A Fireside Chat with Rotary Peace Fellow Jennifer Montgomery
Jennifer Montgomery is a Rotary Peace Fellow and global human rights advocate with over 25 years of experience in advocacy, program management, public administration, and strategic communications. She spent a decade as the Director of Human Trafficking Education and Outreach for the Kansas Attorney General’s Office and is a subject matter expert on human trafficking and Gender-Based Violence with the Attorney General Alliance Africa Partnership for Justice.
In 2021, she was awarded a competitive Rotary Peace Fellowship at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. The focus of her fellowship initiative was transforming conflict-based sexual violence through arts-based inquiry, differentiation and storytelling with women in extreme poverty. In response to her work with at-risk women and girls in Africa, she partnered with three Ugandan professional women to form Magenta Girls Initiative (MGI), an international NGO mobilizing community support for girls’ education and empowerment. MGI is dedicated to lifting vulnerable women and girls in Africa out of generational poverty through psychosocial support, education, and vocational skills training. Jennifer currently serves as President and CEO.
In 2025, Jennifer partnered with Kansas Rotarians in her home District 5710 on The Intersection to Care (ITC) project, a comprehensive reentry and support initiative for women who have experienced trauma and exploitation. As part of this effort, she designs and facilitates a healing arts program that fosters emotional safety, resilience, and self-expression. Her work contributes to the project’s broader goals of addressing trauma, promoting empowerment, strengthening long-term stability through skills training and housing support, and reducing recidivism among participants.
Jennifer holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of Kansas, an M.A. in Arts Education from the University of Florida, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation from Makerere University. Jennifer is an elected member of the Rotary Peace Fellow Alumni Association Board of Directors and a regular speaker at Rotary clubs, district conferences, and zone institutes across the United States and Africa. Last year, she was selected and trained as a Rotary Positive Peace Activator for the North America and Caribbean Cohort. She is also a Paul Harris Fellow.