The Gender Working Group of Multi-faith Advisory Council to the UN inter-agency TaskForce will be organizing an in-person parallel event at CSW67 titled “Perspectives on Empowering Women through Effective Collaboration in Challenging Contexts”.
Speakers:
Daisy Khan, Founder of Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE)
Rev. Toni Kruger-Ayebazibwe, Executive Director of GIN-SSOGIE
Sarah Green, Senior Policy Advisor for Sexual Health and Rights, American Jewish World Service
Moderator: Ani Zonneveld, President, Muslims for Progressive Values
About the Speakers
Dr. Daisy Khan is an award-winning speaker, author, activist, commentator, and the founder of Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE), the largest global network of Muslim women committed to peacebuilding, gender equality, and human dignity. As a renowned thought leader on Islam in America, she is hailed for promoting women’s rights and interfaith collaboration. She has received 20 awards including Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights & Edinburgh Peace Award and is listed among TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential” People and The Huffington Post’s “Top Ten Women Faith leaders.” She is the author of “Born with Wings” a spiritual memoir and WISE Up- knowledge end extremism to counter the rise in Islamophobia and violent extremism. In 2023 Khan will publish “30 Rights of Muslim Women, in Islam, Quran, and Shariah.
Sarah Green is Senior Policy Advisor for Sexual Health and Rights at AJWS, where she leads the development and implementation of the organization’s international advocacy strategy for the rights of women and girls, with a focus on child, early and forced marriage and unions (CEFMU). She co-chairs the CEFMU and Sexuality Working Group. She is a passionate advocate for the sexual and reproductive rights of women, girls, and all people, as a fundamental aspect of human dignity. Sarah brings extensive experience in advocacy, research, and program management in SRHR, gender equality, and international development, having worked in the United Nations system, NGOs, and academia. Sarah has lived and worked in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, and she is proud to call New York City home. Outside of work, Sarah is a reader, eater, and walker, who loves to dance and draw.
Rev. Toni Kruger Ayebazibwe was appointed Executive Director in December 2017. Toni, based in GIN’s office in Johannesburg, South Africa, brings a range of expertise stretching from management to technology and design and theology. She has a long history of LGBTI activism, both in HIV prevention work and in faith, having worked in the design and management of HIV prevention and care programmes for LGBT people, and participated as a long time member of both Metropolitan Community Churches and the Anglican Church. She was an assistant pastor to the Rev Nokuthula Dhladhla of the House of Prayer and Worship, an inclusive African Independent church in Soweto. As the Executive Director of GIN-SSOGIE, she has a strong focus on combining faith and SOGI issues in her advocacy, and a particular interest in strengthening the voices of SOGIE activists of faith from the Global South in high level political fora. Toni has a BA degree in Communication Science, English and Philosophy, and an Honours degree in Philosophy. She has completed short courses in Intervention Mapping for AIDS Prevention (University of Maastricht) and Human Resource Management (University of Pretoria) and is slowly completing her Master’s degree in Theology at St Augustine College, a private Catholic university in Johannesburg. She has been a lay minister in the Anglican Church, and is ordained in the Metropolitan Community Church. She has a special interest in postcolonial, feminist and queer theology.
Ani Zonneveld is President and Founder of Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV), the oldest progressive Muslim organization in the U.S. Through her work at the U.N. she has secured MPV’s ECOSOC status, serves on the U.N. inter-agency task force’s Faith Advisory Council, and was commissioned by the U.N. Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect to create an anti-hate speech workshop for Muslim societies. Ani has used MPV as an engine for producing theological, cultural, and legal educational content and curriculum in promoting an inclusive and human rights-based interpretation of Islam. The initiatives that Ani leads take place at grassroots level in multiple countries. Ani has led workshops for youth and experts, forums at the U.N. and the Human Rights Council, talks at places of worship, book festivals, in friendly and hostile public forums, at small community gatherings and for audiences as large as 650,000. Ani also founded the global umbrella organization Alliance of Inclusive Muslims in 2017 in Tunisia. Ani gave her TEDx talk titled – Islam: As American As Apple Pie, is the subject of an award winning documentary titled "al-imam". As a Grammy certified songwriter, she utilizes the power of music and the arts in countering radicalism.