Work

Much of this work happens in rooms where people from different communities and faiths try to talk to each other. I design and run dialogue and social cohesion programs across Iraq, train activists in communication and conflict analysis, and coach young people through their own community initiatives for peace. With teams of field researchers, I have mapped local tensions and the potential for peace in several governorates.

Since 2023 I have managed a human rights portfolio: freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and a more inclusive implementation of Iraq’s national human rights plan. It runs on partnerships with government bodies, civil society and local activists, and on sub-grants that put resources in the hands of local organizations. I also wrote a national report on the right to health in Iraq.

Facing the past is slow work that belongs to the people who lived it, so my part is with the groups and institutions carrying it. I have facilitated workshops where Iraqi organizations co-created their own transitional justice projects, and assessed and trained the public bodies that implement initiatives on dealing with the past. In Sudan, I helped a new organization working on enforced disappearance shape its strategy.

When a local group can design its own projects, track its own results and meet donors as an equal, it stops being an implementer and becomes a partner. That is what I work toward: organizational development, proposal and project design, monitoring and evaluation, and outcome harvesting, with Iraqi organizations, volunteer groups and partners in Sudan. Some of it is volunteer work with newly formed and youth-led organizations writing proposals for small grants.