Executive Committee

Co-Presidents:

Annelise Ebbe (Denmark)
Annelise.Ebbe(at)wilpf.ch
Annelise worked in the late 70’s and early 80’s as a researcher in women's studies at the university of Aarhus. She is now a translator and writer, living in Copenhagen. Annelise started her peace work as a fifteen year old in the Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons. Annelise has been active in the women's liberation movement in Demnark since it's  inception, and was a member of the Executive Committee of the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly and coordinator of the women's network in the 90's.   Annelise’s mother was a member of WILPF from the beginning of the 60’s. She herself has been an active member of WILPF since 1994, assuming the  presidency of the Danish Section in April 1999. Annelise’s daughter joined WILPF as a fourteen year old in 1997. While with WILPF, Annelise has written numerous articles, statements and given countless presentations.

Kerstin Grebäck (Sweden)
Kerstin.Greback@wilpf.ch
Kerstin Grebäck has worked as a peace activist and feminist since the 1960’s, involved with WILPF since 1985 when she participated in the Great Peace Journey, an initiative of WILPF Sweden that posed 5 questions on peace and disarmament issues to 130 of the world’s governments. She was the Secretary-General of WILPF Sweden from 1990-95, and was involved in the creation of the Standing Committee on the Middle East, very actively fundraising and supporting the work of a women's peace initiative Jerusalem Link, as well as arranging the first meeting in East Jerusalem with the Palestinian and Israeli WILPF sections.  In 1993 she led WILPF Sweden in building support for the women in former Yugoslavia and together with many representatives from the Swedish peace and women’s movement started the network Kvinna till Kvinna (which means Woman to Woman in Swedish) of which she was President and Secretary-General at different periods.  Kerstin is on the Board of WILPF Sweden.

Vice Presidents

Kozue Akibayashi (Japan)
Kozue.Akibayashi(at)wilpf.ch
Kozue is a researcher/activist in Japan. Her research and activism have been around the issue of demilitarization and she is interested in critically analyzing the military and militarized security from a gender perspective. She is Associate Professor at Department of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. She has been a member of WILPF Japan section since 2001 but prior to joining Japan section, she worked closely with WILPF NY UN office from 1996 to 1999 when she served as an alternate UN representative for International Peace Research Association, an academic association of peace researchers, while she was a graduate student at Teachers College Columbia University where she earned her doctorate in peace education. She conducted action research on Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, a feminist peace movement in Okinawa Japan, and has been involved in such international networks as East Asia-US-Puerto Rico Women’s Network Against Militarism, No Base network, and International Institute for Peace Education 

Amparo Elisa Guerrero (Colombia)
Amparo.Guerrero(at)wilpf.ch
Amparo Elisa Guerrero has 25 years experience working with Colombian social justice and international human rights movements.  She is a social worker, with a master’s degree in Gender & Development Studies from National University in Bogotá. Prior to  WILPF Colombia, she worked with Centro de Investigacion y Educacion Popular’s -CINEP- Human Rights Program, in charge of education and attention to victims of human rights violations.  She also developed CINEP’s program for women displaced by the Colombian armed conflict. She has been with WILPF since 1995, when, under Edith Ballantine’s presidency, she was asked to revive the Colombia section.  From 1995–2003, she was president, national project coordinator and board member of WILPF Colombia.  From 2003-2007, she was the section’s International Relations Secretary and board member to International WILPF.   She organized WILPF International’s July 2007 Delegation to Colombia. She has two beautiful daughters:  Manuela, is finishing her studies in Scenic Arts in Bogotá, and Adriana, also a WILPF member, who will study Cinematic Direction in Madrid, Spain.

Felicity Hill (Australia)
Felicity.Hill(at)wilpf.ch
Felicity Hill is currently working with Edith Ballantyne on her biography and several other WILPF history projects, and with the Social Sciences Research Council on HIV/AIDs and the care economy.
Prior to this she was the coordinator of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN) - www.icanw.org. As a former security adviser to the United Nations Development Fund for Women she created wwwWomenWarPeace.org to provide gender profiles of countries in conflict to the Security Council. As the Director of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's UN Office in New York she co-founded and coordinated the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security that drove the adoption of Security Council resolution 1325, and created www.PeaceWomen.org to track implementation of the resolution. She also created the www.ReachingCriticalWill.org to increase NGO preparation and participation in nuclear weapons disarmament forums at the UN.

Samira Khoury (Lebanon)
Samira.Khoury(at)wilpf.ch
Samira Khoury has worked since 1972 as a teacher at the American University in Beirut in the Civilisation Sequence Programme (Cultural Studies).  She has also taught in the Education and Arabic departments. She has served as vice-president of WILPF Lebanon since 2002, and was the IEC delegate to the Auckland meeting that year.  Samira also works with the Lebanese Council of Women, the Arab Women Solidarity Association (of which she is a founding member and President), Palestinian Human Rights Organisation (she is also a founding member, and was President 1998-2002), the Arab Court of Women, the Federation of Palestinian Women, the Arab Cultural Club and the Lebanese Union for the Welfare of Children.  She has presented papers and lectures at numerous international conferences and events on themes ranging from the “Language in Mass Media for Children” to “Various Types of Marriage Contracts in Islamic Law”.  She also writes and has published children’s books which are gender oriented and focused on human rights.

Treasurer

Tamara James (USA)
tamara.james(at)wilpf.ch
Tamara James is originally from Wichita, Kansas in the United States, but currently calls Geneva, Switzerland home. She has held various positions in WILPF for the past 8-years. From 2005-2007, she served as the youngest co-president of the board for the US Section. Prior to that, Tamara served on the WILPF US board as both the staff concerns chair and the program representative for the Cuba campaign. To this end, Tamara has been very involved in working to end the 40+ year US blockade against Cuba by leading or assisting in numerous delegations to Cuba. She also helped in the founding of the US Women and Cuba Collaboration, which began as a partnership between WILPF US, Hermanas: Sisterhood in Central America and the Caribbean and EveryWoman's Movement for Cuba/LELO.  Tamara has a degree in international business and a master's in liberal studies with a concentration in cultural anthropology, women's studies and international business.

International Board

Tatiana Kurtiqi, Albania
Joan MacDonald, Aotearoa
Maria Pagano, Argentina
Mary Ziesak, Australia
Irina Grushevaya, Belarus
Katia Patino, Bolivia
Basilissa Ndayiziga, Burundi
Judith Gallant, Canada

Ellen Woodsworth, Canada Alternate
Ellen Woodsworth is a community organizer working for social justice, economic equality and environmentally sound planning and long time feminist activist. She is the External Chairperson of a Vancouver city party (Coalition of Progressive Electors) and was the Cofounder, Secretary and Cities Coordinator of the World Peace Forum. (A week long forum of 350 events attended by over 5,000 people from all over the world with one full day dedicated to women and  a two day section on Cities for elected government officials). From 2002 to 2005 she was a City Councillor for Vancouver, BC, Canada where she coordinated the development of the document “Gender Equality Strategy” for the City of Vancouver.

Marlene Le Gates, Canada Alternate
Marlene LeGates is a recent member of WILPF but her interest was piqued while conducting research for her book, In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Europe and North America (Routledge, 2001), which first appeared in Canada in 1996. She has a Ph.D. from Yale University and has taught in university and college history and women’s studies departments for almost 40 years. At Capilano College in North Vancouver, B.C., she has served as the chair of Women’s Studies and has organized lecture series and International Women’s Day events. She also developed and taught a course on Women and Religion and, more recently, on Latin American history and is currently developing a Latin American Studies Program for the college. She loves to travel and has lived in Germany and South America. A recent visit to Japan allowed her the wonderful opportunity to network with Japanese feminists and underscored the pleasures and inspirations that come from working with like-minded women internationally. Her daughter, who is art director for a publishing house, and granddaughter live in California.

Violeta Castex, Chile
Olga Bianchi, Costa Rica
Ida Harslof, Denmark
Karen Rald, Denmark Alternate
Silvia Clara, El Salvador
Paula Sams-Nurmentaus, Finland

Marlene Tuininga, France
Born in Holland, raised in the Dutch Antilles and the U.S., studied politics and journalism in Amsterdam, then in Paris,
then worked as a reporter, all over the world and for 35 years in a weekly and a monthly published by "La Vie",
specializing in religion and social afaires. Author of several books among which "Femmes contre les guerres -
carnets d'une correspondante de paix" translated into Arabic and Italian. Now the president of the French section of WILPF.

Roti Make, French Polynesia

Heidi Meinzolt-Depner, Germany

Heidi Meinzolt`s profession is teaching French, Italian and physical education in a highschool.  Active since the 1970's  in international politics – for example in the executive of the European federation of green parties until 1992 – she was also the European coordinator of WILPF sections. Her main focus is on alternatives towards traditional "security" politics, through prevention of violence in all forms, the engagement for civilian conflict solutions and specific attention to the role of women in peace processes and political developments. She works on methods of global learning and conflict moderation in diverse international and North-South activities and exchanges. She is the coordinator of the WILPF Middle East committee.

Talat Sabbagh, Germany Alternate

Krishna Ahooja Patel, India

Krishna Ahoojapatel holds a Ph.D degree in international relations from the University of Geneva and is a Barrister-at-Law from the Inner Temple, London. She studied Political Science in Aligarh University in India.

For several years, Dr. Ahoojapatel worked as a lawyer and a journalist. From 1963-1965 she was a legal consultant to the Industry Division of the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). In 1968, she joined the International Labor Office as a staff member in Geneva, where her areas of work included employment, migration, labor law and economic development issues. For the United Nations Decade of Women (1975-1986), she was assigned to the ILO Office for Women Workers' Questions, where she became the editor of the only UN newsbulletin Women at Work. From 1986-1989, she was the Deputy Chief of Research and Training and Deputy Director at the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

In the decade of the 1990s, Prof. Ahoojapatel combined her academic work with activism in the feminist and peace movements. She was appointed the President of the Women's World Summit Foundation (Geneva) from 1994 to 1997, where she edited their global newsletter called Seventy-Five Percent. In August 2001, she was elected the President of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), an international non-governmental organization devoted to peace since 1915. From 2002 to 2004, she also edited the WILPF Newsletter, International Peace Update.

In December 2004, Dr. Ahoojapatel was elected the President of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, Geneva -- an umbrella organization to which over 35 international NGOs are affiliated. In January 2005, she received an award on Global Friendship in Bombay (India). In February 2005, she was nominated for a peace prize among 1,000 women globally working on peace. She is currently UN and ILO representative of WILPF.

Daphne Banai, Israel
Annalisa Milani, Italy
Noriko Tada, Japan
Roula Zoubiane, Lebanon
Nirmala Sitoula, Nepal
Han Deggeller, Netherlands
Inge Stemmler, Netherlands Alternate
Lene Nilsen, Norway
Hanan Awwad, Palestine
Miryan Quispe, Peru
Cherry Padilla, Philippines
Natalia Berezhnaya, Russia
Lucinda Amara, Sierra Leone

Manel Tiranagama, Sri Lanka

Manel Tiranagama is the Holder of Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree in History from Vidyalanka University of Kelaniya Sri Lanka. A Graduate teacher under the Ministry of Education from 1977 - 2003. Was the Founder - Centre for Women's Development, Happawana, Wanchawela, in Southern Sri Lanka in 1983 and the Rural Women's Organizations Network, Galle in Southern Sri Lanka in 1985. She visited WILPF International in Geneva in November 1989, revived the Sri Lanka Section of WILPF which remained dormant since 1977 in January 1990. She has also organized Women Help Women Project in Galle, Sri Lanka with the support from German Section of WILPF in 1994, which continues to date helping several hundred women with financial support for self-employment activities.
Manel served as International Vice-President of WILPF from 1995 - 1998, being elected Vice-President at the WILPF Congress in Helsinki, Finland, participated in the Peace Train Journey from Helsinki - Beijing, 1995, presented the Peace Caucus Report at the UN Platform at the World Congress of Women in Beijing in 1995. In addition with other members of WILPF Sri Lanka, organized the I. E. C. Meeting in Sri Lanka in 1996 and she is the current President of WILPF Sri Lanka

Alexandra Sundberg, Sweden

Alexandra Sundberg joined WILPF in 2005 as a Reaching Critical Will intern in NY during the NPT Review Conference. There she realized WILPF was the thing to do and the place to be. Alex has also done a disarmament internship in Geneva as well as staffed the Swedish section office, most recently as Secretary General. She holds a BA in International Crises and Conflict Management.

Ansa Eneroth, Sweden Alternate
Jeanette Rigne, Sweden Alternate
Helena Nyberg, Switzerland
Martha Jean Baker, UK

Katherine Ronderos (United Kingdom, Alternate)
Katherine Ronderos holds a MSc (Distinction) in Development Studies and a BSc (Hons) in Economics. In Colombia she worked on social programmes and capacity building for women’s groups, indigenous and black communities. Back in London, Katherine has been working on gender issues at the UN level. She joined WILPF in 2005 and has represented the UK Section at the Commission of the Status of Women in New York and the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Katherine speaks fluent English and Spanish.

Audley Green, US

Audley Green was born in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, where her father was a sugar technologist at Fairymead Sugar mill.  She graduated from Queensland University  with a BSc in Zoology (1954.)  In Europe she studied harpsichord for a semester at the Conservatoire de Geneve - she had never heard of WILPF in those days!  In 1962 she moved to the United States with her husband and two small daughters.  She taught embryology to pre-med students at Columbia University in New York.  Her son was born during time at Wellesley College where her husband was teaching, and where Audley and the children  joined vigils against the Vietnam war (she still hadn’t heard of WILPF!)  She taught music classes at Goucher College in Baltimore, where she joined WILPF in 1972.  Later she formed the WILPF branch in Hartford, CT, and re-vitalised the Boston branch, and has served two terms on the US WILPF board.  For the last couple of decades she has toured as a concert harpsichordist. In 2007 Audley spent two months in Grenada as a “guest worker” for Dr. Dessima Williams, where this photo was taken.  She and Dessima hope to form a WILPF section in Grenada.