In 2003 and 2004, Lisa Herb, an American attorney, spent a year living in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. While she was there, she spent some of her free time learning about Mongolian women’s rights groups. Lisa was inspired by the great work that these organizations are doing, although she also witnessed their great need for support and assistance with capacity building. All of the organizations that Lisa met with expressed a keen interest in reaching out to the global community and working with volunteers from developed countries.

Upon returning to the United States in 2005, Lisa founded the Alliance for International Women’s Rights, a non-profit corporation, for the purpose of creating an international network of volunteers to support Asian women’s rights groups. Since its initial work in Mongolia, AIWR has expanded to other Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan and Afghanistan.  Currently, all programming is focused on Afghanistan.