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.

Razan Ismail

(SPAIN)

Communication Manager 

Project Manager: New Women Leaders

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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.  

Seyran Maryam Khalili

(Norway)

Project Leader, Young Connectors

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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.

Yafa Kasem

Netherlands

Yvette Ruzibiza

Netherlands

Madeeha Majid

Netherlands

Pia Revollo

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Ekram Jalboutt

Netherlands

Esmeralda Kashari

Turkey

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. 

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.

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.

Ammarens Bruggenkamp
Board Memeber

10+ years experience as Development Finance Banker and International Finance/Business Advisor
Structuring solutions for Project and Corporate Finance transactions in Emerging Markets
Worked in Asia, Africa and Latin America
Clients projects varying in size: Greenfield and Corporate Finance projects (USD 10m – 250m), all Private Investment or PPP's

Shada Islam

Brussels

Alexandra Dufrense

USA-Switzerland

Fionna Smyth

Kenya

Lilith Raza

Germany

Juliana Santos Wahlgren

Brussels

Ahmed Reshad Jalali

Belgium

Kristina Vayda

France

Dr. des. Shabih Zaidi

Switzerland

Rania Wazir

Austria 

Claudia Mendes Silva

Portugal