About the Organizers
of the International Summit
A Working Group of the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice @UNHQ
The International Summit on
DOMESTIC/FAMILY VIOLENCE IN THE COVID-19 ERA
Is hosted by the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice @UNHQ, New York, Chaired by Karen Judd Smith, D.Min., and organized by the Working Group on Domestic/Family Violence in the COVID-19 Era, Chaired by Dr. Yael Danieli.
Co-Sponsoring Organizations
Working Group
On Domestic/Family Violence During the COVID-19 Era
Her Highness Princess Nadia F. Al-Said
Working Group
Nadia Al-Said is an Omani national working at the International Peace Institute in New York. She holds the position of Programs Manager and special assistant to the Acting President & CEO. She works with the Acting President & CEO, program directors, and assists the Acting President & CEO and Resource Development team. Before joining IPI, Nadia worked at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, in the office of the Director-General. She has also been Advisor to the Ambassador, at the Permanent Delegation of the Sultanate of Oman at UNESCO advance one of UNESCO’s priority fields ‘gender equality.’ Nadia holds a Masters of Philosophy (MPhil) in politics from the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom, a Masters of Arts (MA) with honors in International Relations and Diplomacy, from the American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy (AGSIRD) in Paris, France, focusing on Oman’s economic development between exhaustible and renewable resources. She speaks, Arabic, English, and French fluently.
Ashri Anurudran
Working Group
Ashri Anurudran graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard College in 2019 with a concentration in Economics and a secondary focus in Global Health and Human Rights. She received her MPhil in Public Health from the University of Cambridge in 2020. Growing up in London, Kuala Lumpur and Houston, Ashri has witnessed the prevalence of sexual violence within vastly different societies. She hopes to introduce preventative norms early enough to create a generation of powerful, confident and informed citizens with the tools to fight sexual violence. In the past, Ashri has founded and taught two school-based educational intervention programs for 12-14-year-olds that aim to change norms surrounding sexual violence in India and Kenya. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she spearheaded the COVID-19 Task Force on Domestic Violence to investigate, educate, and advocate on behalf of survivors.
http://sici.hks.harvard.edu/people/ashri-anurudran/
Mina Mauerstein Bail
Former Director, UNDP Global Health and Development. Author
Mina has over 30 years of experience developing and managing social and economic development programs in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe – HIV & Development, water & sanitation, local governance & community development with the UN. She has served on numerous advisory panels and boards, mobilizing significant funding for non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations around the world. She is the author of a children’s book series – Max and Voltaire adventure series www.maxandvoltaire.com
Daniela Bassini
Working Group Tech Team
Majored in Entertainment Business Management and passionate about social causes that help make this world a better place. Constantly trying to find ways to merge the two. Curious and full of questions, either a shy extrovert or a loud introvert.
Ronald B. Brinn
Millennium Forum , President
Ronald B. Brinn , MA, served as Director of the New York State Divion of Human Rights, supervising a team of analysts and investigators to arrive at resolutions and findings on Human Rights complaints, under the Executive Branch laws and statutes of state and federal Civil and and Human Rights. Mr. Brinn has been an NGO active participant on Drugs, Crime and related issues in UN system and agencies.
Victoria Ebin
Working Group
Victoria Ebin is an anthropologist at Le Korsa, a non-profit organization that offers grants to institutions and individuals in Senegal, empowering them to increase access to medical care, economic opportunity, education and the arts. At Le Korsa, she has worked on a range of projects, including migration, journalism training, and is currently organizing programs for a girls’ education project, le Foyer de Jeunes Filles, in eastern Senegal. She has a Ph.D. from Cambridge University and a Master’s degree in journalism from Columbia.
Professor Edna Erez
University of Illinois at Chicago
Edna Erez is Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her current research interests include violence against women including domestic violence affecting migrant/immigrant women, victim participation in justice proceedings, and the use of technology in domestic violence cases. She received over two million dollars in state and federal grants in the U.S. and overseas to study her topics of interest. Prof. Erez is a past editor of Justice Quarterly and is currently Co-Editor of the International Review of Victimology and Associate Editor of Victims and Violence.
Dr Pshtiwan Faraj
Program Manager at Independent Media Organization in Kurdistan/Iraq
Dr. Pshitwan Faraj is a program Manager at Independent Media Organization in Kurdistan(IMOK). He has a doctorate degree in (Justice After War (Jus Post Bellum) and Responsibility To Protect (R2P) and the Iraq War from Bunel University London. Dr. Pshtiwan was a former National Consultant to United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) and has assisted the political mission of former SRSG-Special Representative to the Secretary General of the United Nation Mr. Jan Kubish to Iraq. Dr. Pshtiwan has taught at several Universities of Kurdistan including University of Sulaimani, Charmo University, University of Human Development and Cihan University. He has fifteen years of experience of working with International, national and local NGOs.
Ludmila Ferrer
Journalist
Ludmila Ferrer is an Argentinian journalist. She has a Degree in Social Communication (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina) and is majoring in Digital Journalism (Universidad Abierta Interamericana). She currently writes in the news website El Grito del Sur and in the newspaper Página 12 about social issues and human rights. Ferrer has also worked in radio and as an assistant producer for television.
Ingeborg Geyer, Ph.D.
Treasurer, Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
Ms. Ingeborg Geyer has been a member of Zonta Club Vienna since 1985. She served as a member of the Zonta International Board of Directors from 2008 – 2010 and of the International Nominating Committee from 2010-2012.
She represents ZONTA at the United Nations in Vienna since 2002 and serves as Vice chair of the Sustainable development Committee Vienna and executive board member (treasurer) of the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice from 2019 – 2021. Professionally, she has been the Head of an Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 2003 – 2012 and has served as chief editor of the Lexicon of Austrian-Bavarian Dialects until 2015. She holds a doctor’s degree of the University of Vienna.
Janice Joseph, Ph.D.
Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice@UNHQ
Janice Joseph is a Distinguished Professor of the Criminal Justice Program at Stockton University and presently the Coordinator of the Victimology and Victim Services Minor Program. In 2010, she became the 47th President of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS), a national criminal justice organization. She has also served as ACJS United Nations NGO representative for over ten years. She was elected several times as a member of the Executive Board of the International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council (ISPAC) of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, Milan, Italy and was the Chair of the Working Party on Violence Against Women for that UN Institute. She is presently one of the Vice Presidents of the World Society of Victimology (WSV) and the Chair of the Standards and Norms for that organization. She was also Chair of the UN Liaison Committee of WSV. She is the Editor of the Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, a scholarly criminal justice journal. Her broad research interests include gangs, juvenile delinquency, female victims, and women and criminal justice. She has over 70 publications and made over 150 professional presentations in more than 28 different countries.
Michelle Macias
Goodwill Global Ambassador for Mexico, UN Representative Latin America & The Caribbean for Man Up Campaign. As a Specialist in International Relations, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Work she advocates for the Sustainable Development Goals & Peace culture education, participating in the elimination of inequities in different communities around the world; collaborating directly in the creation of International Law for re-dignification of Human Rights, protection of our vulnerable groups and restoration of the environment, creating vital resolutions to safeguard our most vulnerable groups in society.
Sylvanus Murray
Working Group
Sylvanus Murray is a Global Goodwill Ambassador and Co-founder and President of the Advocacy Initiative for Development (AID). AID supports development initiatives in Africa in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN. He’s a strong advocate for the rights and well-being of children, women, persons living with disabilities, crime prevention, and criminal justice. Sylvanus holds a Master’s in International Cooperation & Humanitarian Aid and an M.A. in Mass Communications. He has a long list of training certificates including a Certificate in Peacekeeping and International Conflict Resolution and Certificate in Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse’ training from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). Sylvanus worked for the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), and the UN Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL) respectively.
Michael O’Connell
Secretary-General, World Society of Victimology
Michael O’Connell AM APM is the current Secretary-General, Chair of the WSV UN Liaison Committee and a Life Member of the World Society of Victimology, Vice-President of the NGO Alliance on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, and a Foundation Board Member of Victim Support Asia. Michael is a part-time Independent Decision Maker for Australia’s National Redress Scheme for Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse in Institutions. He was the first Commissioner for Victims’ Rights, South Australia, and prior that state’s first Victims of Crime Coordinator. He had a career for over 20 years as a police officer during which he served as the inaugural Victim Impact Statement Coordinator. He also worked as a lecturer on Victimology at the Adelaide Institute of Technical and Further Education and continues as international guest faculty as a volunteer lecturer on Victimology, victims’ rights, and victim assistance for courses run in partnership with the World Society of Victimology. Michael has participated as an expert on several UNODC projects, and is a current volunteer delegate-moderator for a UNOCT project on good practice guidelines for NGOs assisting victims of terrorism in Asia-Pacific. He is also a member of the International Network Supporting Victims of Terrorism and Mass Violence (INVICTM). He is an advocate for the elimination of discrimination and violence against women and girls, as well as an advocate for prisoners’ children. https://consultingvictimologist.com/
Vera Bail Pupko, PhD
Psychologist, professor, researcher and author
Dr. Vera Bail Pupko’s field is Health Social Psychology. She is a professor and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), the Universidad Abierta Latinoamericana (Argentina) and the University of National Defence (Argentina). She is the Head of the department of Family and Chronical Illness, that works with caregivers and people with chronic illnesses that receive treatment in public hospitals in the City of Buenos Aires. Her research in the University of National Defense focuses on First Psychological Aid (FPA) in catastrophic situations and in training military nurses students to improve their professional profile. Dr. Bail Pupko is also the author of ‘Guide for family caregivers’, among other books.
Anat Ratzabi
Anat is an internationally reputed and established contemporary artist based in the Netherlands.
She has participated in exhibitions at various museums and galleries in the Netherlands, Europe and other venues around the globe. Her work is published in different books and generously in the media.
Commissioned to design & realization of the new Holocaust monument in the city center of The Hague, she developed a project on the subject of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma related to Holocaust survivors and the effects on society. Anat has researched the different ethnic groups and migrants in the Netherlands and their legacies and processed this into an art. Anat creates complex and intricate visual works using a variety of techniques: from video art, to installations and surrealistic bronze en stone sculptures, ethnic patterns to abstractism. Her essential statements and narratives deal directly with her experiences of multiculturalism and switching frameworks to bridge extremes by embracing opposites: secular and holy, traditional and contemporary, order and chaos.
Karen Judd Smith, D.Min.
Karen has Chaired the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice @UNHQ for many years, been active training social enterepreneurs and activists world-wide, and today increasingly spends time helping socially conscious organizations stand-out online. Author of “United Nations Unlocked,” “Change !t Up” and articles change leadership and the role of technology in global governance, she keeps her eye on emerging technologies and their implications for social and political change. Karen is honored to work on the “back end” of this Summit with today’s digital natives — the tech team and interpreters — tomorrow’s leaders in an increasingly complex and fast-changing world.
Prof. Doris Sommer
Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies. She is founder of “Cultural Agents,” an Initiative at Harvard and an NGO dedicated to reviving the civic mission of the Humanities. Her academic and outreach work promotes development through arts and humanities, specifically through “Pre-Texts” in Boston Public Schools, throughout Latin America and beyond. Pre-Texts is an arts-based training program for teachers of literacy, critical thinking, and citizenship. Among her books are Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1991) about novels that helped to consolidate new republics; Proceed with Caution when Engaged by Minority Literature (1999) on a rhetoric of particularism; Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (2004) for our times of contested immigration; and The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities (2014). Sommer has enjoyed and is dedicated to developing good public school education. She has a B.A. from New Jersey’s Douglass College for Women, and Ph.D. from Rutgers University.
Raquel Schlosser Stavchansky
Working Group
Rector and Founder of the Institute for Transgenerational Studies. Raquel Schlosser created a new profession: Transgenerational Psychology. She developed a bachelor’s degree, a specialty and four master’s degrees with official recognition from the Ministry of Education in Mexico. She has published articles in Germany, England, Argentina and Mexico. She was invited to teach in countries like: Austria, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain, USA, Guatemala, Israel, Nicaragua, Panama, South Africa, Taiwan. As a writer, her book “My Zeide is history” is a Best Seller. It teaches kids about peace conscience through an auschwit´s survivor and has 62,000 copies sold. The Ministry of Public Education. Its part of the basic reading materials in primary school. Schlosser developed a transgenerational methodology for working with symptoms and memories in the body and designed a Mediation Model for Divorce with multigenerational perspective. She has also been funded for her social communication projects by UNICEF, MacArthur Foundation, PATH, Academy for Educational Development, and Population Council. As a representative of Mexican women activists, she attended the UN ICPD International Conference for Population and Development meeting in Cairo Egypt. Schlosser created during her PhD an original Model to build Communities of Peace in high-schools and in youth organizations for the prevention of violence.
Leslie Erway Wright
President, Zonta Club of Brooklyn
Leslie Wright, currently the President of the Zonta Club of Brooklyn, has over 20 years of experience representing nonprofit organizations for women and girls at the UN. Her experience advocating issues affecting women and girls spans over 50 years, professionally working in public relations, marketing and public policy for such organizations as Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, Planned Parenthood, HMOs and various government and educational organizations. In addition she served on Boards and Committees for many organizations, including Women First, Zonta International and the National Council for Women. Wright represented Connecticut at the White House Conference on Families and was elected to the Newington Town Council (CT). She holds a BA from Denison University, MA from Trinity College and MS from Rensselaer.
