Victors Not Victims: Women Driving Social Change and Striving for Peace in Conflict Zones
Speakers
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Director of V-Day Congo, City of Joy
Christine Schuler Deschryver is Director of V-Day Congo and City of Joy. City of Joy is a revolutionary community for women survivors of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, created with support from V-Day and Fondaction Panzi, where pain is turned to leadership and power. In 1998, after the rape and murder of her best friend and the death of an infant in her arms, Christine devoted her life to alerting the world to the femicide and rape against women in DRC. She was named one of The Guardian’s Women of the Year for 2011.
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Playwright, V-Day
Eve Ensler is a Tony Award-winning playwright, performer and the Founder of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women, which has raised $85 million. Her play, The Vagina Monologues, has been published in 48 languages and performed in 140 countries. Eve’s newest work, I Am An Emotional Creature, made the Best Seller list and, following workshops in Johannesburg and Paris, will open in Berkeley, California in June, moving off-Broadway in the Fall. Her next book, In The Body of the World, is due out in 2013.
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Director, Salmmah Women Resource Center
Fahima Abdel Hafiz Hashim is a women’s rights defender and activist, researcher and trainer. She serves as the Director for Salmmah Women’s Resource Centre. Fahima has a Masters in Documentation and Library Sciences, Bayero University Kano, Nigeria and has over 25 years of experience in the area of gender and development, with a special emphasis on women's rights and sexuality, violence against women and peace-working with women youth in conflict and post conflict situations. Fahima is well connected with the African women’s movement.
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Executive Director, Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre
Fartuun Adan is the Executive Director of Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre, an NGO based in Somalia. The organisation she leads works in the areas of Human Rights, Peace Building, Development, Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Child Soldiers. The organisation’s headquarters is located in Mogadishu, Somalia, where she established the first rape crisis centre. Fartuun works actively towards gender justice and prevention of gender based violence.
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Founder and President, Pat Mitchell Media
Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls. At every step of her career, Mitchell has broken new ground for women, leveraging the power of media as a journalist, an Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated producer to tell women’s stories and increase the representation of women onscreen and off. Transitioning to an executive role, she became the president of CNN Productions, and the first woman president and CEO of PBS and the Paley Center for Media. Today, her commitment to connect and strengthen a global community of women leaders continues as a conference curator, advisor and mentor.
In partnership with TED, Mitchell launched TEDWomen in 2010 and is its editorial director, curator and host. She is also a speaker and curator for the annual Women Working for the World forum in Bogota, Colombia, the Her Village conference in Beijing, and co-chairs the US board of Women of the World (WOW). She partners with the Rockefeller Foundation to curate, convene and host Connected Women Leaders (CWL) forums, focused on collective problem solving among women leaders in government and civil society.
In 2014, the Women’s Media Center honored Mitchell with its first-annual Lifetime Achievement Award, now named in her honor to commend other women whose media careers advance the representation of women. Recognized by Hollywood Reporter as one of the most powerful women in media, Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women” and Huffington Post’s list of “Powerful Women Over 50,” Mitchell also received the Sandra Day O'Connor Award for Leadership. She was a contributor to Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership, and wrote the introduction to the book and museum exhibition, 130 Women of Impact in 30 Countries. In 2016, she received a Congressional appointment to The American Museum of Women’s History Advisory Council, and in 2019 was named to the Gender Equality Top 100 list of women leaders by Apolitical.
Mitchell is active with many nonprofit organizations, serving as the chair of the boards of the Sundance Institute and the Women’s Media Center. She is a founding member of the VDAY movement and on the boards of the Skoll Foundation and the Acumen Fund. She is also an advisor to Participant Media and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mitchell is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds a master's degree in English literature and several honorary doctorate degrees. She is the author of Becoming a Dangerous Woman: Embracing Risk to Change the World. She and her husband, Scott Seydel, live in Atlanta and have six children and 13 grandchildren.
