Les Simm founded the International Forum for Understanding and serves as its Executive Director. Les works in the business sector, with governments, the UN, INGO’s and other entities in areas ranging from security risk management and business resilience to humanitarian operations and disaster relief. He has expertise in nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons disarmament, non-proliferation, arms control and verification, security sector reform and countering transnational organised crime. Having trained as a psychiatric nurse in his early career, Les has long-term interest in mental health and wellbeing. Les is a passionate supporter of the SDGs with a particular focus on project implementation and making a demonstrable and direct impact on people’s lives.

Heather Wokusch is the Director of Development for the International Forum for Understanding and the Executive Director of its SDG2030.me and MESPERO: Impact for Resilience projects. Her career in organizational development, human resources, education, cross-culture, and media has spanned five continents and multiple fields. After completing an advanced degree in Clinical Psychology in her native USA, Heather carried out development work in the Philippines, then spent decades in Japan and Europe consulting academic institutions and international business groups. A firm believer in Impact Tech and the democratization of knowledge, she is an expert in virtual learning. Heather also provides consultation on topics connected to organizational development (including digital transformation, leadership development, employee engagement, change management, strategy, and globalization).

Through her scientific study, artistic work, and academic training in public policy, Nour Barakeh strives to understand society from different viewpoints and to communicate complex topics. Her M.A. in Public Administration from Central European University emphasized the Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) and environmental policies to mitigate climate change. Developing migration policies and combating human trafficking are also in scope.

With experience ranging from dance and theater to social work and journalism, she aims to support the establishment of sustainable educational projects focused on empowering people through raising awareness, and to counsel governments, NGOs and corporations on policies with a specific focus on the Sustainable Developments Goals. As a Global Citizen, she believes in proactively pursuing the necessary goal of peace.

She previously studied at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus and graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy at Damascus University. As a sought-after speaker on the SDGs, refugee, and migration issues, she has spoken on numerous high-profile panels highlighting young, female voices such as at European Forum Alpbach alongside former UN SG Ban Ki-moon and former Austrian President Heinz Fischer as well as at a UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development among others.  Nour Barakeh is also an Agents of Change Youth Fellow at Wilson Center.

From Uganda, Malaika Oringo is the founder and CEO of Footprint to Freedom, a survivor-led organization that believes the only way to eradicate human trafficking is by giving survivors a voice and the opportunity to lead.

For the past 17 years, Malaika has been intensively involved in the fight against human trafficking, as a representative of the Salvation Army at the EU Affairs Office in Brussels and more recently as a global consultant on anti-human trafficking efforts. She campaigns for victims’ rights and works to strengthen survivor inclusion and engagement in decision-making processes.

Ishaan Shah is a 19-year-old international anti-human trafficking, gender equality and climate action young leader. In 2017, he founded Stolen Dreams, a youth-led organisation working with global stakeholders to drive concrete actions around countering trafficking in persons through education, advocacy, and policy. Ishaan is the first Youth Focal Point for the Review and Implementation of the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and a UN Women National Gender Youth Advocate. Ishaan spends much of his time with survivors, organisations, policymakers, journalists, and lawyers, learning from the best minds in the world on these issues and always recognising intersectionalities.

Meredith Blake is an MA candidate in International Relations at Central European University in Vienna, Austria. She previously worked as the Research Coordinator for the Gender, Rights and Resilience and Advanced Training on Humanitarian Action programs at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University where she was the executive producer and host of the Harvard Humanitarian Assistance Podcast. She was a 2018 Humanity in Action Fellow in Warsaw, Poland and has worked on humanitarian and human rights challenges across Europe, North and Central Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

Seise Bagbo is a human rights activist based in Nairobi, Kenya. They do human rights advocacy through education, performance arts, concept and content creation.
They’ve created education material around art therapy, organizing and mobilization for activist, art for social change, sex, gender and sexuality, and Sexual Reproductive Health Rights.
Their art works have gotten three awards (2 Poetic Hour Poetry Awards and Afrika Moment Barcelona Awards) and 1 nomination (Cafe Ngoma Awards ). They’ve toured Afrika, Europe and Americas with their art work that is based on the lives of queer, trans folk and women living in Eastern Afrika.
Partnering with various people and organizations, they’ve created and developed concepts that include using arts in activism, self-care in activism and social media as a tool of socio-political change. Some of the spacess they’ve worked with are: FEMNET, AMWA, PAWA254, Nafasi, Southern Feminists Futures, FRIDA, Kisumu Feminist Society, Elite LBQ, Goethe Institut, Forum CIV, AMWIK, among others.
They are currently working on a stage film production retelling the stories of Kenyan LGBT+ Community.
“What keeps me going? My partner, she is the funniest human being ever”

Nurat Wamaya is vibrant and passionate activist for gender and human rights. She enjoys social work as she gets to be part of bringing solutions to problems in society. Her desire is to see a world where men and women coexist in peace and harmony without the many inequalities seen in today’s world. She has been involved in a number of child development, child safety and social work volunteer and internships with organisations that have the same goal, vision and mandate.

Nurat has experience in entrepreneurship/business management having run a small business for three years. She also planned and managed various projects in the past as a student at Egerton University ,including a sanitary pads drive with the Egerton University Gender Student’s League, and with SCORA-Kenya, as well as collaboration with GVRC-Kenya to conduct an Anti-Gender Based Violence festival in Nakuru county.

Nurat is a great team player and team leader. Working at Okumu Creative Digital, she was instrumental in the success of a movie production that was awarded ‘Best Short Film’ at 2018 Kalasha Awards.

Fauziah Wanjiru is a survivor, facilitator and human rights activist based in Kenya. Currently, she is working with Footprint to Freedom, a survivor-led organization, as Region Coordinator East Africa. She serves as the main point of contact and subject matter expert on human trafficking, programs, and activities done in Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda on behalf of Footprint to Freedom.

As a survivor of labor trafficking in the Middle East and an activist, she stands and speaks up for victims and survivors of human trafficking creating awareness of the exploitative situations many women find themselves in. Her main interest is identifying and solving problems that affect the communities, more specifically survivors and vulnerable children, women and youth primarily in informal settlements.

Her passion for a safe and progressive community has led her to win various accolades including; she-for-he awards at the United Nations Sustainable Goals Development supported by UN Women.

She is industrious, humble, and likes working in groups as she seeks to solve problems. She has gained experience working with the Solidarity Center and Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW).

Her love for reading has made her work on a project dubbed ‘save a woman’. This project seeks to save women from human trafficking, gender-based violence, and early marriage and prevent them from experiencing the situations that constantly endanger their lives as women. It will also educate women on the dangers of out-of-state casual jobs.

Yulia is a queer Muslim woman, writer, community organizer and independent researcher. Her experiences of activism in Indonesia for the past twelve years include women rights, LBTIQ rights, and education for diverse youth on faith and sexuality. She co-founded several organizations or collectives, such as Youth Interfaith Forum on Sexuality (YIFoS), a youth organization aiming to build peace within diverse faith and sexual identity, in 2010, and Qbukatabu, an Indonesian feminist-queer collective, in 2017. She was also one of co-directors of a collective queer women documentary, Children of Srikandi (2012) and one of the co-authors of an anthology of queer of feminist organisers, Cerita Sehari-Hari Diri dan Semua yang Mengitari (2021).
She completed her MA in Gender, Sexuality and the Body from University of Leeds. In regional context, she is one of the advisory network pools of Urgent Action Fund for the Asia and Pacific and a part-time Coordinator of Peace Brigades International Southeast Asia Project Exploration. Since late 2020, she has started to use digital storytelling to document the lived experiences of herself as queer person and continued to work with other LBTIQ individuals and groups. She is a self-care practitioner through journaling, moving meditation, and experiencing a vegan life.

Nadja Greku is an MA candidate in International Relations at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, Austria. She holds a BA in Sociology from the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Greku also completed the International Interdisciplinary Romani Studies Postgraduate Specialization Program with distinction at CEU, Budapest, Hungary. Her research focus is broadly on the governmentality and (in)securitization of Roma, as well as on the potential (re)conceptualizations of war as productive from the perspective of identity politics. Her upcoming book chapter for the Roma Civil Monitor studies the governmentality of Roma in and through monitoring of Roma inclusion strategies. She has worked with the Regional Cooperation Council (former Stability Pact) in Sarajevo, while supporting the regional cooperation, European and Euro-Atlantic integration of South-East Europe for over five years. In the last decade, she has also volunteered with various Roma organizations in the Western Balkans. She is the founder of CEU’s Roma Students and Alumni Association and has published op-ed articles addressing anti-gypsyism and police brutality in LeftEast (co-authored with Michal Mižigár) as well as the outlet Portal-Udar.

Onyango Otieno is a trauma therapist, writer, poet, mental health advocate, digital advocacy trainer, and an Afro-Masculinity Activist. His work centers on African Masculinity and its role in ensuring gender equity, especially championing for African men’s involvement in sexual and reproductive health and rights. He is a facilitator of trauma healing circles, managing a safe space for sexually abused African boys and men. He founded a 200-member mental health online support group where members utilize storytelling as a tool for tackling mental illness stigma and hosts Afro-Masculinity Podcast where he interrogates the complexities of African Masculinities.

Afnan Khalid is a Sudanese lawyer and civil society activist. She worked in the humanitarian field supporting refugees and IDPs in Sudan to access information, civil documentation and also social and economic rights. In addition, she worked with Trade Unions and youth resistance committees to boost female participation in the political arena and civic engagement.
Currently, she is doing her Masters of Law at the University of Essex in Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Marwan Yaghi is a lawyer and a human rights activist. He used to work at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, based in Palestine, Gaza, as a Bertha Justice Fellow for more than two years, where his main areas of interest included human rights, war crime, torture and arbitrary detention. This led him to launch the “Together against Torture” campaign, to end the systematic use of torture and other abuses related, by the public authorities against detainees and arrestees, through employing international advocacy and pressure tool. Marwan is a Chevening scholar for the year 2021/2022. He is studying International Human Rights (LLM) at Essex University. Currently he is a legal assistant at the Digital Verification Unit at The Human Rights Center Essex University and Amnesty International, conducting investigations into human rights violations around the world, using open-source techniques. Marwan hopes to make valuable contributions in advancing human rights and social justice in the world.

Ana Laura Velázquez Moreno is a Mexican lawyer with more than eight years of experience in gross human rights violations and gender perspective. She has worked in this area from different fields. From civil society, she worked in a NGO as an attorney, legally representing cases of forced disappearance, approaching them from a gender and intersectional perspective. From the public administration, she occupied the position of technical secretary of the Gender Equality Commission of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, where she worked on bills in favor of women. Additionally, she is a founding member of the Feminist Circle of Legal Analysis, an NGO that seeks to challenge, interpret and apply the law from a feminist perspective. She recently finished her postgraduate studies in International Human Rights Law at the University of Essex as a Chevening Scholar.

Advocate Karuna Parajuli is a litigating human rights lawyer of Nepal. She is Legal Advisor to the International Commission of Nepal, South Asia Office, Kathmandu. In this role, Parajuli works closely with Nepalese judiciary and judicial actors that support promoting the independence of the judiciary and legal professionals. Parajuli is currently researching for her M Phil thesis (Nepal Open University) focused on women’s political participation in Nepal. She also completed her LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, UK. Parajuli envisions strengthening access to justice for the economically underprivileged people in Nepal. She is a member of the High Court Bar, Association, Patan, Lalitpur.

Joyce Nawiri is a bisexual Kenyan feminist writer and lawyer who examines feminist themes around misogyny, gender inequality, sexual orientation, racism and fatphobia. She has been widely published by diverse human rights magazines notably Coalition of African Lesbians.

Nawiri has presented on high-profile panels on sexual harassment and law in Africa. Recently she was a panelist on the Unsettling Knowledge Production on Gendered & Sexual Violence Symposium by University of Cape Town. In addition, she has previous working experience organizing and conducting workshops on sexual and reproductive health rights, and legal aid at Shimo la Tewa Women’s Prisons in Mombasa and Eldoret Women’s Maximum Prisons in Eldoret. Her feminist politics are inspired by the late Nawal El Saadawi’s work. When she’s not writing, she continues with her activism on Facebook. She thinks of herself as a dangerous and savage woman.