Lipi Rahman

Lipi Rahman is a human rights activist and the Executive Director of a Women’s Rights Organisation in Bangladesh named Badabon Sangho. Her organisation works for women and girls’ rights. Badabon Sangho supports and works for women, particularly women experiencing disproportionate vulnerability, such as widows, religious minorities, and women with disabilities, to increase access to and control over lands, property and water-bodies and migrant workers’ rights. So far, Lipi and her team have mobilised and organised 4,457 women in 65 women community-based organisations, who are empowered to engage with local government and assert their rights.

April Pham

Keynote speaker

April Pham is a Senior Gender Advisor and the Head of Gender Unit in the Office of the Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator at the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Ms Pham has over 25 years of experience in social justice, human rights, gender equality, and the prevention and response to violence against women/gender-based violence in development and humanitarian settings. Prior to joining OCHA, she was a senior gender advisor for the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, where she provided strategic interagency support to Humanitarian Coordinators and country teams, on matters pertaining to gender equality, empowerment, and leadership in humanitarian situations in Myanmar, Fiji/the Pacific, Ukraine, Turkey/Syria cross border, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, and at global level in Geneva Switzerland. Earlier in her career she was a youth worker, and women's rights advocate in the NGO sector, as well as working for state government in Australia on policy, prevention and legislative reforms on issues of violence against women. Ms.Pham holds a masters in International Humanitarian Affairs from the University of York, UK, a Bachelor of Law from University of Technology Sydney and a Bachelor of Social Science from Western Sydney University.

Cecilia Chami

Cecilia Chami is Programs Director at the Lebanon Family Planning Association for Development & Family Empowerment (LFPADE). She holds a BSc in Agriculture and an MSc in Food Science from the American University of Beirut. Since joining LFPADE in 1993 as a Project Coordinator she has worked on many projects that have impacted the lives of beneficiaries, especially girls, women, and vulnerable communities. The LFPADE was established in 1969, and was the first NGO to work on family planning in Lebanon. Its mission is to contribute to the humanitarian, health, social, and cultural development that ensures the stability of the family, and specifically the empowerment of women and youth. The work of the LFPADE revolves around building the capacity of women and young girls through projects that provide knowledge and skills, which in turn help them reach greater productivity, independence and leadership within their communities, thus achieving gender equality.

Margaret Kikuvi

Margaret Kikuvi, the Head of Programs at Pastoralist Girls Initiative (PGI) in Kenya, has over 20 years’ experience in the Not-for-Profit sector working for the rights and needs of the marginalized communities and people in difficult circumstances. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social work and Master of Arts degree in Project Planning and Management from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. She is also a trained and practicing Mediator with Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and the Judiciary of Kenya.

Jacqueline Acres

Jacqueline Acres is a social worker with a MSc in development studies (SOAS). She has extensive experience in the fields of gender justice, child protection and child labour, and ethical trade. She is the co-director of Sixfacecreatives (sixfacecreatives.com) with her partner Vaneshran Arumugam. Vaneshran is an independent artist with a Master's degree from the University of Cape Town and Columbia University in New York focussing on Consciousness in Performance. He has extensive experience in gender justice, interdisciplinarity and in using the Arts as a vehicle for social justice. Sixfacecreatives won the Global Social Innovation award in 2019/20 from WelthungerHilfe and the Civil Society Academy for their concept the Living University (thelivinguniversity.com) which is a proud member of the Feminist Humanitarian Network. teamREPLACE THIS TEXT WITH THE BIO.

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Ohaila Shomar

Ohaila Shomar is the General Director of Sawa Organization, Palestine. She is a human rights activist, an expired trainer in GBV, and has developed anti-violence programs and published manuals on eliminating violence against women and children. She established five helplines for women survivors of violence and child protection helpline in Palestinian and the MENA region; founder of the first alternative school “Massar” in Palestine. She also consults with national and international organizations working on women’s and children’s issues and against violence and has published a number of research works. Ohaila is a member of the Advisory Committee of World Vision Jerusalem West Bank Gaza.She was part of CHI´s Advocacy Taskforce; Middle East and North Africa Regional Representative in CHI’s Supervisory Board.

Urmila Strestha

Urmila Shrestha is an activist and is currently the Executive Director at Tewa; the only women’s fund of Nepal. Urmila is continuously pushing to bring change in the lives of women experiencing poverty, marginalization and injustice through her work. She has been associated at Tewa since 2004.

Urmila started her career as a volunteer program officer at Tewa. She has worked hard to promote and secure local resource mobilization for sustainable development. Her dedication and hard work has brought her to the position she is in today. Urmila also played a major role in the wake of the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal. She led recovery and rebuilding works, driving a motivated team at Tewa. 

From 1998 to 2002, Urmila worked as a program officer in the Makwanpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Urmila holds a Master’s in Master’s in Public Administration from Tribhuvan University.

Naomi Tulay-Solanke

Naomi is a Liberian feminist, a human rights activist, a humanitarian, and the Founder Executive Director of Community Healthcare Initiative (CHI), a local non-governmental organization that is providing healthcare and social services to women and children in underserved and hard to reach communities in Liberia.

 Community Healthcare Initiative was founded during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. During this time, CHI took pride in responding with a feminist perspective, which saw the value and needs of all people in the communities they worked with. CHI addressed needs that were specific to women during the immediate response and into recovery.

 Naomi has nurtured a career in female advocacy with a humble interest in working with underprivileged youths and slum dwellers through the provision of advocacy, awareness and basic health and social services, especially to women and girls. She is passionate about the role local actors play at the community and national levels. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health with emphasis in Community Health.

Mimidoo Achakpa

Ms. Mimidoo Achakpa is a women’s rights activist with over a decade of experience in Project Management and an extensive background in governance, gender, humanitarian and disarmament issues. She is currently the Executive Director of Women’s Right to Education Programme (WREP) an NGO with United Nations Consultative Status of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) coordinates and belongs to various platforms in Nigeria and globally that can easily be used to consult and engage with other Civil Society Organizations to improve on her work.

She is currently the Steering Committee Chairperson of Accelerating Localization Through Partnerships (ALTP), and sits on the Global Steering Group (GSG) which aims at strengthening local, national and international leadership on humanitarian response. Mimidoo is the National Coordinator of the Women in Humanitarian Response in Nigeria Initiative Network, launched in September 2019. She holds a Master’s of Science in Security and Strategic Studies and is currently doing her PhD in the same field.