Amina Evangelista Swanepoel is the Founding Executive Director of Roots of Health and the local administrative arm of the organization, Ugat ng Kalusugan, a reproductive health organization in the Philippines. Amina provides leadership in the day-to-day running of the organization and is the liaison with the Roots of Health Board of Directors in the United States, and with the Philippine-based Advisory Committee. She oversees the organization’s management and fundraising. She is a member of the Provincial Family Health Council of the Province of Palawan, and of the Puerto Princesa City Local Health Board as well as the Maternal Death Surveillance and Response Council. She is a Philippines Ashoka Fellow, a past Vital Voices lead and Global Ambassadors Fellow, and an Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader.

Prior to this post, Amina spent two years at Human Rights Watch where she researched and documented human rights abuses in Asia. She also previously held positions with the Guttmacher Institute and the Program Division of UNHCR in India.

Amina received her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College, and her Master of International Affairs and Master of Public Health from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Mailman School of Public Health.

Amina lives in Puerto Princesa with her husband, two children, her parents, two cats, and seven dogs.