The creation of the Living University responds to the need for innovation to address the social issues related to poverty and hunger.

As the acute impacts of the August 4th Beirut explosion become apparent, local and national women-led organisations across Lebanon are leading efforts to ensure that affected communities have their urgent needs met and rights upheld.

Dr Olfat Mahmoud, General Director of the Women’s Humanitarian Organisation in Beirut, shared her experience of the explosion, and the challenges she wants to see addressed through the response.

Dr Olfat Mahmoud is the General Director of the Palestinian Women’s Humanitarian Organisation – an organisation working alongside Palestinian refugees in camps in Lebanon, with a focus on women and children. This World Refugee Day Dr Mahmoud shares her reflections on how the world sees refugees, her experience as a refugee, and calls for change in the humanitarian system.

Urmila Shrestha is Executive Director of Tewa Women’s Fund, a Nepalese women’s rights organisation whose mission is to develop community philanthropy. Tewa provides grants to women’s groups throughout Nepal, raises funds locally with volunteers, and does capacity building of human resources in Nepal.

Anusanthee Pillay is one of the founding members of COFEM, the Coalition of Feminist for Social Change, an advocacy collective that brings together women leaders, activists, practitioners and academics to end violence against women and girls.

Women and their organisations around the world report COVID-19 and the urgent action they’re taking to protect their communities.

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls is a second-generation Fiji Island feminist working on the intersection of gender, media, communications, and peace by supporting the development and production of appropriate and accessible media.

Eunice Githinji is the Executive Director of the Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK) – a national NGO that works through community structures in a number of counties in Kenya to ensure community-based protection of communities forced to flee including refugees and internally displaced persons, at the same time advocating for their rights.

Amidst the challenges of the coronavirus crisis, Cyclone Harold has stormed its way through island nations across the Pacific, striking first the Solomon Islands, then Vanuatu, then Fiji and Tonga, leaving widespread destruction behind it. 

Dr Olfat Mahmoud leads the Palestinian Women’s Humanitarian Organisation in Lebanon. The organisation works in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, focussed on ensuring the wellbeing of women, children, people with disabilities and those with severe health problems through targeted service provision, as well as advocacy for their rights.

Mmonbeydo Joah Harrell leads the Organisation for Women and Children (ORWOCH) in Liberia – an organisation that champions women’s participation in decision-making, prevention of SGBV, women’s access to justice, and dismantling gender stereotypes.

Ohaila Shomar and Saja Awad Barghouthi work with SAWA, a Palestinian, feminist, non-profit civil society organization working to eliminate all types of violence against women and children, and to promote gender equality in Palestinian society.

Sumeera Shrestha leads Women for Human Rights, an organisation which works to secure the political, social, cultural and economic rights of single women in Nepal.

Mimidoo Achakpa has been a women’s rights activist for decades. Most recently, she has led the establishment of the Women in Humanitarian Response in Nigeria Initiative Network – a collective that launched last week in Abuja.

All local women's rights organisations working in countries affected by humanitarian crises (conflict, disaster, occupation) and who are committed to the Network objectives are invited to join.

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls is the Technical Adviser to Feminist Humanitarian Network member, the Shifting the Power Coalition.

Naomi is the founder and Executive Director of Community Health Care Initiative Liberia, which she founded after the Ebola outbreak in 2014. She is a member of the Liberian Women’s Humanitarian Network, the Liberian Feminist Forum, and one of the first members of the Feminist Humanitarian Network.

Naomi Tulay-Solanke founded the Community Health Care Initiative (CHI) during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Liberia. During this challenging 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.