The Tennessee World Affairs Council is proud to present:

Women in Peacebuilding: Global Perspectives

 

In partnership with: 

featuring:

 

Ana Maria González Forero

Ana María González Forero is a passionate defender of ethnic human rights. For 25 years, she has worked closely with vulnerable communities on issues such as participatory policy design, land titling, and human exploitation prevention. She is the cofounder of FEM, a platform that has helped over 16,000 families claim land titles after centuries of dispossession. In 2018, she became one of the twelve global leaders chosen as the inaugural cohort of Obama Scholars at Columbia University. She served as the Secretary of Home Affairs at the Mayor’s Office in Cartagena, Colombia where she achieved important results against Human Trafficking networks.

 

 

Malalai Habibi

Malalai Habibi is Afghanistan Advocacy Fellow at Amnesty International USA. Over the past years, she has contributed to advancing the women, peace, and security, concentrating specifically on Afghanistan and the Middle East, while working with the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN). Malalai also serves as an advisor with the Afghanistan Program for Peace and Development, an initiative of the Kroc Institute designed to amplify the voices of Afghan peace and development practitioners and scholars. Prior to coming to the U.S., she worked with Tehran Peace Museum and supported peace initiatives, and with embassy of Afghanistan in Tehran where she supported educational and awareness raising initiatives. As an undocumented Afghan refugee who personally faced exclusion from education in Iran, she has years of experience supporting marginalized and undocumented Afghan refugees through educational, awareness raising, and cultural initiatives.

 

Zuabe Tinning

Zuabe Tinning is the Manager of USIP’s Papua New Guinea Program. She is a development practitioner who provides technical advice and support for government partners and civil society actors to implement gender equality and social inclusion policies, gender sensitization training, and community development initiatives. She also conducts and assists international researchers with social research in Papua New Guinea. Her work focuses on promoting gender equality and women’s economic empowerment and countering gender-based violence.

Prior to joining USIP, she was the chairperson of the Morobe Family Sexual Violence Action Committee, where she supported the Morobe provincial government in establishing the Family and Sexual Violence Action Committee Secretariat to coordinate gender-based violence prevention and intervention programs in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. She also served as the deputy chair for the National Capital District’s Family Sexual Violence Action Committee, where she supported the establishment of the Human Rights Defenders Association of Papua New Guinea. She then became the director for the Komba Ambon Cooperative Society, which supports women through a small-holder coffee farming and women’s and family health program.

Tinning has a master’s degree in public health from Auckland University of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in midwifery from Flinders University of South Australia.

 

About the host:

Dr. Gretchen Neisler, PhD

Gretchen Neisler, Vice Provost for International Affairs at the University of Tennessee, works with faculty, staff, students and key stakeholders to understand and deepen their engagement as global citizens. Dr. Neisler has successfully managed over $120 million in grant funding to support the work of international research and development. Gretchen believes higher education must support students in understanding their role as global citizens and use the institutional strength of knowledge creation to solve global challenges the world faces. Additionally, she feels the role of higher education in a community is to understand its societal needs and work collaboratively to meet those needs. Gretchen has worked for 20 years to build global networks that enhance research productivity and preparing a new generation of leaders to take the world’s stage by understanding that problems span geographic boundaries. Her passion is derived from the belief that science has the power to positively impact society and higher education is vital to sharing this knowledge with community stakeholders. Gretchen is an experienced leader with strengths in organizational change and team development. She holds a PhD. in higher education administration from Michigan State University.