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Anila Noor
Founder / Managing Director
Anila Noor is a refugee-activist based in the Netherlands. Noor has diverse experience working with national and international nonprofit organisations and causes namely dealing with peace-building efforts, refugee integration, and education special focus on women rights. She has been active in advocating for refugee resettlement and social/political engagement of refugees in Europe. Anila Noor has initiated New Women Connectors, a movement striving for mainstreaming the unheard voices of migrant and refugee women living across Europe. New Women Connectors is a perspective-shift to the refugee agenda and advocates inclusion than integration as a policy choice. The movement also helps newcomer refugee women to lift their spirits and make something of it.
She found herself involved in the subjects of forced migration and identity crisis when she had to go through the same experience. Since, she has been working as a refugee social entrepreneur focusing on Forced Migration, Asylum, Refugee Policies and Advocacy for the Rights of Migrants. Noor is currently working on the subject of Receiving Refugees in Urban Settings: Narratives from the European Countries.
CORE TEAM
Razan Ismail
(SPAIN)
Communication Manager
Razan is a Syrian migrant who lived in the UK and then Spain.
She is a cross-cultural trainer. She founded Asocaición Kudwa for the social and professional integration of Arabic speaking newcomers in Europe. She is also a part of the expert group on migrant views in the European Commission.
Noura Bittar Søborg
(Denmark)
Community Outreach Consultant
A TEDx Speaker and human rights advocate with dual degrees: BSc in political sciences, diplomacy and international studies and MSc in social entrepreneurship & management. Passionate about working with people, and multiple stakeholders, and communicating ideas and transforming them into tangible results. With extensive experience in project management and communication. Born in Homs- Syria and became a refugee in Denmark in 2012. For the past 8 years worked as a project and event manger in many NGOs such as Amnesty International, Danish Refugee Council and The Danish Institute Against Torture. Was a speaker in many events such as:
Nordisk Forum – New action on Women's rights 2014
volunteers
Yafa Kasem
Yafa Kasem is a humanitarian aid worker, Palestinian Refugee based in the Netherlands.
She Has been living in Syria for 35 years, she is graduated from Damascus University, Bachelor of Arts, English Language and Literature Department.
She has 10 years’ work experience with The United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in Damascus “Protection Unit”
Yvette Ruzibiza
PhD fellow at the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Her current PhD research focuses on young refugees’ sexuality and relationships in Mahama refugee camp, Rwanda, and Nakivale refugee settlement, Uganda.
She has a master’s degree in Development Studies with a Major in Human Rights, Gender, Peace and conflict studies: The Social Justice Perspective.
Since 2010 she has been working as a researcher, capacity builder, project manager, and regional advisor for the NGO sector in East Africa, focusing on various youth and women empowerment related themes including: sexual and reproductive health and rights, women’s rights, youth and women’s economic empowerment, youth employment, Gender-based violence, inclusive development, migration, etc. Through her past work, Yvette also gained experience in building bridges between national authorities, the private sector, and civil society, on the development as well as the implementation of national
Esmeralda Kashari
(Turkey)
Esmeralda Kashari(Albanian) with academic background in Sociology is currently working as Coordinator, Youth Worker and Youth Trainer at System and Generation Association, in Ankara, Turkey.
She has over 5 years of experience in the civil society sector. Her areas of work include; intercultural citizenship education, social & sustainable development, social entrepreneurship, environmental issues and she works closely with: youth, migrants & refugees, people with disadvantages, fewer opportunities and disabilities.
Seyran Maryam Khalili
(Norway)
Seyran has considerable expertise in organisational psychology and psychiatry, education and public policy. She has been working with advocacy with great commitment to reducing the gap between minorities and the majority through dialogue, information and public service. She had led the Norwegian NGO LIM (Equality, Inclusion and Diversity) as a deputy board member since 2018, in addition to specialising in Digital HR and innovative service design the past year. She promotes issues of social injustice and actively participates in community debates.
In addition to several project collaborations, including with UNITEE, she has been one of the foremost to spark initiatives for new ways of working and getting negative social control under debate.
Board members
Farida T. Bena
Board Member
Farida T. Bena, Director of Humanitarian Policy and Advocacy, International Rescue Committee Farida joined the IRC in 2017 as Director of Humanitarian Policy and Advocacy, based in Geneva. She brings over 20 years of experience in programming, policy and advocacy with a special focus on accountability and aid effectiveness. Among her previous roles, she worked for the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) from 2013 to 2015 and consulted for UNICEF, the European Commission, Save the Children, CARE International and others in fifteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Marie-José van Schaik
Chairperson
She is a cultural anthropologist from the Netherlands. She has diverse work experience on the topic of migration. She works as trainer, teacher and project coordinator on several migration and inclusion related projects. She did research on migration in Malta, Turkey and Greece and focused especially on migrants’ fight for autonomy within the restrictions of the European border politics and the ethics of her own (non-migrant and researcher) position in the field.
Currently she is involved as initiator and project coordinator of the international project “In the Footsteps of a Migrant”. (see www.minosia.eu).
Olga de Wit
Secretary
Olga de Wit is a social worker in Amsterdam. She has worked for and collaborated with different types of target groups and organisations.
Nowadays, she works for ‘Stichting Prisma’ as a coach for people with special needs.
In 2018, she joined New Women Connectors while she was writing her thesis about social (self) reliance of new women in Amsterdam Nieuw-West.
Mohammad Mansoor Alam
Treasurer
Mohammad Mansoor Alam is a Marketing & Sales professional and an expert in Media & Communication. He is a Board Member of the Progressive Thought International, Brussels with the Treasurer portfolio. Mansoor is also a member of The New Women Connectors Netherlands and its treasurer.
advisory Board members
Shada Islam
Brussels
Alexandra Dufrense
USA-Switzerland
Fionna Smyth
Kenya
Dr Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi
USA
Lilith Raza
Germany
Juliana Santos Wahlgren
Brussels
Asif Khan
Sweden
Ahmed Reshad Jalali
Belgium
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