Donna Stefano

Donna Stefano (2016) has worked in international development for 20 years in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. She is writing a memoir about her time in Yemen during the 1990s. The inspiring narrative follows a young American who took a position with the United Nations to further her career but came away with lessons in humanity that cross boundaries of race, ethnicity, religion and gender. Her journey is driven by a profound curiosity of a culture where social cues follow conservative gender divisions, in which she eventually marries into. In a time of rising Islamophobia, the reader will be drawn into the personal story which reveals a deeper understanding of Yemen’s complex and ancient culture from which the current dynamics of poverty and violence have risen. Ms. Stefano holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. She has worked in in Yemen, Jordan, West Bank and Gaza, Israel, Pakistan, Guinea and Botswana. She currently lives with her teenage son in Rochester, N.Y.