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”