Based in Johannesburg, originally from Chile, Angelica serves as the program coordinator, supporting fieldwork in multiple countries and the project’s training component. She is also an animal and nature lover.
Angelica Pino started her work in the human rights field in Chile in the 80s, while the country was under General Pinochet’s rule. As a Law student, she worked in NGOs conducting human rights education and training among disadvantaged communities. At the time, she also became involved in the feminist and women’s rights movements. Later, she worked as a lawyer in NGOs providing counselling and legal advice to women survivors of violence, as well as conducting training and research on women and the law. After the democratisation of the country, Angelica joined the Ministry of Justice to work in a Legal Aid Project. Angelica moved to South Africa in 1994, where she has worked at national and regional level in NGOs and with development partners managing programmes on feminist networks and on gender-based violence. In 1997, she joined the Nisaa Institute for Women’s Development in Johannesburg to become a member of the editorial board of LOLA press, an international magazine and project aimed at promoting exchange among feminist movements globally. Angelica also worked for the Heinrich Boell Foundation Southern Africa office, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, and Gender Links, managing programmes on gender-based violence. In 2010, she joined Sonke Gender Justice – a pioneer African NGO promoting gender equality – where she contributed to the field of engaging men and boys by bringing a feminist perspective to the programmes run in South Africa and across the continent. In 2020 she joined the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) – an international organisation supporting research on gender-based violence in low and middle-income countries – as the Grants Manager. While at the SVRI, she was a member of the drivers’ group of the South African Violence Prevention Forum and was also of a member of the Expert Reference Group in Masculinities & SRHR Research Priority Setting Exercise led by the WHO and Queen’s University Belfast. She is currently the Coordinator of the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace Initiative at the International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She holds a LLB from the University of Chile and a LLM from the University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg.
Based in Cape Town and Los Angeles, Dean leads the MMFP team’s global advocacy, alliance building, and research efforts, with a focus on understanding and addressing the root causes of men’s involvement in armed conflict. He is a nature lover and enjoys spending time with his family.
Over the last three decades, I have worked in South Africa, across Africa, the Americas, and globally, to advance health and human rights for all. I have founded and directed many high impact local, national, and global initiatives which have used a combination of research, academic partnerships, strategic litigation, policy advocacy, and community mobilization to win changes in national laws in South Africa and contributed to important paradigmatic and programmatic changes within civil society, governments, the United Nations, and bilateral donors. I am the co-founder and former Director of Sonke Gender Justice, a leading international gender equality NGO headquartered in South Africa, the co-founder and former global co-chair of MenEngage Alliance, now active in over seventy countries, and the co-founder of the Global Community of Practice on men, masculinities and feminist peace which includes representatives from dozens of organisations in every region of the world. I am currently chair of the board of directors of No Means No Worldwide, a board member of Community Advice Offices South Africa, an advisor to the Troublemakers Fund, and the Halving Global Violence Task Force. I was an advisor to former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on the implementation of the UNITE to end violence against women campaign, as well as to the Nobel Women’s Initiative on their campaign to end sexual violence in conflict. I am an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s School of Public Health, a Scholar in Residence at the Violence, Inequality and Power Lab at the University of San Diego’s Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, and an Ashoka Changemaker Fellow. I have an Honors degree in Development Studies from UC Berkeley and a Master’s in social Welfare from San Francisco State University.
Based in Napoli, provides administrative and logistical support to the team for meetings and international events. She incorporates a feminist care approach to movement-building and enjoys spending time by the sea and singing in the shower.
Roberta Nardi (she/her) is a long-term activist involved in several movements and civil society groups in Southern Italy and beyond. She has joined feminist collectives and student movements, campaigned for the right to housing and the right to the city, and supported international movements as an international observer and human rights monitor.
Roberta holds a bachelor’s degree in Multilingualism and Multiculturalism and a second-level master’s degree in Languages and Intercultural Communication in the Euro-Mediterranean Area. She was recently awarded for her thesis “Other Outlooks on Sex Work,” written as part of her second master’s degree, which describes her work in a community health association in Marseille. There, she worked for and with sex workers and transgender people to improve access to health care, fundamental rights, and citizenship, combat human trafficking for sexual exploitation, and promote the right to self-determination.
Reem is the Communications Coordinator of the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace (MMFP) initiative and co-host of MMFP podcast. She is a feminist writer and mother of a girl. She has a certificate as a master barista on turkish coffee.
Reem Abbas is a feminist activist, researcher and writer. Her book ” (Un)doing resistance: authoritarianism and attacks on the arts in Sudan’s 30 years of Islamist rule” was published last year and her latest essay titled “Smuggling Books into Sudan: a Brief History from 2012 to 2016” was published in the Art and Solidarity Reader: Radical Actions, Politics and Friendships. She has conducted research on the women’s movement in Sudan and issues related to peace and security with Safer World, US Institute of Peace, the African Women’s Development Fund, Defend Defenders, Interpares and other entities. She is a former Nonresident Fellow at Tahrir Institute on Middle East Policy focusing on land, conflict, and resources in Sudan, and a former member in the coordination committee of Sudanese Women in Civic and Political Groups (MANSAM). She is now a communications coordinator at WILPF where she co-hosts the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace (MMFP) podcast and works on many cross-cutting programme components.
Co-Head of Finance, is based in Geneva and originally from Zimbabwe. With extensive experience in finance and accounting in private and NGO sectors, she excels in her field. Outside of work, Cynthia enjoys hiking, organised sports, outdoor activities, and spending time with her three children.
Cynthia Muputisi is currently the Co-Head of Finance at Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Prior to this, Cynthia held various finance-related positions at organizations such as South African Red Cross Society, Andy C Designs CC, Diebold SA (Pty) Ltd, and BP & Shell Marketing Services Zimbabwe. Cynthia holds a Bachelor of Accounting Sciences degree in Financial Accounting from the University of South Africa, as well as a Postgraduate Qualification in Governance Practice and Company Secretarial from ICSA: The Governance Institute.
Matt Mahmoudi (he/him) is a lecturer, researcher, and organizer. He’s been leading the “Ban the Scan” campaign, Amnesty International’s research and advocacy efforts on banning facial recognition technologies and exposing their uses against racialized communities, from New York City to the occupied Palestinian territories.
Berit Aasen is a sociologist by training and has worked at the OsloMet Metropolitan University on Oslo. She has 40 years of experience in research and consultancy in development studies, including women, peace, and security, and in later years in asylum and refugee studies. Berit Aasen joined WILPF Norway five years ago. She is an alternate member of the National Board of WILPF Norway, and representing WILPF Norway in the UN Association of Norway, the Norwegian 1325 network and the Norwegian Women’s Lobby. Berit Aasen has been active in the WILPF European Liaison group and is committed to strengthening WILPF sections and membership both in Europe and relations across continents.
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Prior to being elected Vice-President, Melissa Torres was the WILPF US International Board Member from 2015 to 2018. Melissa joined WILPF in 2011 when she was selected as a Delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women as part of the WILPF US’ Practicum in Advocacy Programme at the United Nations, which she later led. She holds a PhD in Social Work and is a professor and Global Health Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine and research lead at BCM Anti-Human Trafficking Program. Of Mexican descent and a native of the US/Mexico border, Melissa is mostly concerned with the protection of displaced Latinxs in the Americas. Her work includes training, research, and service provision with the American Red Cross, the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Centre, and refugee resettlement programs in the U.S. Some of her goals as Vice-President are to highlight intersectionality and increase diversity by fostering inclusive spaces for mentorship and leadership. She also contributes to WILPF’s emerging work on the topic of displacement and migration.
Jamila Afghani is the President of WILPF Afghanistan which she started in 2015. She is also an active member and founder of several organisations including the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organisation (NECDO). Elected in 2018 as South Asia Regional Representative to WILPF’s International Board, WILPF benefits from Jamila’s work experience in education, migration, gender, including gender-based violence and democratic governance in post-conflict and transitional countries.
Sylvie Jacqueline NDONGMO is a human rights and peace leader with over 27 years experience including ten within WILPF. She has a multi-disciplinary background with a track record of multiple socio-economic development projects implemented to improve policies, practices and peace-oriented actions. Sylvie is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and was the Section’s president until 2022. She co-coordinated the African Working Group before her election as Africa Representative to WILPF’s International Board in 2018. A teacher by profession and an African Union Trainer in peace support operations, Sylvie has extensive experience advocating for the political and social rights of women in Africa and worldwide.
In response to the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and its targeted attacks on civil society members, WILPF Afghanistan issued several statements calling on the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan people and ensure that their rights be upheld, including access to aid. The Section also published 100 Untold Stories of War and Peace, a compilation of true stories that highlight the effects of war and militarisation on the region.
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WILPF uses feminist analysis to argue that militarisation is a counter-productive and ill-conceived response to establishing security in the world. The more society becomes militarised, the more violence and injustice are likely to grow locally and worldwide.
Sixteen states are believed to have supplied weapons to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2020 with the US supplying 74 % of weapons, followed by Russia. Much of this equipment was left behind by the US military and is being used to inflate Taliban’s arsenal. WILPF is calling for better oversight on arms movement, for compensating affected Afghan people and for an end to all militarised systems.
Mobilising men and boys around feminist peace has been one way of deconstructing and redefining masculinities. WILPF shares a feminist analysis on the links between militarism, masculinities, peace and security. We explore opportunities for strengthening activists’ action to build equal partnerships among women and men for gender equality.
WILPF has been working on challenging the prevailing notion of masculinity based on men’s physical and social superiority to, and dominance of, women in Afghanistan. It recognizes that these notions are not representative of all Afghan men, contrary to the publicly prevailing notion.
In WILPF’s view, any process towards establishing peace that has not been partly designed by women remains deficient. Beyond bringing perspectives that encapsulate the views of half of the society and unlike the men only designed processes, women’s true and meaningful participation allows the situation to improve.
In Afghanistan, WILPF has been demanding that women occupy the front seats at the negotiating tables. The experience of the past 20 has shown that women’s presence produces more sustainable solutions when they are empowered and enabled to play a role.