Taitu Heron, Development Practitioner involved in policy development, human rights advocacy and programme management. She is currently Manager of the Social Development & Gender Unit, at the Planning Institute of Jamaica. Heron is also an active member of two NGOs -- Women’s Media Watch Jamaica and Development Alternatives for Women of a new era (DAWN) Caribbean Chapter.

Her areas of work include epistemology and development policy, child rights and strategic planning, gender, conflict transformation and social policy.

She was educated at the University of Cambridge (UK) and the University of the West Indies (Mona) in Development Studies and International Relations, respectively.

Heron has worked with a few international development agencies such as the UN Drug Control Programme, USAID and CIDA on development projects spanning drug abuse prevention in the Eastern Caribbean, Democracy and Governance in Jamaica, and Governance and Civil Society in the Americas. She lived in Barbados for a while where she taught courses in global political economy, feminist political theory and women’s activism at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. Heron has also lived in England, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

She returned to Jamaica in 2005 and currently resides in Kingston. Her academic interests are in: unpaid work and capitalism, gender and globalization, violence and capitalism and rights-based development.

She loves distance running and things that nourish the spirit such as the beach, the mountains and the moon. She practices yoga and enjoys good people, music and books and longs to pursue her PhD!!