.png)
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 special education focus on women's rights. She has advocated 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)
Project Manager, Policy Expert
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.
Marie-José van Schaik
(Netherlands)
Project Manager, Trainer
Country Head (NL)
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.
Currently she is involved as initiator and project coordinator of the international project “In the Footsteps of a Migrant”. (see www.minosia.eu).
Seyran Khalili
(Norway)
Project Manager, Young Connectors
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.
.
Pia Revollo
volunteers
Ekram Jalboutt
Netherlands
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.
Lily Adhiambo
Chairperson
Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in Geneva, Switzerland. She works in the partnerships and fundraising branch, where she advocates for funding for the lifesaving needs of over 160 million people across 60 countries affected by conflicts or natural disasters.
Lily is a certified leadership coach and mentor. She is a passionate advocate for human development and equity.
Sjoerd Warmerdam
Co-Chairperson
Committed to ensuring gender equality throughout his whole career. For many years he worked as a policy advisor on gender equality for the Government of the Netherlands, representing the Netherlands at the EU, Council of Europe and the UN. As a politician, he drafted proposals on how to positively include men in matters regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights. When working as a director for the Ministry for Social Affairs during the Ukraine crisis, Sjoerd’s main focus was to include the voices of women refugees in policy making.
Mohammad Mansoor Alam
Treasurer
Mohammad Mansoor Alam is a Marketing & Sales professional and an expert in Media & Communication. He is a Board Member of Progressive Thought International, Brussels with the Treasurer portfolio. Mansoor is also a member of The New Women Connectors Netherlands and its treasurer.
Board members
Shada Islam
Brussels
.jpg)
Lilith Raza
Germany
Juliana Santos Wahlgren
Brussels
advisory Board members
Kristina Vayda
France
Dr. des. Shabih Zaidi
Switzerland
Ahmed Reshad Jalali
Belgium
.png)