Institutions have played an important part in informing laws, policies and programs and advancing gender equality. Robust laws and policies coupled with stronger mechanisms to coordinate various actors and ensure their effective enforcement and implementation can push the agenda.
Join us to hear how to best influence such powerful mechanisms.
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Hoda Bou-Onk Marcus currently volunteers as the Chapter Resource Coordinator for UN Women USA Los Angeles. Her educational background is in Sociology of Development, and has advanced studies in Crisis Intervention and Counseling, as well as being fluent in three languages: Arabic, Lebanese, and French. She lived and worked in more than four countries which increased her personal and professional experience. But most of all, it allowed her to grow and increase her awareness around human needs and challenges, while learning how to respect and accept cultural differences.
Hoda’s journey began over 25-years ago in the nonprofit/philanthropic sector by volunteering for the Lebanese Red Cross, as an Emergency First-Aid Responder. Her first job was working with children, youth, and adults with various special needs, where her work focus was on children with autism. When the Syrian humanitarian refugee crisis started, Hoda joined the emergency first response team. She worked as a Protection Officer in international organizations. Nonetheless, she launched the first child protection center for Syrian children providing them with protection and alternative care with SOS Children’s Village International. Later, a Lebanese national plan was put in place in joint effort with UN agencies, this is where Hoda joined UN Women in Beirut. As part of the program team, she had an important role in launching/implementing a regional program covering five countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Turkey, and Egypt) which were impacted directly by the crisis.
She is also working on her research and consultancy, as her journey continues.
Professor Pam Rajput returns to GCW for the third time for discussion about Institutional Mechanisms, women’s power bases within institutions and outside. Her quote, “to be a humanist you must be a feminist” gives the context for co-creating new-patriachal models and lifting up women’s feminist leadership. She is Professor Emeritus in Panjab University. Chaired the Govt of India s High Level Committee on the Status of Women India( brought out a comprehensive Report) Lead India in W 20, an official engagement group of G20. Chair of the W 20 Working Group on Inclusive Decision Making during Saudi Arabia Presidency(2020) and Chair of Working Group on Violence against Women and Girls in the current Italian W20 Presidency. Member of the UN Women CSAG, India. Member of the Leadership Council of the ICRW. As a follow up of the Commitment made during GEF (Paris, 2021) for an Alternative and Determined Futures for Women, now engaged in building capacity of young feminist leaders in policy and public advocacy as a mentor to pass on the baton to the coming generation of leaders.
Grandmother Irene Klage was born and still living in Bad Pyrmont in northern Germany, Lower Saxony district. She is a devoted wife, mother of two, and grandmother of three granddaughters. At Hanover University, Irene pursued English studies, German Philology and Pedagogy studies.
As a youth, Irene learned about Germanic myths, gods and goddesses and kept her interest in old traditions of Germanic tribes. She learned about European witch persecutions, women's oppression, and the extinction of Germanic traditions. Irene later began to study “Edda”, the old Norse Poetic Collection from pre-Christian time and Celtic myths, traditions and feasts. She deepened the connection to the ancestors, learned about generational trauma and started her studies in family constellations, and thereafter became a facilitator and teacher, and was a speaker of the German organization of family constellation facilitators (DGFS north) for two years. Irene also participated in a two-year training in animal assisted therapy and started working with traumatized women using horses.
Since 2007, Irene has participated in teachings from the foundation for Shamanic studies, meeting with healers from Nepal, Burkina Faso, South Korea and NewZealand. Her intention is always to learn from the source, to reconnect to her European indigenous roots, ancestral wisdom, and bring it back into modern society by offering personal counseling, sacred womb workshops, women's circle trainings, pagan ceremony leadership, and family constellation facilitator trainings – based on European indigenous roots. The connection to the Wise Woman Inside is foundational in all her sacred work in Germany and globally online.