Sandy Schilen is the Global Facilitator of GROOTS International (Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood), a global network of grassroots women’s groups working to develop their communities in 25 countries. A community organizer trained in political economy at New School University (where she earned an MA and ABD status), Sandy’s life and work reflects the rare capacity to bridge the divide between grassroots realities and global policies, between academic and activist, between North and South, and between values and practice.  Through her work with the National Congress of Neighborhood Women (NCNW, 1986-1996), a U.S. network of grassroots women’s groups from poor communities, and with GROOTS International, Sandy has two decades of experience in enabling grassroots women's groups in the Global South to transfer and formalize their community development approaches and governance interventions through peer-to-peer learning exchanges and local, national, regional and global advocacy. She has facilitated GROOTS members to access governments, multilateral institutions, donors, researchers, policymakers, and mainstream NGOs, in order to challenge and change their institutional cultures, policies and perspectives. Since the mid-late 90s, she has been a strategic leader of GROOTS activism in the UN global conferences on: women, human settlements/urban issues  and strengthening governance and civil society institutions, and more recently has been active in processes that challenge and redirect the Millennium Development Goals, the Climate Change Convention, the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS (etc) toward the priorities and participation of organized groups of poor women who have taken ingenious and effective action to offset patriarchal development and governance paradigms that would otherwise leave them more vulnerable and marginalized. A member of the Coordinating Committee of the Huairou Commission, Sandy has planned and facilitated Grassroots Women’s International Academies and partner and donor dialogues coinciding with major global policy-making events on urbanization and sustainable human settlements, HIV/AIDS, global disaster risk reduction and sustainable development. With GROOTS leaders in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, Sandy has helped develop and nurture large scale grassroots organizing mechanisms such as the Home Based Caregivers Alliance (federated women's groups providing care and support to families and communities infected and affected by HIV AIDS) and the Community Disaster and Climate Change Resilience Fund (which channels funds directly to grassroots women's groups so they can plan and implement actions that reduce families and communities vulnerability to disasters and engage government officials on development investments that increase community safety, quality of life, and resilience to unexpected shocks and disasters. Until 2009, she also served as editor of SEEDS, a case study pamphlet series featuring women's economic empowerment and development work, and the extensive social movements and policy gains it has generated, across the global South.

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