Ms. Marren Akatsa-Bukachi
Executive Director, East African sub Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI)
Uganda
Marren is currently the Executive Director of the Eastern African sub regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI). She holds a Bachelors degree in Sociology and is completing her Masters in Public Health Leadership.
Between 2006/2007, Marren chaired the Commonwealth Women’s Network and coordinated the team that organised the Commonwealth Partners Forum preceding the Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Meeting held in June 2007, in Kampala, Uganda. She has over 20 years’ experience in development work.
EASSI was founded in 1996 as a follow up of the 4th world Conference on Women held in Beijing, China. Its main objective is to monitor implementation of the Beijing Platforms for Action in 8 countries in Eastern Africa.
She is especially passionate about violence against women (VAW) caused by misuse of small arms. She serves on the Advisory Committee of the International Action Network of Small Arms, and is also the convener of its thematic group on strengthening networks.
In December 2010, she inspired a solidarity visit to the DRC as part of her interest in Africans supporting fellow Africans, and mobilised 50 women from Eastern Africa. This was a first.
“I am very excited to be back in the centre stage of Commonwealth”
Ms. Sijal Aziz
Director, Outreach and Programs
Women Empowerment Literacy and Development Organization (WELDO)
Pakistan
In 2003, Ms. Sijal Aziz, embarked upon her lifelong ambition for empowering women and making a positive contribution to the development sector through founding Women Empowerment Literacy and Development Organization (WELDO). Over the years she has had the privilege of working with women at grassroots, local, national and international level. These women range from a woman who is a victim of domestic and social abuse in a backward village in Pakistan to a woman in power in Brussels.
A staunch believer in “economic autonomy” of women, she has been instrumental in raising the socio-economic and cultural status of women within the deeply patriarchal village societies of Pakistan and capacitating women entrepreneurs within the developed cities.
Based on her strong communication and networking skills she has worked with more than 250 organizations across the world under various developmental and gender empowerment projects. She has had the privilege of representing her organization and Pakistan in multiple countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America.
She is currently working in WELDO and living with her 15 months old daughter in Rawalpindi.
Ms. Hazel Brown
Coordinator of the Network of NGOs of Trinidad & Tobago for the Advancement of Women
Trinidad and Tobago
Ms. Brown has been professionally involved in research, social development and community organisation projects since 1969. Her specific area of focus has been in the area of poverty eradication, consumer affairs and in promoting gender equity. She has organised and conducted seminars and workshops pursuant to these ends through the organizations she has been a part of, as well as in collaboration with government ministries, CARICOM, Commonwealth organizations, OAS, PAHO, UNIFEM and other UN agencies.
Ms. Brown is a founding member of the Network of NGO’s of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women, a comprehensive national umbrella organisation formed in 1985 The Network is an advocate and support for women’s organisations in Trinidad and Tobago and is a part of many regional and international networks of women including CIWIL and WEDO. She has also developed a good working relationship with the Trinidad and Tobago National Women’s Machinery.
She is the past Secretary General of the Commonwealth Women’s Network (CWN) and has been engaged in Commonwealth activities since the first Commonwealth People’s Forum at CHOGM in Harare in 1991. She has been a consistent advocate for a strong voice and space for Civil Society in Commonwealth activities and decision-making.
Ofa-Ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki
Director, Women and Children Crisis Centre (WCCC)
Tonga
‘Ofa-Ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki is the Director of the Women and Children Crisis Centre (WCCC) in Tonga. She has a post-graduate degree in media from the University of Auckland and also has a Diploma in International Broadcast Journalism with the Thomson Foundation in collaboration with the University of Cardiff, Wales. Her passion is telling women’s stories in the context of advocating for their rights, particularly in situations where women and girls’ rights to development and rights to accessing public services are violated. She believes that when you share the lived realities of women’s struggles and challenges, only then can you start talking about REAL solutions. She is passionate about the issues of violence against women and girls, women in decision making and women’s property and land rights and how all these issues relate to each other in the context of advocating for the overall achievement of Gender Equality and the meaningful empowerment of women and girls in Tonga and the Pacific. In 2010 the WCCC, under the leadership of Guttenbeil-Likiliki, received the prestigious South Pacific Commission (SPC) Human Rights Award in recognition of their work in promoting women’s human rights in Tonga.