Stories
Take Five: “Young people are the leaders of the food systems transformation”
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Maryam Aleisa is the founder and Executive Director of Refood, a non-profit company dedicated to reducing and repurposing food waste in Kuwait.
Monday, August 9, 2021
Julieta Martínez, a 17-year-old Chilean activist, is the founder of the Tremendas platform, a collective of empowered girls and young women that support social impact actions. Martínez participated in an intergenerational dialogue at the Generation Equality Forum in Paris (30 June to 2 July), during which progress and barriers to gender equality were analysed – with a focus on the Beijing Platform for Action, and how it has evolved.
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
Karina Gould is Minister of International Development at the Government of Canada, Member of Parliament for Burlington city in Ontario, and Co-Chair of the COVAX Advance Market Commitment Engagement Group. She also represents the Generation Equality Forum Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership, working to develop catalytic actions and commitments to advance gender equality. Gould’s action priority is ensuring that feminist leaders, movements and organizations are supported to carry out their work without fear of reprisal.
Take five: “Everyone should understand how they can become an agent of change”
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Céline Bonnaire is the Executive Director of the Kering Foundation. She also represents the Generation Equality Forum Action Coalition on Gender-based Violence, working to develop catalytic actions and commitments to advance gender equality. Bonnaire prioritizes scaling up comprehensive, accessible and quality services for survivors of gender-based violence against women and girls in all their diversity.
Thursday, June 10, 2021
Mavic Cabrera Balleza is the Founder and CEO of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP). She also represents the Generation Equality Forum Compact on Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action (WPS-HA), driving action and resources to accelerate progress on the WPS-HA agenda. Balleza prioritizes localizing national action plans on women, peace and security and gender-sensitive humanitarian action to ensure that they respond to the needs of local communities and marginalized groups.
Thursday, May 27, 2021
Kate Hampton is CEO of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). She also represents the Generation Equality Forum Action Coalition on Bodily Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, working to develop catalytic actions and commitments to advance gender equality. Hampton’s action priority is leveraging the potential of self-managed care so that women and girls can take control of their own reproductive health and rights.
Take five: Young women leaders in Malawi are ready to build back better from COVID-19
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Thelma Kaliu is a young feminist and an active member of the Young Feminist Network of Malawi. She is currently the Project Coordinator of the Spotlight Initiative project under Plan International, Malawi. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Thelma attended the launch of the Malawi Chapter of the African Women Leaders Network (AWLN) and was excited about the growth of a movement that was enthusiastically embracing young African women. Supported by the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative, the largest effort to eliminate violence against women and girls worldwide, the AWLN network comprises over 500 African women across generations and sectors.
Take five: Why safe transportation is vital for women and girls during the global pandemic
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Marina Moscoso T Mendonça is an Urban Management Specialist and Technical Director of Despacio in Colombia, where she supervises projects promoting urban development and sustainable transport in Latin America. Marina is also the Operations Director for Women in Motion, an initiative focused on strengthening female leadership in the transport sector. During COVID-19, social distancing and lockdown measures are affecting the mobility choices of women in Bogota and reinforcing patterns of gender inequality on, and around, public transport.
Take five: “Women should lead the conversation on gender equality”
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Hayat Mirshad is a 32-year-old Lebanese feminist, human rights activist and gender, communications and advocacy expert. As co-founder of the feminist collective FE-MALE in Lebanon, she advocates against discriminatory gender norms and policies and works closely with UN Women’s Men and Women for Gender Equality programme funded by the Government of Sweden. The programme works to change behaviours and social norms for gender equality in the Arab States. Mirshad is also a member of UN Women’s Gender Innovation Agora and was recognized as one of the BBC’s 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2020 for her activism on women’s rights. In this interview, she shares her journey of fighting gender inequity and explains how to rally for wide-reaching and sustainable impact.
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
Kevin Blanchard is the Director of DRR Dynamics, a UK based research organisation focused on ensuring the inclusion and empowerment of marginalized groups in disaster risk reduction. He has over 14 years’ experience in developing inclusive disaster risk reduction and humanitarian policy for national governments, international agencies and non-governmental organizations. Mr. Blanchard is working with UN Women as a consultant in inclusive disaster risk reduction policy.
Take five: An intersectional approach to empowering women and girls with disabilities
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
A.H. Monjurul Kabir is the UN Coordination Adviser on Gender Equality and Disability Inclusion. He leads UN Women’s Global Task Team on Disability Inclusion and Intersectionality. In 2019, 55 UN Women offices (in addition to our work through the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women) supported women and girls with disabilities across all areas of work through the provision of normative guidance, integrated policy advice, knowledge management, operational support and capacity development. In this interview, Mr. Kabir talks about the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls with disabilities and the need for an intersectional approach.
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Cecilia Mwende Maundu is a broadcast journalist based in Kenya and a specialist in gender digital safety. She is also the current Secretary General of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television, Kenyan chapter. During COVID-19, women and girls are using the internet more than ever to stay connected with the world, but they are also the targets of online violence in the form of physical threats, sexual harassment, stalking, zoombombing and sex trolling.
Despite compounding challenges, women in Iraq play vital roles in the country’s COVID-19 response
Monday, July 6, 2020
Despite the unprecedented challenges, Iraqi women are playing vital roles in the country’s COVID-19 response, serving as leaders, health and social workers, and responders to domestic and gender-based violence.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Sophie Browne (she/her; they/them) is UN Women’s recently appointed LGBTIQ+ Policy Specialist. In this newly created, dedicated post, Browne will work across the organization, globally, and with external partners to integrate an LGBTIQ+ lens to UN Women’s work. Browne has long worked on gender and social justice causes in research, policy, advocacy, law reform and programming capacities . Sophie is also on the board of UN-GLOBE, the system-wide staff body for LGBTIQ+ personnel, and...
Take Five: “Women leaders around the world have demonstrated successful management of the pandemic”
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Around the world, women are shining through as outstanding leaders as the COVID-19 pandemic escalates. From Germany to New Zealand and Denmark to Iceland, women leaders have shown clarity in their decisions and policies, they are compassionate, empathetic, strong communicators and they show solidarity. Her Excellency Vjosa Osmani, the first woman assembly president in Kosovo, has been praised for her professionalism in leading the assembly during the crisis. She is a Doctor of Legal Sciences, former professor and mother of two girls.
Monday, May 18, 2020
Emanuela Paul is the Rethinking Power Program Coordinator with Beyond Borders/Depase Fwontyè yo. The programme focuses on preventing violence against women and girls, including women and girls with disabilities, in Haiti and implements a project with funding from the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. In light of COVID-19, she explains how her organization has adapted its approach to community mobilization and the dialogues they create in the community.
Take five: COVID-19 will pass, but will anything change in the protection system?
Monday, May 18, 2020
Meliha Sendic is President of the Center of Women's Rights, a grantee of the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, that provides free legal assistance to women, primarily to women survivors of all forms of post-conflict violence against women in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). During an online Stakeholder Community Exchange on 16 April 2020 organized by the UN Trust Fund, she shared how her organization has adapted to COVID-19 measures.
Take Five: "What we are going through right now is a life lesson for everyone."
Friday, May 8, 2020
Natalia Klinsky Amelunge is a 28-year-old doctor working on the front lines of COVID-19 at the National Health Fund in Bolivia and the Anita Leigue Municipal Health Center. She spoke with UN Women about the challenges that women face in the front-line response and what we can learn from them. In Bolivia, UN Women has launched public communication campaigns to make women’s role visible and to prevent the shadow pandemic of violence against women. In coordination with the government, UN Women is also distributing food, clothing and other necessities in migrant camps bordering Chile.