Contact WILPF

Secretariat Staff:

Secretary General
Susi Snyder
susi.snyder(at)wilpf.ch

Susi Snyder, originally from New York City, is the Secretary General of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and is based at their International Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland where she monitors various issues under the aegis of the United Nations, including sustainable development, human rights, and disarmament.  Previously, Susi served for three years as the Director of WILPF's United Nations office in New York.  Before coming to WILPF, Ms. Snyder was a staff member at the Shundahai Network, an indigenous led organization based in Nevada, U.S.A.   Ms. Snyder has presented papers and testimony at more than 40 U.S. governmental hearings regarding nuclear weapons, power and waste, including presentations to the National Academy of Sciences, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Energy. In 2001, Susi was named a "Hero of Las Vegas" by the Las Vegas City Life newspaper.

Programme Assistant
Ilse Wermink
ilse(at)wilpf.ch / rights(a)wilpf.ch

Ilse is from the Netherlands and will strengthen the WILPF team in Geneva as the 2009 programme intern. Her interest in the special role of women in peace building developed while studying Sociology (Msc) in the Netherlands. In these university years she coordinated events for Amnesty International and interned with the Institute for Diversity Studies in Cape Town. In 2007 & 2008 she studied International Humanitarian Action (Msc) in Ireland and Germany and worked for the European Commission in Brussels and Plan Ireland. This year she hopes to specialize herself further in the gender perspective on human security, become a better lobbyer and improve her French.

Economic Justice and Fundraising Intern
Hadil Zainal
justice(at)wilpf.ch

Hadil is originally Kurdish from Iraq but has been living in Sweden the past 17 years. She has majored in Peace and Conflict and in Developing Studies at the University of Lund and Malmo in Sweden. In addition to her studies she has also been active in different associations such as Save the Children and Association of Political Foreign Affairs. She was a board member of the UN Association in Lund where she learned how local groups can affect change. She is excited to be the new Economic Justice intern for WILPF where she will have the opportunity to experience work on an international level and gain a greater understanding of the UN system. Her interest in humanitarian studies grew from her awareness of continued injustice in the world and she is eager to work towards addressing these situations through WILPF. Her interest lies in peace keeping in the Middle East and her goal for this internship is to learn as much as possible about the work of NGOs.

Communications Coordinator
Katherin Machalek
membership (at) wilpf.ch / katherin (at) wilpf.ch

Katherin is originally from New York City and came to Geneva in August 2008 to finish her masters thesis on democracy in Russia.  After volunteering at WILPF for a few months at the beginning of 2009, she has returned as Communications Coordinator.  She is responsible for the maintenance of membership as well as its reform, contact between sections, committees and the international board and much more.  She came to WILPF because she was interested in learning more about advocacy and lobbying efforts to promote the gender perspective and the internal NGO management that lies behind effective actions.  She has a background in policy making and democratic institution building in the former Soviet Union, but she is also passionate about women’s political empowerment and international measures for the protection of women’s rights to social protection and equality.

Disarmament Intern
Malin Fast
disarm (at) wilpf.ch

Malin is a Political Science student with a minor in French at the University of Växjö in Sweden. Having spent the fall of 2009 in Lille, France, studying International Relations, she is continuing her studies with an internship at the WILPF office in Geneva. She believes WILPF's internship programme is very important for strengthening young women and bringing awareness to the situation of women around the world. She is also very eager to learn about the work of NGO's in general and their effect on the political agenda of the UN. During the spring of 2010 she will assist with the Secretariat's Programme on Disarmament.

We would like to take this opportunity to warmly thank the German section’s regular financial contribution to the Human Rights annual internship through the Alice & Helga Herz legacy, without which the internship programme would not be possible.

UN Office Staff

WILPF United Nations Office Director
AnnJanette Rosga
rosga(at)wilpf.ch

AnnJanette Rosga is the UN Office Director in New York City. She holds a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness (interdisciplinary social sciences) from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prior to joining WILPF, Anjie was an assistant professor at Knox College in Illinois, and then at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where she taught courses in social and feminist theory, research methodologies, and the cultural study of law, crime and violence. Anjie’s recent research was on US training for police in emerging democracies, especially vis-à-vis human rights and child trafficking in Bosnia-Herzegovina. She has published on human trafficking, bias-related crime, and human rights indicators. Anjie has received several awards, including fellowships from the Fulbright Institute and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. As a researcher for the film, Licensed to Kill, Anjie was co-recipient of the Sundance Filmmakers’ Trophy Award for Best Documentary in 1997. She has also been a consultant for Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNDP, and the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. For DCAF, she authored an online peacekeepers’ course on violence against women and women’s human rights. A longtime admirer of WILPF and an avid consumer of its web archives, she is thrilled and honored to join the WILPF team in New York.

Reaching Critical Will Team

Ray Acheson - RCW Director
ray(at)reachingcriticalwill.org

Ray is the project director of Reaching Critical Will. Prior to this position, she was an intern and research assistant for the project. Ray previously worked with the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, an organization founded during the Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1980s. She tracked the manufacture and trade of conventional weapons systems and was also the associate editor of the 2006 and 2007 editions of the Arms Control Reporter, a reference journal that provides information and analysis on international arms control and disarmament issues. Ray graduated from the University of Toronto with an Honours BA in Peace and Conflict Studies in 2005. She has been a social justice activist for many years and has contributed with writing, research, and editing to several organizations, including Native Planet and RESPECT International.

Rahma Hussein - RCW Intern
rahma(at)reachingcriticalwill.org

Rahma is a recent graduate from the University of Chicago receiving her BA in Political Science and International Studies. She has held previous internships at the Conflict Management Division, a committee of the Peace and Security Council at the African Union, in addition to the United Nations Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (UNESCO).

PeaceWomen Team