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Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: 1st Edition

The stories highlight the mentees of the 1st edition of the OSCE Women’s Peace Leadership Programme, an initiative of the OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid. The Programme aims to strengthen the ability of women to meaningfully engage and influence peace processes at all levels. It is a part of the OSCE’s flagship project WIN for Women and Men, which covers the Networking platform for Women Leaders including Peacebuilders and Mediators. The WIN project works with OSCE-supported networks and gives rise to new networks, fostering women’s participation and leadership, as well as broader men’s engagement in achieving gender equality.
  • Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: Leyla Zuleikha Makhmudova, Kazakhstan
    Founder of FemAgora – a grassroots feminist organization that works in Central Asia – Leyla Zuleikha interconnects local issues of violence prevention, conflict resolution and peacebuilding to spotlight the regional coherence. While participating in WPLP, she researched the theories underpinning this work through a Master’s in Gender, Violence and Conflict at Sussex University as a Chevening Scholar. This dual ‘fellowship,’ as she calls it, has helped her to advance the peacebuilding programme at FemAgora.
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  • Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: Maryam Ranjbar, Afghanistan
    Previously a regional coordinator in inclusive peace projects and a legal counsellor, Maryam has worked with survivors of gender-based violence who were seeking help from a local Family Protection Centre managed by the International Medical Corps. Although she had to flee Afghanistan in 2021, Maryam continues to support women and girls in the country.
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  • Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: Evgenija Krstevska, North Macedonia
    A lawyer, environmental activist and passionate mountaineer, Evgenija dedicated her career to negotiating access to drinking water. Currently working with Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, a Swiss independent organization for development, she is also a member of multiple global initiatives working on addressing key environmental security challenges. Having also delved into the issues of water protection in North Macedonia in her academic research, Evgenija seeks to raise awareness about the connection between mitigating climate change and conflict prevention.
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  • Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: Caroline Brooks, UK
    An experienced conflict mediator, Caroline defines her works as building connections between political and diplomatic efforts and the realities on the ground. Currently with Amnesty International, Caroline has worked in many sectors and contexts, but was always strongly focused on fostering inclusive and sustainable peace.
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  • Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: Irma Pidtepa, Ukraine
    Having supported Track 2 dialogues, focused on inclusive multi-stakeholder initiatives at the expert level in Crimea during 2012-2014, Irma continued her practice in Ukraine as an expert in mediation, peace process and dialogue facilitation working closely with the CMI Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation. To underpin this practice with a theoretical background, she also completed the Mediation in Peace Processes Master’s programme at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zürich). Irma is seeking to connect more women in the peacebuilding field to better understand, and if needed redefine, what the future of mediation holds.
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  • Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: Kelly Petillo, Italy
    With a focus on the Middle East and North Africa, Kelly has been committed to stepping up European action around key foreign policy issues such as protecting refugees, humanitarian and human rights issues. In her work, Kelly has researched and published work on the situation of Ukrainian, Syrian, and Palestinian refugees and their rights in various countries. Kelly continues to advocate for a coherent European approach to Syrian refugees through her work at the European Council on Foreign Relations, calling for European support to refugees in host countries that is more adapted to the local contexts and led by civil society, including refugee-led organizations.
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  • Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: Nushofarin Noziri, Tajikistan
    As a gender expert focusing on peace and security, Nushofarin has designed and worked on projects bringing together community leaders, young people and policymakers to advance the Women, Peace and Security agenda in Central Asia. Seeing herself as someone who connects people and transfers knowledge, Nushofarin draws from her experience in feminist thought, foreign policy, preventing violent extremism, and countering human trafficking.
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  • Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: Hanna Manoilenko, Ukraine
    A gender scholar, peacebuilder and activist, Hanna Manoilenko had just joined more than 200 experts from all around the country to work on the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) on women, peace and security when Russia’s war against Ukraine began on 24 February 2022. As the needs of Ukrainians have changed drastically since then, the Plan itself had to be revisited. Currently, a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Hanna works closely with the Ukrainian civil society, and continues her humanitarian work through the grassroots feminist initiative FemSolution and the Feminist Network for Freedom and Democracy.
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  • Women’s Peace Leadership Programme: Elham Kohistani, Afghanistan
    Human rights defender and aspiring peacebuilder, Elham fled Afghanistan in December 2021, five months after the Taliban’s take over. Currently a peace activist and gender advocate with the Swedish Institute Leader Lab, she sees the Women’s Peace Leadership Programme as part of a new beginning to achieve peace in Afghanistan.
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