Women as Peace Builders

Jumanah Zabaneh

Jumanah is the Programme Management Specialist with UN Women Lebanon. She joined the organization in 2018. She leads advocacy and program work on women’s rights and gender equality with focus on Women Peace and Security. Her portfolio includes work on women-led mediation, peacebuilding, dialogue, reconciliation, and transitional justice. Before that, Jumanah managed UN Women’s portfolios on feminist movement building, legal reform, masculinities, access to justice for women and women’s political participation. She was a staff member of Save the Children for 12 years and managed programs and teams in the regions of the Middle East and North Africa, the Balkans, and the South Caucasus. She has extensive experience in humanitarian and refugee work, training and facilitation, and has mentored young women entrepreneurs from around the world with Cherie Blair Foundation. Jumanah has a master’s degree in public health from the University of Glasgow and a BSc from the American University of Beirut. She was a part- time lecturer on Gender Studies at the Lebanese American University in Beirut and has published a number of studies. Jumanah is Palestinian/Lebanese and is based in Beirut.

Christina Foerch Saab 

Christina is a co-founder of the Lebanese NGO Fighters for Peace, a non-profit organisation that unites former ex-combatants from different political and sectarian backgrounds. Currently, she is the Head of Programs and International Relations. 

She holds her Master degree in Political Sciences and Spanish from the Free University of Berlin and is a certified coach. She works between Beirut and Germany In 2000, she moved from Berlin to Beirut where she has been working as filmmaker, journalist and consultant for NGOs.

She has specialized in issues such as the memory of the Lebanese civil war, oral history, ex-combatants, peace education, prevention of violent extremism  and reintegration. She is a member of the Radicalization Awareness Network (RAN) expert pool and of INDEX, has written articles and contributed to books, highlighting the role of “formers” in extremism prevention. She has also had numerous interventions about this subject in international conferences.

Pascale Bafitos

Pascale is the Detention Program Coordinator at Restart Center in Lebanon, a distinguished civil society organization dedicated to promoting human rights, particularly the right to rehabilitation and the prevention of torture and violence. With over 20 years of experience working with inmates and victims of torture, Pascale has established herself as a key figure in the field of detention reform and psychosocial rehabilitation.

Pascale earned her PhD in Psycho-Sociology from Lebanese University, focusing her dissertation on "Prisons in Lebanon Between Punishment and Reform and Their Social Repercussions." Her academic credentials also include a Master's in Sociology, a Mastery in Sociology-Social Services, and a Bachelor's in Social Work, all completed with distinction.

Zeina Ismail Allouche (Ph.D.), Director of Partnerships and Program Development and Manager of CSLP

Zeina Ismail Allouche has a PHD in Social Sciences and Arts with over 25 years of experience in the field of child protection, gender-based violence, and child trafficking for illegal transracial/international adoption practices. She has assumed leadership positions within numerous international organizations.

Zeina has contributed to international initiatives promoting family strengthening to prevent separation and lead integrated reform initiatives to reform the child protection sector in many countries. She collaborated with Georgetown University to design and deliver a child protection specialist training program with a focus on interdisciplinary and comprehensive case management. She developed a policy on child protection for media (UNICEF Lebanon).

An oral history/autoethnography storyteller and performer, Zeina is grounded in Indigenous methodologies and decolonized research practice. She contributed to various publications advocating for child protection, with a specific focus on gender-based Violence, transracial/international adoption, child protection in the media, and the rights of children without parental care.