, is set in Iran where she lived until age 11, dodging rockets and the morality police. Ms. Kruse is also a 2017 TEDx speaker, a commentator on foreign policy issues for NPR’s Worldview, and a contributing writer to publications such as Huffington Post and Fete Lifestyle. She is married to Stuart Kruse, and they have four children.
Ms. Kruse’s 2017 TEDx talk, "How to Change the World" aligns with IWA’s recently deceased founder Doe Thornburg’s charge to its members, “Always see the sacred in others.”
The Award Celebration will be held at
The Standard Club
320 South Plymouth Court, Chicago
11 a.m. VIP Ticket Reception with the Honoree
11:30 a.m. Main Reception
12 p.m. Luncheon and Program
1:30 p.m. Adjournment
