The Coordinating Secretariat
The Coordinating Secretariat is responsible for the day-to-day operation of Equalinrights. It consists of the Coordinator, Ms. Cornelieke Keizer, Project Officers Ms Lucy Royal-Dawson , Mr Fred Ayifli and Ms Zairah Khan and the Finance and Communications Officer, Ms. Indira Bedi-Thomas.
Cornelieke Keizer (The Netherlands)
Cornelieke is the Coordinator of Equalinrights. Having studied cultural and religious psychology, she finished her MA degree with research on the psychological consequences of female circumcision among the Somali population in the Netherlands. Fascinated by the underlying structures that influence health and well-being she was appointed as Academic Lecturer at the Health Care and Culture section, VU University Medical Center (Amsterdam) and as Research Coordinator for the Asian regional network Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility (CARAM-Asia). Aware of a missing link in working on health and migration issues without adequately addressing power structures, vulnerability and discrimination, she was excited about the immense potential of a human rights based approach to development. In 2005, she lived and worked for a period of four months in Malaysia to develop and implement an annual action research programme from a human rights based perspective. She has extensive experience in participatory action research methodology and a strong personal drive for bottom-up learning processes within human rights and development.
Lucy Royal-Dawson (United Kingdom)
Lucy joined EqualinRights as a Project Officer in April 2009 with over 12 years’ experience of working in the developing world. She has worked in Indonesia, Cambodia, Liberia and the occupied Palestinian territories on different programmes, all within the field of education. She has also worked in the UK, where she is from, as a researcher in educational assessment. More recently, she has developed an interest in rights in education. Her professional experience covers teaching, training, managing as well as research. She is delighted to be recruited to EqualinRights because it offers the rare combination of development and rights within an enriching and fostering network.
Fred Ayifli (Ghana)
Fred Ayifli joined EiR as Project Officer on the Transformative Learning for Human Rights (TLHR) project after completing his MSc (International Development studies) at the Wageningen University, Netherlands. He is responsible for managing the TLHR project in the Netherlands and linking up with all project partners and stakeholders to enrich and deepen the understanding of applying rights-based approaches to development. Fred brings to bear on EiR’s work his experience as a researcher and a trained social scientist with work experience from the NGO sector in Ghana. His interests are human rights advocacy, health promotion, food security, refugee rights and education. His keen interest in the MDGs and youth engagement was behind his decision to serve as an Advisory Council member of the One World Youth Project (2009-2010) – an educational nonprofit in the US. He previously served as a Southern member in the Dutch Third Chamber (2008-2009) – a shadow parliament in the Netherlands dealing with international development and working on proposals to improve international cooperation.
Zairah Khan (The Netherlands)
Zairah Khan will be joining Equalinrights on the 22nd of March 2010 as the Project Officer for the Global Initiative for Frontloading and Costing Human Rights (GIF). Zairah holds an MA in Social Psychology and Development Sociology. In the course of her studies, she became particularly interested in globalization, identity and movement theory and continued this interest both as an activist and professionally after her studies. From 2007 until recently she was the founding coordinator of WO=MEN, a Dutch Gender Platform of organisations and individuals working on gender justice. At WO=MEN, Zairah became acquainted with the principles of gender budgeting and global shifts in financing for development. Increasingly fascinated by the economic aspects of social development, she has found a new challenge in GIF. Zairah has also worked in the media and as a freelance journalist. In her spare time, Zairah remains active in the women’s movement and is a keen fiction writer.
Indira Bedi-Thomas (India)
Indira, as Finance and Communications Officer, is responsible for implementing the EiR communication strategy and for the administration of the EiR office in The Hague. Indira has a doctorate in Functional Linguistics from the University of East Anglia, UK, and is familiar with the development arena having worked previously for an NGO network active in the domain of Food Aid and Food Security. She is particularly interested in developing Web 2.0 tools to promote information sharing and interaction within the Equalinrights network.
Collaborators/Volunteers
Ms. Emma Sydenham (Australia)
As the formerCoordinator of Equalinrights, Emma's involvement in the activities and development of EiR continues in the form of consultancies or advisory functions. Prior to joining EiR, Emma practiced as a lawyer in Sydney, Australia, after graduating with first class honours. She worked in litigation, disability discrimination and refugee law amongst others. Later following her masters of law degree in Europe, specialising in the International protection of Human Rights (summa cum laude) and in particular minority rights, she moved to Geneva to work with the International Service for Human Rights. ISHR focus on how human rights defenders can access the UN human rights system and how to strengthen the local-global relevance of human rights. She has always felt a strong personal drive to redress injustices and to foster a sense of community, of belonging; and to understand how power relations are constructed and deconstructed, and what fosters personal change processes in this regard. She also has a degree in psychology.
Ms. Elizabeth Solomon
Previously a member of the Equalinrights Steering Committee, Elizabeth Solomon left the Board following a move to Guyana to work with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. She has a multi-disciplinary educational background and considerable experience working in the development arena - both in the private and public sector, from NGO‘s to rural community groups to international organisations at all levels. She has a bachelors degree in Mass Communications, a masters degree in International Relations, an LBB and has completed a serious of post graduate diplomas in human rights and related issues. Her skills include negotiations and problem solving in complex situations; creative conceptualising; implementation and evaluation of projects; production of all media communication strategy and proposal/report writing; legal drafting and analysing international law; advocacy and public speaking; creation of training tools; and finally, teaching and interdisciplinary training - particularly in the area of economic, social and cultural rights based work.
Dr. Irene Guijt
An erstwhile member of the Equalinrights Steering Committee, Irene has research, training and facilitation experience with grassroots organisations and international agencies, about which she has published widely to bridge the persistent gap between academia and practice. Her main interests lie in fostering ways to facilitate learning for critically reflective practice in organisations and among societal alliances. A key part of this lies in personal transformation and understanding how power emerges and is used in interactions. She has recently finalised her PhD at Wageningen University (the Netherlands) which examines why current perspectives on monitoring are unlikely to contribute to learning in the context of dynamic resource management partnerships that are engaged in institutional transformation. She also works as a freelance consultant, with recent work including coordinating a five country evaluation of Dutch NGO support to strengthen civil society participation and coordinating the 'Assessing Social Change' initiative, undertaken with IDS (UK).
