The Coordinating Secretariat
The Coordinating Secretariat is responsible for the day-to-day operation of Equalinrights. It currently consists of Ms. Cornelieke Keizer (Director), Ms Franny Parren (Project Officer) and Ms. Indira Bedi-Thomas (Finance and Communications Officer).
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.
Franny Parren (Netherlands)
Franny Parren joined EiR in June 2011 as Project Officer for Human rights-based development and gender equality practice. She holds an MA in International Development Studies. Previously, Franny worked for TIE-Netherlands where she coordinated capacity building projects with trade union activists and workers in different countries focusing, in particular, on strengthening the participation of women and youth within the labour movement. She finds it challenging and inspiring to stimulate people to reflect upon their own roles in the processes of change and to translate their ideas and qualities into action. In 2004 and 2005, Franny lived in Chiapas, Mexico and contributed to informal education programmes of two women NGOs. There, she became especially interested in the local discourses on rights and responsibilities and the strategies of indigenous women for demanding more respect and participation in different spheres of their daily lives. Over the last few years, she has broadened her expertise on gender by contributing to research and writing articles for a network of gender practitioners, policy makers and academics.
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 social media and developing Web tools to promote information sharing and interaction within the Equalinrights network.
Collaborators/Volunteers
Ms. Emma Sydenham (Australia)
As the former Coordinator of Equalinrights, Emma's involvement in the activities and development of EiR continues in the form of consultancies or other 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).
