Inspiring Women Magazine September 2021

September 2021, Volume 5 Issue 3

profiles
7
CONTENTS
Helping Refugees Settle in the US
Kristen Bloom set up a non-profit to
help refugees settle in better.
13
“Changing the World, One
PowerPoint Slide at a Time!” Sue
England on running Human Rights Law
training for women.
20
27
Organizing the
Women’s
March in
Norway Karin
Blake helped
organize the
Norwegian
protests.
From Pastry to Protests Lindsay
Nygren started in the kitchen but now helps
develop safer cities for women.
39
46
“Justice is Truth in Action” Kelsey
McKay stands up for victims with her
work for RESPOND Against Violence.
The Righting
of Wrongs
Wherever
Possible Rena
Levin on how
she got into
activism.
32
Working to
Support
Refugees Ann
Birot-Salsbury tells
us how she got
involved in the
FAWCO Refugee
Network.
52
56
I Decided to Become a Lawyer
When I Was Only Nine! Lauren
Mescon on her journey into law and
the courts.
The Gentle Touch of Hands-on
Help Ulrike Näumann does what she
can for the refugees she meets.
2

features
11
The UN
Sustainable
Development
Goals and Justice
Katja
Malinowski
explains how
important justice
is for the SDGs.
19 Introducing the FAWCO Human
Rights Team Karen Castellon on what
the team does.
36
43
What is Justice?
The FAWCO Human
Rights Team
answers this tricky
question.
Justice is About Transformation
Learn more about Ascend: Leadership
through Athletics, which was given a
FAWCO Foundation Development Grant
in 2021.
24
Stand Up with
Hope—Five Years
Later Mary
Adams coauthored
a book
about human
trafficking victims.
She looks back on
the experience.
49
55
A Club Inspires
AWA Vienna,
Austria.
Why Did I Join The HR Team?
FAWCO HR Team members share their
motivations for involvement in the
team.
30 Legitimation Station Lauren Mescon
explains what the Legitimation Station is all
about.
in every issue
4
Our Advertisers
59
Inspiring You
5
A Note from the Editor
Liz MacNiven
60
More About This Issue
6
Working Toward An Equitable
World For All More about what you
can find in this issue from Elsie Bose.
61
62
Coming November 18
That’s Inspired!
3

advertisers index
We appreciate the support of our advertisers!
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London & Capital p.18 London & Capital is a sponsor for the FAWCO Human Rights in Focus November
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Lauren Mescon, Rodan + Fields p.56 Lauren, member of AWC Amsterdam, works with the no. 1
premium skincare brand in North America, Rodan + Fields, offering you the best skin of your life.
Ponte Travels p.31 Ponte Travel Operating Director and FAWCO member
Mary Stange offer customized service and exclusive access to the world’s
most fascinating places while working responsibly to give back to local
economies.
Janet Darrow Real Estate p.10 Around the corner or a world away,
contact Janet Darrow, FAUSA member, to find the best properties. FAWCO
member referrals to Janet help the Target Program. Her hard work has
paid off in a big way to the Target Project fundraising campaign, a win-win
for all.
The Pajama Company p.54 The Pajama Company, founded by Ellie
Badanes, member of FAUSA and AW Surrey, sells pajamas that are cozy,
cheerful and online!
Yummylicious Serums, Paris p. 15 Yummylicious Serums are an ecofriendly,
pure, all organic and all natural line of healthy serums for our skin
and hair designed by AWG Paris member, Kristina Soleymanlou.
Throughout the years FAWCO has relied on advertisers and sponsors to augment its
income. This revenue has allowed FAWCO to improve services and the flexibility to try the latest
innovations to enhance the FAWCO experience. FAWCO’s advertising partners believe in our
mission and support our goals. Some directly support our activities and
projects.
We encourage club leadership throughout the FAWCO network to share our
publications with their membership. Please support them! Our advertising
partners have valuable products and services and we want your members to
take advantage of what they offer. For more information on these
advertisers or if you have any questions about FAWCO’s advertising program, please contact
Elsie Bose: advertising@fawco.org.
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“W
e must be the
change we wish
to see in the
world.” Gandhi
A Note from
the Editor
When the Inspiring Women team is considering
what themes we should have for our next issues,
we never quite know who is out there in the
FAWCO world. In other words, will there be
enough women to feature? But time after time we
are happily surprised to find that there are FAWCO
women who are involved whichever different field
we have chosen, and of course they are inspiring.
The women in this issue are without doubt an
awesome group. They go the extra mile to “be the
change we wish to see in the world”. Where they
see wrongs, they do their best to fight for justice.
Where they see people, and especially women,
mistreated, they work to improve their lot. They
aren’t fazed by the idea that as an individual
woman they might not be able to make a
difference. They just get on and do it.
I am sure that you, like me, will be in awe and
humbled by their stories. It can be hard not to feel
slightly inadequate yourself when you read about
them! So I would like to encourage you to put
those thoughts to one side. They are not going to
help you, let alone the world!
Instead let’s think about Gandhi’s words and what
WE can do to change things in our own
communities. It doesn’t have to be setting up a
non-profit organisation like Kristen, or training
people in matters of law like Sue, or organising
women’s marches like Karin and Rena, or
designing safer cities like Lindsay, or working with
refugees like Ann and Ulrike, or standing up for
victims of violence like Kelsey or becoming a
lawyer and judge like Lauren.
Maybe there is
something you can do
in your neighbourhood,
or in your home or
family that would
change the world for
the better. Perhaps
that is something you
have already done in
the fight for justice and
change, or perhaps it is
something you could
consider doing at some
point in the future.
Whatever it is, remember that however small an
action, it really is or will be part of “the change we
wish to see in the world”, and so it is well worth
doing and makes YOU awesome, too! It is my firm
belief that ALL FAWCO women are inspiring in
some way or other!
I hope you enjoy reading the profiles and features.
Please do let us know what you think by
completing our survey (p.58) or sending me your
thoughts at inspiringwomen.editor@fawco.org
Liz x
Liz MacNiven,
inspiringwomen.editor@fawco.org
5

Working Toward
An Equitable World
For All
Inspiring Women Magazine Founder, Elsie Bose
introduces our justice theme.
I am not a lawyer so the definitive answer to “What
is Justice?” will not be found on this page. To me it
means an equal and balanced distribution of the
rule of law. Fairness - a concept so easy to
understand and yet seemingly so incredibly hard
to achieve.
Justice was selected as one of the themes for the
2021 issues of Inspiring Women in the latter part
of 2020. George Floyd was murdered in May of
that year. This horrific incident brought the Black
Lives Matter movement to a crescendo and the
tympanic roar for justice resounded around the
world. How the rule of law would be disseminated
would be a crucial measure of how we value this
basic human right now and in the future. Would
the outcome help bring the systemic change
needed to move all of us to a more perfect union,
universe? The trial is over yet I am still not
sure. There is a great deal of hard work ahead
before those who are marginalized feel
comfortable using the full throttle of their voices
in the conversation about equality and justice.
However, I am personally inspired that the future
has a chance to make these changes after reading
the profiles and features in this issue. The women
profiled are “on the ground” dealing with the most
difficult issues and situations: refugees and
immigration policy, women’s rights, discrimination
in education as a barrier to equality, and sexual
violence against women, to highlight a few. And
because justice is at its best when there is a
balance in the distribution of the rule of law, a
program for fathers’ rights.
A bandage will not fix the imbalance. Success will
be achieved by taking the “long view.” Advocating
for good laws and implementing thoughtful
policies will change the system. Educating the
public will reduce fears and dispel myths. Hard
work will bring acceptance.
There is no specific career path that allows one to
arrive at a solution to these challenges. These
women come from various educational and
cultural backgrounds; they are lawyers, educators,
activists, and innovators. But no matter how they
started their journey and where it has taken them,
they all want to achieve the same thing - a better,
more equitable world for everyone.
Elsie
advertising@fawco.org
6

PROFILE
Helping Refugees
Settle in the US
Kristen Bloom, a member of
FAUSA, could see that refugees
arriving in the US were struggling,
so she set up a non-profit to help
them.
I grew up in North Adams, Massachusetts. I lived
in the same house from the day I was born until
the day I left for college. I loved living in my small
town. We didn’t have much family in the area, so
our friends became our family. I loved going to
school with the same kids my whole life and
always seeing someone I knew at the grocery
store. I didn’t realize how special that was until I
left. My dad owned a stained-glass restoration
studio which often hosted visiting artists from
around the world. Because the studio was in our
backyard, the artists frequently stayed at our
house for periods.
When I look back on my childhood, I think a lot
about the times spent with these visiting artists. I
remember my friends coming over and thinking it
was strange that we always had people from
around the world living with us, but I thought it
was so cool! Meeting all of those artists really
sparked in me a love of connecting with others
and getting to know someone who is “different”
than me. That desire for connection has stayed
with me and is the main reason I started my own
non-profit.
Leaving home
Kristen Bloom
I left home when I was 18 to go to college at
American University in Washington, D.C. My
parents moved to CA during my sophomore year
of college. I was heartbroken to say goodbye to
my childhood home. I still consider North Adams
my home and always will.
I studied abroad in Santiago, Chile during my
junior year of college and was lucky enough to
have the opportunity to visit both Brazil and
Argentina during that time. After graduation, I
served as a Youth Development Peace Corps
Volunteer in Peru where I lived in a rural
community at 8,000 feet of elevation and worked
in the schools and health center.
From Peru, I came back to the United States
briefly to get married, and four days later, my
husband and I flew to Okinawa, Japan where we
lived for four years. I taught ESL in Japan. We
absolutely loved it there! My husband is an Officer
in the Air Force. We have moved nine times in the
past 16 years – quite a contrast from my
childhood! We have also lived in Oklahoma, Texas,
Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Although
challenging in many ways, I never could have
imagined how much moving around so much
would enrich my life.
My life today
Kristen with her family
I currently live in Tampa, Florida with my
husband, eight-year-old son, five-year-old
7

that drives my work. Leveling the playing field
toward the balance of justice is something that
deeply motivates me.
Where did it start?
I have always been concerned with fairness. As a
kid I remember my mom always saying “even
Steven” so maybe that’s where I got it! I see this
concern for fairness in my kids, too. Although at
times it drives me crazy (e.g. arguing over who got
more treats), I see their sense of justice coming
out in positive ways, too.
Our family on vacation
daughter and our two cats (who we got in Japan!).
This is our second time living in Florida with the Air
Force. The first time was in Miami and while living
there, I started a non-profit organization called
Refugee Assistance Alliance (RAA). RAA helps
refugees from the Middle East, Asia and Africa
learn English and navigate their new lives in the
US. Starting over can be overwhelming, isolating
and lonely, especially in a new language and
culture, so we pair refugees with local volunteers
and have seen many incredible relationships form
from these pairings.
Although we do not live in Miami anymore, I still
run the organization. My husband and I are both
from the North, so we think it’s funny that our
whole Air Force career has been in warm climates.
New England is my happy place, but I don’t think I
could survive there anymore! We have been in
Tampa for two years, and we really love it here.
We love living in a place where we can be outside
365 days a year.
My eight-year-old won a pair of tickets to the zoo
and asked me if he could give them back to school
because “we already have a membership, and
some kids have never been to the zoo.” Parenting
books advise that our kids will not remember what
we say, but they will always remember what we
do. In that moment I felt this so strongly. I can talk
about fairness and justice all day, but it is the work
they see me doing every day that is really teaching
the lesson.
Getting involved
I think I have always looked for ways to help the
underdog – either a person or group I felt was not
getting what they deserved. As a Peace Corps
Volunteer, I focused most of my efforts on helping
young girls in my community because I saw so
many of them not going to school or getting the
same opportunities as their brothers.
When I met some Syrian refugees in Miami, I was
shocked to hear they were not getting the services
they were entitled to just because they don’t speak
English or Spanish and didn’t know how to access
those services. I was compelled to help because it
didn’t feel fair. I didn’t want them to feel isolated
My definition of justice
I think of justice in terms of fairness and respect.
For me, justice goes hand in hand with equity and
recognizing that we are not all starting out from
the same place. Just because someone is given
additional assistance does not imply that it is
unfair or unjust: not everyone is afforded the
same resources from the outset.
I am constantly thinking about how life
circumstances play such a key role in access to
opportunity. It is something that really struck me
while living in the rural mountains of Peru where
so many of the families I worked with lived in
poverty. Thinking about access to opportunity and
how it is affected by life circumstances is a concept
With some of the RAA refugees
8

or without assistance, so I established a non-profit
organization to help them learn English and to
navigate their new life in the US.
Concerns for today
My biggest concern today revolves around my
work with refugees. Refugee resettlement in the
United States has always had bipartisan support
and, in fact, more refugees have been admitted
under Republican Presidents than Democratic
ones. However, in the past four years, refugee
resettlement has become very politicized.
The refugee admissions cap, traditionally around
100,000 per year, was slashed from 85,000 to
15,000 between FY2016 (Fiscal Year) and 2020,
which gutted and dismantled the resettlement
system. The US has always been a leader in
welcoming refugees and offering a safe haven
from the atrocities they have suffered. We have
been a beacon of hope for so many.
However, when refugee admission becomes a
political matter, it has a profoundly negative
impact on so many individual lives. I think that the
government should pass legislation to create a
fixed refugee admission cap, so that these
innocent people are not caught in the middle of a
political battle.
Injustice issues today
Many readers are probably familiar with the fact
that we are in the middle of the worst refugee
crisis in history right now, but one thing they
Taste of Syria event
might not know is that of the 26 million refugees
worldwide, less than 1% are actually offered
resettlement worldwide.
The US typically takes the most vulnerable cases,
yet the majority of refugees coming to our country
only receive assistance for three to six months;
they are then left on their own even though many
still cannot speak our language or navigate their
lives! Can you imagine?!
On top of that, refugees entering the US start their
life in debt because their plane ticket to the US is a
loan. Refugees have been through more in a few
years than most of us experience in a lifetime.
They do not expect to come to the US to find life
even more difficult and isolating.
A life goal I have!
I tell everyone my goal in life is to meet Michelle
Obama. Although I do have other goals, I would
love to meet her. If any readers out there know
her, please introduce me! I love her authenticity.
At my non-profit organization, we often say, “it’s
harder to hate up close.” I believe this to my core,
and it is the main reason I have dedicated so
much of my career to cross-cultural
understanding and really getting to know people
for who they are. I think so many of our
differences could be resolved if we only took the
time to listen and get to know someone from the
“other” side.
I would ask Mrs. Obama how we could connect
people to help them really understand someone
who is “different” from them. I’m ready to help
make those connections, to help people discover
our shared humanity.
Waving a magic wand
At an Refugee Assistance Alliance event
I wish I could magically be in more than one place
at once – or at least travel anywhere I want at any
time. Through my many moves and travels
around the world, I have met some really
incredible people who have had a profound
impact on my life. Although I love exploring new
9

places, it can be really hard to start all over
somewhere. This is the main reason I felt
compelled to help the refugees I met. Although I
have never experienced the trauma they have
been through, I do know a lot about having to
start over. It is hard and can be so lonely and
isolating. I have many people all around the world
who I love dearly, and I wish I could magically see
them any time I want.
Pulling silly faces
We’re Inspired.
Former AWA Vienna and current FAUSA member, Janet Darrow, is one of
the hottest real estate agents in Southern California! And FAWCO is so
fortunate to have her support. Janet pledged 5% from her
commissions on any transaction that closes because of a FAWCO
referral to the FAWCO Target Project, “Project S.A.F.E.”.
With her recent donation of $5,000, Janet has personally donated
close to $10,000!
10

PROFILE FEATURE
The UN Sustainable Development
Goals and Justice
Katja Malinowski, AWC Berlin member, explains how important justice
is in the context of the SDGs.
Justice for all
The adoption of this global commitment to
promote access to justice for all and a stand-alone
commitment to gender equality and the
empowerment of women and girls (SDG 5) were
revolutionary. These goals recognize that there
can be no justice for all without justice for
women. Equal and effective justice for women
and girls provides a foundation for more
sustainable and inclusive patterns of
development and is essential to reaching the
furthest behind. Among the 12 targets for SDG 16,
there are six gender-specific indicators.
Every year I ask my students which SDG they
believe to be the most important one; many of
them immediately say SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and
Strong Institutions. One of my inspiring students
explains that SDG 16 is like a moral compass for
all other goals. Any and all development is only
moral and sustainable if it builds on just and
equitable systems. It’s at the heart of the “leave
no one behind” mission because strengthened
institutions are only valuable when everyone has
equal access to them. Essentially, all plans for
progress in achieving the goals by 2030 rely on
the right institutions for implementation and
systems for maintenance. When those institutions
and systems aren't equitable and are weak,
advancements and plans will achieve little.
Adopting SDG 16
When all 193 UN member states adopted the
2030 Agenda in 2015, they included SDG 16, a
goal that seeks to create peaceful, just and
inclusive societies. Such an overarching ambition
was unprecedented as it was not included in the
Millennium Development Goals, predecessor to
the SDGs. However, there was no clear path to
how this aspirational goal should be implemented
and no agreement on how to turn it into an
agenda for action.
11

ole in preventing conflict and forging and
maintaining peace and justice; this is why it is
crucial to bring women to the peace table to back
their engagement as mediators, negotiators and
signatories. Yet, women are still excluded from the
formal peace processes. And if women do raise
their voices against injustice and human rights
violations, they often pay with their lives.
The global challenges we face today all come with
an ethical and moral dimension from climate
justice to vaccine justice. How can we achieve a
sustainable world and overcome the challenges of
COVID-19 if we don’t ensure equality and equal
access to vaccines, especially for those in
developing countries?
The importance of SDG 16 for FAWCO
Although feminist movements around the world
have achieved a significant transformation in
women's legal rights over the last century, we are
regularly confronted with the harsh reality that the
laws that exist on paper do not translate to
equality and justice. Without fair and effective
institutions to access justice and essential services,
instability and injustice spread and discrimination
is exacerbated. In both developing and developed
countries, institutions continue to fail women and
girls, especially through impunity for genderbased
violence. This is precisely why SDG 16 plays
such a central role for FAWCO. These issues are
close to FAWCO’s heart as we can see in many
global initiatives and the Target projects.
What can you do?
One of my favorite quotes that is associated
with Robert F. Kennedy says: “Some men see
things as they are, and ask why. I dream of
things that never were, and ask why not.” On
behalf of FAWCO’s SDG Awareness Team, I ask
us all to take action now! Will we really live in a
peaceful and just world if we achieve all 17
goals? We can only hope so. By fully protecting
women's rights, peaceful and inclusive societies
will be within reach. “There can be no
sustainable development without peace [and
justice] and no peace without sustainable
development.“ (https://
sdgs.un.org/2030agenda)
COVID-19 Impacts
The impacts of COVID-19 have proven how fragile
women’s rights and safety really are, with much of
the previous progress reversed. This is especially
apparent when we look at the intensification of
domestic violence during lockdown and how it has
become a shadow pandemic within the pandemic.
Too often women endure injustice but women are
far more than merely victims; they are essential
agents of change.
Justice is central to the effort to help women
become equal partners in decision-making and
development. Without justice, women are
disenfranchised and disempowered. But with
strong legal and justice systems, women can
flourish and contribute to the advancement of
society as a whole, including by helping to improve
those very same systems for future generations.
The role of women in the recovery
Women’s full and equal participation will be crucial
as the world turns it around and builds back
better from the pandemic. This is attributed in
part to a faster response by women leaders and
greater emphasis on social and environmental
well-being over time. Likewise, women play a vital
Katja Malinowski is a
teacher at an international
school in Berlin where she
puts the SDGs at the core
of her teaching as
TeachSDGs Ambassador
and newly appointed
Advocate for SDGs and
Education for Sustainable
Development by the Global
Schools Program, an
initiative of the UN
Sustainable Development
Solutions Network in support of UNESCO’s Global
Action Program on Education for Sustainable
Development (ESD). She is a member of AWC Berlin
and is a co-leader of FAWCO’s SDG Awareness Team,
alongside Alexandra Vo/De Jager (FAUSA) and
Meredith Mani (AWC Amsterdam) who are equally
passionate about raising awareness for the SDGs and
the Decade of Action and creating ripples of
transformative change in the FAWCO community.
12

PROFILE
“Changing the
World, One
PowerPoint Slide
at a Time!”
Sue England, member of Munich
International Women's Club, tells
us about her life and work
running sessions on human rights
law for women.
Sue England
I am Welsh by birth, but my family lived in
England where I went to school. Looking back, I
was very lucky to go to a very academic all-girls
school, I do not envy the young women now,
having to go to mixed schools and put up with so
much abuse (in June, there was big report on how
bad it is in all mixed schools in the UK). I loved
finding out about the world, history and
geography and got seduced by the idea of law.
A lot of the family had spread round the world, so
I felt part of the world, as well as seeing the
difference between Welsh and English cultures. A
really important thing was taking the opportunity
to learn Russian, with a woman who had been a
refugee from St. Petersburg in the Second World
War. This gave me a real way to touch another
culture, and her experiences of the war were
terrifying. Touching real history, I will never forget
all that. Of course later it gave me the opportunity
to study the law and economics of the post-Soviet
system and work for the EU in Ukraine.
Leaving home
I went to university at 17, no gap year for me (!),
studied law and became an attorney in short
order. I thought it was great and I enjoyed total
independence. After a few years in the UK
learning the trade, (see the baby lawyer setting off
to some meeting), I wanted to see more of the
world and went to study international law and
economics in Belgium, with students from all
over. New country, new culture, it was wonderful.
Working in international law
Then I was able to work for a legal firm
specialising in European Union law in Brussels,
and began to feel like a real European, in that
multi-national, highly political city. EU law is a type
of international law: this meant I could go on to
work in other countries, which I did, the US and
then Ukraine, because the wall had come down
and it was fascinating to see the changes really
happening, in Kiev and Moscow. Another swing
took me through Scotland (where I met my
German husband at the university at which we
both worked), Switzerland and now Germany,
teaching law. Now, I’m living with him in Bavaria, I
am semi-retired and have plenty of time to work
with FAWCO and other women’s organisations.
Early days as a young lawyer
13

Working on Human Rights with FAWCO
I work on the Justice and the Human Rights Team
running sessions on Human Rights Law for
Women, for non-lawyers. This began in February
2019 from MIWC and then moved online, because
of COVID-19. Now it’s all gone truly international,
we are on Series Seven and women come from
inside and outside FAWCO, they hear about it
through the grapevine. Women have come from
everywhere in the world, Canada to Australia,
Columbia to India and all places in between.
beginning to change then, and as a young liberal
woman I got many abused women as well as gays
and people who were trans coming to me, they
feared prejudice from the older, mainly male
lawyers. This was the time when women began to
go into the legal profession in bigger numbers, but
many of the older judges and lawyers were very
sexist. Some even made a fuss about women
wearing trousers in court (!) and all sorts of silly
stuff. I got to take cases for women using the new
domestic violence laws and also to help set up a
Women’s Refuge, which were new in the 1980s. It
was hard stuff to see, but so necessary. In one
case I was commended for bravery by a judge, for
trying to help a heavily pregnant women and
putting myself at risk of assault from her husband.
I think a lot of the male lawyers did not want to go
there, but they learned a bit, slowly. The system
for protection is still inadequate in most countries.
Getting involved in women’s justice issues
On a Zoom call
There are so many highly qualified and
experienced women and when we are all together
we can exchange information and create many
new ideas together. It’s a really good networking
thing. Women find it really useful for campaigning,
they grab useful legal rights and new ideas and go
back home with them. I call it my attempt to
‘Change the world, one PowerPoint slide at a time!’
The Autumn Series has recently started and lasts
until Christmas. The 60 minute live sessions are
available mornings or afternoons to cover as
many time zones as possible and it’s free of
course! Everybody is welcome you just have to
sign up! Email me at wettergruen@gmail.com for
more details and the registration details.
What is justice?
We will have justice when women are treated with
the same consideration and fairness as
men. When women have the same financial and
economic power as men. We are a long way off.
Getting interested in the field of justice
I was interested enough in the idea of justice to
train as a lawyer, but as well as doing commercial
work, I saw the push in the 1980s to begin to
tackle domestic violence. The laws in the UK were
Once I went to live and work in Brussels, I worked
for big business clients on commercial and trade
issues. My feminist interests switched to systemic
cases of disadvantage for women, as the
European Union was in the forefront of pushing
through better policies and laws for women
workers, equal pay, better pensions, and better
maternity policies. These policies were far in
advance of what the UK would have done on its
own and several of the other European countries
were pushed into having more women friendly
laws than they would have done on their
own. Getting it all actually working fully of course
is still an ongoing process.
What does the future hold?
The most really frightening new thing is the
focused effort to shut down women’s voices on
the Internet and political life. Women are fighting
this in the courts now, as so many political parties,
politicians (usually male) are uninterested or
actively colluding with this. It’s crucial of course,
women must have freedom of speech and access
to the media and social media. As I write in June,
there has been a very important success in a case
in the UK to protect women’s rights to free speech,
which should stop the regression. The decision
should have an effect internationally in the next
couple of years, and the first thing is women need
to get out there and use their voices again and not
let them be shut down another time!
But of course the biggest problem is the same old,
same old, violence of so many kinds against
women. The UN Secretary-General Guterres said
in early 2020 , “Violence against women and girls is
the most widespread human rights violation”.
A role for women
If we really want change, women have to get ‘not
nice’. Women have to stop putting others first. I
see so often women still do. Rule one, when I have
14

got what I need, then you can ask me to help
you. Women are not to be pushed to the end of
the policy queue as usual.
There is currently a huge upwelling of women’s
activities and new organisations are being
created, because of the backlash against
women’s rights that is going on, all over the
world. It’s a shame so many powerful
movements want to obliterate women’s rights,
but it’s woken many women up.
The COVID-19 effect
The damage to women’s jobs and financial
independence from the COVID-19 crisis pushed
women back to their homes and made it harder
to combine work and caring, whether they
simply lost their jobs or were disadvantaged
when they had to work at home compared to
men. It’d bad in Germany, but also, nearly as bad
in other countries too.
A couple of extra things about me:
1. I would love to be one of those people who
can magically pick up languages, knew one or
two people like that, it was quite astounding to
see. But it never rubbed off on me. Learning
languages is hard work for me.
2. One of my most treasured possessions is a
wonderful bright sculpture made from fabric and
embroidery that I bought from a craftswomen in
Ukraine. It cheers me up completely.
15

16

17

18

FEATURE
Introducing the FAWCO
Human Rights Team
Karen Castellon, member of AWC Berlin, explains how the FAWCO
Human Rights Team works.
Human Rights this was (originally signed on
December 10, 1948).
Over time the Human Rights Team has evolved to
include the committees on:
• Ending Violence Against Women
• FAWCO Refugee Network
• Political Empowerment for Women
• Economic Empowerment for Women
• Ending Human Trafficking.
The FAWCO Human Rights team comprises 30+
members from five regions and is chaired by
Karen Castellon, AWC Berlin. Ann Birot-Salsbury
(AAWE Paris) and Ulrike Naeumann (Heidelberg
IWC) lead the FAWCO Refugee Network.
The FAWCO Human Rights Team is a network of
advocates from FAWCO clubs, working to ensure
human rights for all women. The Team keeps
members aware of developments impacting
women’s rights through human rights articles,
postings, and other advocacy work. We also
engage FAWCO Members in awareness and action
campaigns, particularly the 16 Days of Activism
against Gender-based Violence. Our goal is to
leverage FAWCO’s unique strength as a global
women’s organization to help end violence and
discrimination against women and girls.
The Human Rights Team meets on a monthly
basis (except in July and August) to build
community with a focus on human rights issues of
the day. By knowing each other better, we hope
to foster a diverse range of voices to articulate
and discuss, learn and debate, and grow as
human beings who endeavor to improve the lives
of others who may not enjoy freedom of their
human rights.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, Gender
Equality, is the chosen SDG for the Human Rights
Team, while we fully acknowledge that all the
SDGs pertain to human rights.
The Human Rights Team is open to all FAWCO
Members wherever they live.
Click here to find out more.
Karen Castellon is a
native New Yorker (Staten
Island). After college she
moved to Venezuela to
become fluent in
Spanish. Following a brief
career marketing blood
pressure machines, she
earned an MBA at the
Darden School (University
of Virginia). She became
an executive coach after
10 years working in
corporate America.
Karen moved to Berlin,
Germany in 2016 with her family; highlights
include biking the path of the former Berlin Wall and
chairing USA Girl Scouts Overseas. As AWC Berlin's
FAWCO Rep., she coached many FAWCO Foundation
grant applicants and enjoys chairing the fierce
activism of the Human Rights Team. She recently
repatriated to Virginia, USA.
As a tradition, the Team promotes an annual
reading of the United Nations Declaration of
19

PROFILE
Organizing the
Women's March
in Norway
Karin Blake, member of AWC
Oslo, has been involved in politics
from a young age. Here she tells
us more about her life journey.
I grew up in Atlanta, GA though my family was not
originally from the South. My parents moved
there before I was born when my father got a job
as a medical epidemiologist at the CDC (Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention). He spent his
career investigating outbreaks of disease all over
the world.
All four of my grandparents were Methodist
missionaries in Africa. My mother’s parents left
Norway for Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), where my
mother was born. My father’s parents left the
American Midwest for Angola where my father
lived many of his childhood years.
Growing up in Georgia
You can’t grow up in Georgia without thinking
about race, and I first started thinking about it
when I was 10 years old. In 5th grade, I was
accepted to a new magnet school for highachieving
kids across DeKalb County, GA.
In our county, most of the white kids lived in the
With my twin brother, Andrew, and friend, Sarah in 1992
north, while most of the black kids lived in the
south. So one of the goals of the school was to
have an integrated student population, and there
were countless discussions on what percentage of
students should be white, black and other
minorities. But even in an integrated school, the
teachers found that we still segregated ourselves
into groups according to race.
At one point the teachers noticed that we tended
to sit only with students of the same race in the
cafeteria. So they required us to sit in integrated
groups at lunch. I have thought a lot about my
experiences at that school (which I attended
through 8th grade) in light of all of the current
discussions about race, police brutality, equal
representation, and voter suppression.
Leaving home
Karin Blake Granå
I attended a small, liberal arts school outside
Philadelphia, Haverford College, where I majored
in History. In 1997, I attended the International
Summer School at the University of Oslo and I felt
the pull to return to Norway after graduating from
college in 1999. The plan was to spend a year in
Bergen, then go to law school in the US. But I
stayed for two and a half years and attended
courses at the University of Bergen – first in the
Scandinavian Area Studies program, and then at
the Law Faculty. I lived in a dorm with
international students, and I loved it. I also
happened to meet my future husband there.
When my student visa ran out, I went back to
Atlanta for 14 months where I worked in a law
office and planned our wedding. We married in
2003 and have been living in Norway permanently
ever since.
20

Early years of marriage
We moved a lot in the first years of our marriage
while my husband was completing his medical
training. I had my hands full with two little boys.
We added a third boy to the mix in 2012. Our sons
are now 9, 15 and 17.
Having taken a break from working outside the
home when my oldest was born in 2004, I started
my own business, Stavanger Kids Sale, in
Stavanger, Norway in 2008, which I continue to
run to this day. This is a consignment sale through
which parents can sell and buy gently used
clothes, gears, toys and more for their kids. I
arrange two weekend sales a year – in the spring
and fall. During COVID-19, we modified the sale by
selling items in an online pop-up shop. The
customers purchased the items online then picked
up their orders outside our sale location.
I love my job as it gives me the flexibility to work
from home and be there for my kids. It also
means I have time to devote to volunteer work. It
is a fulfilling job as I help families earn money on
the items their kids have outgrown, and also save
money by purchasing gently used items at bargain
prices. We are teaching our kids to think of the
environment and that it is okay – and cool – to buy
second hand.
I worked in Human Resources at NATO’s Joint
Warfare Center in Stavanger in 2010-2011. But
since we moved to Oslo in 2011, my focus (aside
from my family) has been on my sale and my
volunteer work.
Our family, 2019
Joining AWC Oslo
I joined American Women’s Club of Oslo in 2011
and quickly became active in the club. Rena Levin
and I became good friends when we served
together on the board from 2013-2015 – Rena was
President, and I was first VP. Rena and I have since
volunteered together with Democrats Abroad
Norway, PAAL, and Women’s March Norway. We
have the AWC of Oslo to thank for bringing us
together. In fact, three of the five people who
organized the first women’s march in Oslo met
each other through the AWC!
What is justice?
Justice means that all people should be able to
have a life of dignity and to reach their full
potential regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, religion, age, or the community in
which they live. I also believe that justice means
that everyone should have access to quality health
care, education, and a healthy environment.
Early connections to the Justice world
I come from a politically engaged family and have
been passionate about politics since elementary
school. From an early age, I believed that to
achieve justice we needed competent and caring
people running the government. We discussed
politics at the dinner table. I proudly wore a
Mondale/Ferraro sticker to school in the second
grade. I went with my family to put leaflets in
mailboxes for a candidate for Congress.
Working at Stavanger Kids Sale
The church I attended from birth – North Decatur
Presbyterian Church – also shaped my views on
justice. The progressive congregation at NDPC is
deeply committed to justice and service. I
participated in the Hunger Walk and served food
at homeless shelters. The announcements during
the weekly services always included ways to
become politically active (marches, protests, letterwriting
campaigns) and volunteer opportunities to
21

help families in need. They didn’t just talk the talk,
they walked the walk.
Making a Difference
My interest and participation in justice issues took
off in high school. I was bitten by the campaign
bug at age 15 after completing an internship for a
US Congressional candidate. When he lost the
Primary election, I spent my weekends in the city
volunteering for the Clinton/Gore campaign,
handing out stickers and leaflets at local events,
and phone-banking. I recognized the power of
each vote. I couldn’t yet vote but I could convince
others to vote for my candidates. And that’s how I
could make a difference.
One of the most formative experiences of my life
was working on Comer Yates’ US Congressional
campaign in 1994. I was only 17, but Comer
entrusted me with a lot of responsibility both in
the office and at campaign events. It was this
experience that taught me how to network,
organize, and plan events – skills that I use in my
current job running a children’s consignment sale,
as well as in all the volunteer work I do. Comer
and his wife, Sally, believed in me, gave me
confidence in myself and my abilities, and were
supportive of all my endeavors. They both have a
strong commitment to social justice and to serving
the community, and to this day, they continue to
inspire me to keep on fighting for what I believe in.
With my mentor, Comer Yates in 2019
A passion for politics
My passion for politics and justice has not waned.
I returned to the US to participate in one large
protest there – the Women’s March on
Washington in January 2017. But since living in
Norway, I have found new ways to contribute and
make a difference through volunteer work in Oslo.
For example, I am involved in the Progressive
Americans Action League (PAAL) in Oslo. We are
engaged in local Norwegian community issues as
well as US and international politics.
Campaigning in Norway
The Women’s March, Norway
I sit on the board of Women’s March Norway.
(WMN). Together with five other women, we have
organized three large marches in Oslo since 2017
as well as a workshop to help other groups use
social media to promote their causes. Our focus is
on promoting equality, justice, and human rights
worldwide while also drawing attention to the
ways in which Norway could improve its standing
in these areas. We use our platform to promote
other groups whose ideals align with ours, and we
participate in the Oslo Pride parade, the
International Women’s Day march, in addition to
other protests and marches in Oslo.
I remain very interested in US politics, and were I
living in the US, I would be working on campaigns.
Through Democrats Abroad Norway (DAN), I have
done phone-banking to help mobilize Democrats
living abroad to vote in the elections, and I have
volunteered at DAN events. I recently chaired the
Nominations and Elections Committee which ran
the board elections for Norway.
Working on the WMN team
One reason that our Women’s March Norway
team works so well together is that we divide up
the work according to our strengths. As a team,
we generate ideas and plan events. But I am
specifically in charge of making videos and
graphics for social media and posters as well as
developing our overall social media plan (including
advertising and promoting our events). I gave a
talk about graphic design at our social media
workshop. I am extremely detail-oriented, so the
team is happy for me to take on these tasks!
22

them where they are. Many migrants and refugees
are leaving their countries due to war,
persecution, severe poverty, and climate disasters.
Seeking asylum is a human right, and, in my
opinion, sending money isn’t a solution to this
humanitarian problem.
What would I change from the past?
Marching at the Pride Parade
Event planning
I am an event planner by profession so these skills
come in handy when I plan the AWC of Oslo’s
American Christmas Market. Leading up the event,
I spend my days communicating with vendors,
scheduling volunteers, promoting the event on
social media, and making sure everything will run
smoothly. This past year we were unable to have
an indoor market due to COVID-19 so I put the
market online, customers picked up their items
outside the location where we hold our indoor
Christmas Market. We set up a raffle and bake
sale outside to raise money for the scholarship we
give every other year and for the Oslo Crisis
Center. Despite COVID-19, we made it work!
Can I erase COVID-19? While we have been stuck
at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have
thought a lot about all of the things I have done in
my life. And fortunately, I have few regrets. I am
very thankful for my education, my friends and
family, the traveling I have done, and the
experiences I have had. I am happy with my life in
Norway, and so glad that (outside of COVID-19) I
have the chance to travel back to the US one or
two times a year to see family and friends and
show our kids my home country. I do my best to
let people know how much they mean to me and
how much I appreciate them. I am looking forward
to seeing my family in the US again, hanging out
with friends, participating in all of my usual
activities (including many with my AWC friends),
going to concerts, and traveling.
What would I change about me?
If I could, I would clone myself. There are so many
things I want to do and many more ways in which I
would like to offer my time and skills. But there
are only so many hours in a day, and I do not get
enough sleep as it is.
My biggest concerns today
I am very concerned about the rise of extremism
and the spread of disinformation not only in the
US but around the world. It is frustrating that so
many people distrust the government, do not
believe in science, and argue that climate change
is not real. Grassroots organizing is the key to
educating people and mobilizing them to vote so
that we have the best representation in
government – from local races like the school
board all the way up to President.
I am also worried about the measures many state
governments are trying to put in place to restrict
voting access. It means that we will need to fight
that much harder to get these voters to the polls.
Injustices in Norway
While Norway tends to give generously to the
international community, I have been
disappointed in their response to the refugee
crisis in Europe. Here, too, there is a rise in
extremism, Islamophobia, and anti-immigrant
sentiments. There is a segment of the population
that thinks that instead of allowing refugees to
come to Norway, we should give money to help
At the Women’s March in Washington
23

FEATURE
Stand Up with Hope
— Five Years Later
Mary Adams, member of AWC The Hague, co-wrote a book, Hope is the
Thing with Feathers, as part of a FAWCO-led symposium in Human
Trafficking. Five years on she looks back on the experience.
In 2016, FAWCO and the FAWCO Foundation
jointly sponsored the Stand Up Against Human
Trafficking Symposium in The Hague in support of
the 2013-2016 Target project. Johanna Dishongh,
Target Chair, and I designed and managed the
event with Coordinator Julie Mowat and the
support of FAWCO club members.
My-Linh Kunst was the emcee for presenters on
sex trafficking. She had an idea to create a
companion book called Portraits of Hope. We
discussed the idea with author Robin Goldsby and
the book was born. I was the project manager to
develop/conduct interviews. Teresa Mahoney
(AWC The Hague) led the creative team for design.
The book was self-published with the help of
sponsors Johanna Dishongh and Dr. Donna
Adams. Hope is the Thing with Feathers was an
instant success during the Symposium.
After the Symposium, the book gradually faded
into the bookshelf. However, the impact it had on
me became even stronger. I eventually founded
Sustainable Rescue Foundation. I am still in
contact with most of the Symposium speakers. I
24

ealized that their stories hadn’t ended. Why
should the book? Would it be possible to republish
and re-launch the book?
Recently I (MKA) interviewed My-Linh (MLK) and
Robin (RGM) to talk about our experiences in
creating the book and share the impact of the
FAWCO Symposium in human trafficking five
years later.
The Concept
RMG: The original title of the book was Portraits of
Hope. It was an accurate title, but it seemed cliché.
I stumbled across the Emily Dickinson poem and
thought this is exactly what we are talking about!
How fleeting and elusive hope can sometimes be,
like birds and feathers that drift away and come
back to you.
MKA: That gave me the idea to use the image of
survivors holding feathers.
RMG: Little did we know that My-Linh had a
problem with handling feathers!
The Impact on Us
MLK: I had never met an actual survivor. They
didn’t look like what I had imagined. What I saw
was women of all ages. After the Symposium, I got
more involved in preventing sex trafficking. I am
now the regional advisor for Germany for an
organization that works with Vietnamese
trafficking victims in Europe. Reading the book
and donating is a great way to engage and make a
difference.
RMG: The story about the hotel workers really
opened my eyes. How could a hotel room could
be rented out for a single day with one woman
servicing thirty-five clients? I work in the
hospitality industry. I play piano in a luxury hotel
where the staff takes care not to confront guests.
Now I wonder how many hotels have trafficking
awareness training programs. Awareness and
engagement are the two takeaway words from
reading the book.
The Pictures
RMG: We need to be aware that trafficking
happens and that it continues to grow as a global
problem. My-Linh’s pictures give a face to human
trafficking.
MLK: The book represents an entire spectrum of
faces. Policymakers and academia were
comfortable to strike a pose, however not so for
the social workers. I remember the two mentors
from the Amsterdam care facility were shy at first,
but eventually relaxed in front of the camera.
Most of the survivors were not at all comfortable
being photographed.
The most memorable shoot for me was with three
survivors at the Rotterdam safehouse who were
willing to show their faces. There was one survivor
from Albania who just bloomed as she became
comfortable in front of the camera. I enjoyed
seeing that gradual empowerment.
MKA: The caseworker at the Bijlmer -
Bridge2Hope project arranged for seven Nigerian
survivors to be interviewed and photographed.
When we arrived, a few women were clustered
around the caseworker. Initially, they wanted
nothing to do with us. It took time, but eventually
some of the women agreed to be part of the
project if we did not show their faces.
MLK: I remember that shoot. I felt bad holding my
camera because it seemed like exploitation. I
didn’t expect to get any pictures that day. But
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when it finally happened, it was magical.
MKA: One of the Nigerian survivors is now on the
staff of Bridge2Hope Academy, and has posted
My-Linh’s photographs on their website as a
symbol of hope. In 2020, the Academy was
awarded a development grant. In fact, another
featured social worker and social entrepreneur in
the book, Not for Sale, was awarded a
development grant in 2019. Both nominating
clubs, AWC Amsterdam and AWC The Hague,
continue the philanthropic relationships.
Hope is the Thing with Feathers will be launched
with the upcoming Human Rights in Focus
online event November 4-7, as an e-book. It
will be available from the FAWCO website with
a suggested minimum donation of $20 per
copy. The money raised will be used to fund a
FAWCO human rights development grant.
Click here to get the book.
Robin Goldsby is an
author and Grammynominated
lyricist, and
member of AWC Cologne.
As a Steinway Artist, she
is a cultural ambassador
with artistic ties to both
Europe and the USA. Robin
has presented her
reading/concert program
for numerous FAWCO
clubs worldwide.
www.goldsby.de
26
Mary Adams worked
for 25 years in
management
consulting. In 2015, she
left consulting to
become more involved
in human rights for
women. She was
FAWCO Foundation VP
of Fundraising from
2015 – 2017. Currently
she is Director and
Founder of Sustainable
Rescue Foundation and
a member of AWC The
Hague.
My-Linh Kunst is a
former two-term
FAWCO President and
member of AWC Berlin.
A published and
exhibited
photographer, she also
works as an adjunct
professor in business
administration. She cofounded
FAWCO's
Ending Violence against
Women Task Force
(2008), and co-chairs
the Human Rights in
Focus FAWCO Event to be held in November 2021.

PROFILE
From Pastry to
Protests
Lindsay Nygren, member of AWC
Central Scotland, started in
restaurant management but
today works with the YWCA in
Scotland developing safer cities
for women.
Lindsay Nygren
I grew up in Tucson, AZ as an active child. I was
involved in numerous sports and activities from
ballet, tennis, and swimming to helping at the
church with my mom. For most of my life it’s been
my mom and me. She always ensured I went after
what I wanted and encouraged me to follow my
passions, even if I suspect they probably scared
her at times.
I remember my first taste of international travel
and volunteering. I was 15 in high school and
there was a presentation for Amigos de las
Americas. It piqued my interest to travel to
Central America and live with a community to
As a young girl at our ranch in Mexico
support their chosen project. The summer of
2009 I traveled to Honduras to live with a host
family and teach about environmental
sustainability in the elementary school. For five
weeks I had no contact with my mom or the
outside world, so it came as a surprise when the
coordinator told us we were being evacuated due
to a military coup! I made it home safely and this
experience contributed to opening my world view
and was a jumpstart to my desire to be more
culturally aware.
Leaving home
I attended university at New Mexico State
University where I studied hospitality
management with a focus on culinary arts and
restaurants. During this time, I had the
opportunity to study abroad for two semesters in
South Korea and a summer in Florence, Italy in an
intensive pastry program. I worked at a local
restaurant and cafés back home both in the
kitchen and in marketing before deciding to
pursue a master’s degree. Since then, I have lived
in Ireland and France, constantly working with the
universities to support international and minority
students as an ambassador and mentor.
As an international student myself, I know the
struggles of culture shock and coming into a
community or culture without knowing a friendly
face. While in Ireland, I worked as a teacher’s
assistant in the business school, as a resident
assistant in the international dorms, and for
Education in Ireland to promote Ireland as a study
destination for foreign students. Interacting with
students daily was a highlight of my day, and I
loved getting to know about their cultures and
experiences of being abroad.
27

Starting early!
Me during my Korean Culinary Scholarship
Time for a change
After being in restaurant management I realized
that I needed to be more involved in change. I
have always loved volunteering and being involved
in my community because of the diverse missions
I could help with and the people I would meet. I
found I devoted more of my energy to promoting
equal access opportunities as a volunteer than I
ever did in my restaurant work.
I changed paths and enrolled in the Education,
Public Policy, and Equity master’s program at the
University of Glasgow in 2019 where I focused on
discrimination within education. I have continued
this research as a PhD and am focusing on racial
and cultural discrimination in higher education.
My mom tells me that even as a kid I had a strong
sense of what was fair. This ingrained feeling has
propelled me to be involved in different roles with
the strongest taking shape through international
education. I was always surrounded by a culturally
diverse community. My family is from Mexico, with
my mom being first generation American, so I
grew up appreciating the different cultures that
make up the US. I had a fascination with anything
international, so I jumped at the chance to go
abroad with a purpose in high school. My need to
be involved came as a response to witnessing the
unfair treatment of those who are foreign. I never
saw a just reason for why some of my classmates
were treated differently or ignored for not being
from the US or not being able to communicate as
easily in English. This was the catalyst that started
my passion for international education and
inclusion work.
Getting involved
My first step towards being involved in justice was
by chance. A presentation at my high school led to
my becoming part of a larger organization focused
on sustainable projects within Central and South
American communities. Since that first
independent trip to Honduras, I have been
focused on community inclusiveness and
belonging. Experiencing culture shock and
overcoming it through the warmth of my host
community helped me to thrive and since then I
have made it a personal mission to stay involved
in the international community, whether that has
been refugees, asylum seekers, or international
students. All have received acts of injustice and
discrimination, and I am passionate about
overcoming these through involvement in a
positive education process.
For the past 10 years I have served as an
ambassador and mentor to international and
minority students. Currently I am working with
YWCA – Scotland to make Glasgow a safer city for
women through feminist town planning. In
between this project, academic research, and
FAWCO, I still take every chance to explore more
of Scotland (when traveling is allowed!).
What is justice?
I’ve always considered myself to have a strong
sense of what’s fair. In my definition of justice, I
must associate it with equity and fairness. Justice
to me is the action of treating everyone with
fairness, dignity, and respect, regardless of their
race, gender, sexuality, or socioeconomic status. I
believe that justice can really only be achieved
when both sides come together without
underlying conditions or personal reasoning to
treat one another differently to gain an upper
hand or advantage.
As student ambassador in Ireland
28

abroad has given me an appreciation for other
cultures and experiences. I believe that how we
perceive and teach culture is essential to promote
understanding and widen individual perspective
beyond our own.
Daily life
I’ve learned through my involvement in justice that
no task is too small or insignificant. I like being
involved, whether as a greeter in COVID-19
vaccine clinics, or helping international students
adjust to their new settings, or volunteering my
time and energy to causes with organizations such
as FAWCO and the YWCA. I have learned the
importance of connections and being involved in
my communities because it gives me an insight
into the most essential needs. Activism for justice
isn’t just a one-off commitment. It takes daily
dedication and an openness to learning and
evolving those actions that will achieve sustainable
justice. With my research on discrimination and
involvement in minority communities in Glasgow,
I’ve taken a more critical perspective of my daily
life. I try to be aware of my surroundings and not
just accept things because it’s the way they’ve
been done for years.
What would I change about me?
Dressed for Diwali
What next?
The future looks full of possibilities, but not
without its hurdles. This past year alone has seen
massive amounts of protests and action taken by
minority groups to address injustices of the past
that are still embedded in our societies. I’ve also
seen a rise in nationalism, which is worrying to me
because of the strain is has caused among local
and refugee communities in the UK. Working with
the YWCA and COP26, I am excited for what this
year will bring and that we can work to overcome
these issues. I feel hopeful that with the YWCA we
will be able to bring attention to women’s issues
that have been largely sidelined for not being
viewed as important enough. Our focus this year
is on addressing town planning to create a safer
and more women-friendly environment in the city
of Glasgow and partnering with the COP26
conference to address climate change.
I would have a louder voice! I feel that for what I’m
involved in and how much I want to change, I
should have had a louder, more commanding
voice. I’m naturally soft spoken, so even when
making presentations, it can be hard for me to
raise my voice. If I could magically make it so I
didn’t have to struggle to be heard that would be
amazing. I see my voice as essential to the
activism I am engaged in so having it be louder
and stronger would further positive changes.
The role of culture
I think culture can be two-sided in defining justice
depending on the individual’s interpretation and
experiences. Culture strengthens perceptions and
I’ve found that you can be proud of your own
culture, and either accepting or unaccepting of
others. The concept of nationalism is growing
globally alongside a rapidly globalizing world
which is causing friction. I have found that living
Women’s Day in Edinburgh
29

FEATURE
Legitimation Station
Lauren Mescon, member of AWC Amsterdam, explains how the
Legitimation Station came about.
I believe that we, as women, seeking to be better
and do better than our male counterparts, must
treat men as we wish they had treated us from
the beginning.
In Georgia, if a child is born out of wedlock, there
is no legal relationship between father and child.
That means neither the father nor child can
inherit from the other and the father has no right
to custody or parenting time. Nor does his family.
An order of legitimation is the only way that the
father of a child born out of wedlock can be
recognized as the legal father of that child. While
both parents can sign a voluntary
acknowledgement of legitimation at the hospital,
that does not establish custody or parenting time.
In my decades of family law work, there were
many times when a father, as the primary
caretaker of the child(ren) was left legally
powerless when the mother got angry, had drug
or mental issues, or decided to move on, and took
the children.
A Dad in Georgia
After working as a divorce and custody lawyer and
serving as a Family Court judge, I relocated to
Columbus GA, a city of about 200,000 and home
to Ft. Benning, the US Army Maneuver Center of
Excellence (including Infantry and Armor). I began
volunteering at Head Start Centers, a few days a
week. One of the most stellar parents was a father
who always brought his son to school, and
showed up for every volunteer opportunity. The
child was always well-mannered and well-dressed.
In a word, adorable.
One day, I received a frantic phone call from the
director of the center informing me that the child
had not been in school for several days and the
father did not know how to find him. Instinct told
me this father had never legitimated his child, and
upon questioning the director, that suspicion was
confirmed. Whenever the mother needed more
money or got angry, she pulled the child from the
center and threatened to withhold him unless the
father complied. This child was four years old and
had lived like this since birth.
The Legitimation Project
I approached the Chief Judge of the
Chattahoochee Circuit with an idea – let’s create a
Legitimation Project, one in which fathers could
file the necessary papers to legitimate their
children. Many of these cases impact those
without the financial means to hire lawyers to
legitimate their children yet it is shocking how
many men did not know they had no rights. I went
on an awareness raising speaking tour to Rotary
Clubs and churches and found that was the case
across the board.
I should have known something was up when the
judge said “that’s a great idea…go for it!”
Ultimately the Legitimation Station was born.
Making it happen
For the next year, we met with stakeholders –
probate court judges, superior court judges, legal
aid lawyers, child support officers and social
workers.
We drafted and redrafted forms, finally settling on
a set of forms and step by step instructions on
how to use them.
30

Funds were set aside by the Superior Court for the
six courthouses in our circuit to have computers
so fathers could access the forms and file the
cases themselves. In Columbus, the largest
county, we set up an office which was staffed
three Fridays per month so that the fathers could
get assistance with the forms.
The first case
My first case was the father from Early Head Start
I had met years before. Fast forward six-years
later when I was involved in a Circles USA
program (https://www.circlesusa.org/) which
fights poverty by allying someone coming out of
poverty with involved members of the
community. One evening, we had a session with a
local church and who walked in? The father and
his son. After legitimation, the father had gained
custody and had clearly done a fabulous job
raising his son. It was so nice for me to come full
circle and see the results of what he had started.
And for him to know what he had inspired.
Today, the Legitimation Station is still operational
throughout the Judicial Circuit and the
Chattahoochee Family Law Center is still open
three Fridays per month, staffed by volunteers.
Lauren with colleague graduating from the Circles
Program
Lauren Mescon graduated from Emory University
School of Law in 1979, passing three bar exams –
Colorado, Maryland and Georgia, and spending the
majority of her career as a Family Law Attorney. She
also had the privilege of serving as a Family Court
Judge. She was a certified mediator and a guardian ad
litem—advocating for children. She trained
practitioners in Collaborative Divorce nationally and
mediation locally. In 2014, she helped take the
concept of Collaborative Divorce to Cuba.
31

PROFILE
Working to
Support Refugees
Ann Birot-Salsbury, member of
AAWE Paris and Co-Chair of the
FAWCO Refugee Network (FRN),
tells us how she got involved.
Ann Birot-Salsbury
I grew up in a wealthy suburb of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania where the population was virtually
all WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant). At that
time, the city and surrounding suburbs were
clearly divided by class, religion and race. My
mother was a repressed activist who I would call a
key mentor for me.
Perhaps from her subliminal messages, I realized
that there was more to life than hanging out at
the country club with people who looked like me.
When my parents divorced in the early 70s, I saw
first hand how overnight my mother lost all her
status. Even though she had had plenty of credit
cards when she was married, she could not get
one once she was divorced. Together we lived the
feminization of poverty, moving from the family
house in an upper-middle-class suburb to a
flimsily built town house in a middle-class suburb
right next to a working-class neighborhood. At
the same time my father moved to a city
neighborhood that was undergoing gentrification
and was mixed race and mixed class.
I saw my mother, who had virtually no work
experience (except as a volunteer President of an
inner city Child Care Center that served a diverse
population) because my father did not want her
to work, pick herself up and get a Master’s degree
that led to her becoming a counselor for both
displaced homemakers (the term used in that
period for post war brides who were
homemakers, did not have outside paid jobs and
were later divorced) like herself and for dislocated
steel workers. She made her mark in what was
truly a man’s city. I am very proud of her as well
as inspired by her, determination despite
frequent bouts of doubt.
Leaving home
Like my mother and my grandmother before her,
I attended and graduated from Vassar College.
There I majored in economics. This was my first
real step away from home. And to make this
experience a bit different, I spent my junior year
abroad at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. I
call it that because it felt like going abroad;
everything was so different for me.
My sister was in a serious relationship with an
Australian man who she later married after
moving with him to Australia, so I became curious
about Australia. As a first step towards Australia, I
moved to San Francisco after graduating from
Vassar.
With my Mom and Eliza Doolittle, our dog, in 1965
32

I lived in San Francisco for two-and-a-half years,
working as an internal auditor before making the
leap at age 25 to living in Australia to be closer to
my sister. With virtually no non-profit work
experience, I was hired to run fundraising for
Amnesty International Australia. Through this
experience, I learned a lot about human rights
violations in different parts of the world, including,
my home country, the US. I also learned what it
was like to live abroad and, although grateful to
have more time with my sister, in fact I was lonely
and did not like being so far away from so many
people I loved.
With Patrice in Greece, 2010
drawing inspiration from what Angela Merkel was
doing in Germany. I realized that it must be a
billion times more difficult for someone who is a
refugee, with none of my resources, to live in
France.
So I got in touch with the AAWE office and, from
that simple phone call, the AAWE community-wide
Refugee Task Force began. It evolved into 11 nonprofits
collaborating on projects with refugees. We
became like a family, creating cultural and sports
events, giving language tutoring and resources
(appliances, furniture, clothes, money) new lives
with people who really needed them.
My life today
MAESTRAPEACE, murals on The San Francisco Women's
Building, Juana Alicia, Edythe Boone, Miranda Bergman,
Susan Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton and Irene
Perez, © 1994, 2000, 2010.
Back to the US and cupid strikes!
After returning to San Francisco, I became the
Development Director at The Women’s Building.
This community center, to this day, models
inclusivity and empowerment for all with their
programming.
In 2005, I was working for Wells Fargo Bank and
went on an international leadership program.
While in this program, I met my husband, Patrice,
who is French and was living in Paris at the
time. Our romantic relationship started in April
2008 during a reunion of our leadership group in
Paris. We can really say that it was a coup de
foudre and that continues to this day!
Finding a new project
Patrice and I decided to make France our home.
But I hit a real low after living in Paris for over five
years and, not being fluent in French, feeling quite
invisible. I started to think about refugees,
In 2017 we moved out of Paris to Tours, and I
stepped away from the Refugee Task Force. Today
I focus on projects that interest me and where I
think I can contribute to positive social change. I
try to draw on my many years of program
management with an international team, my
experience as a trainer in non violent
communication and mindfulness as well as my
work as both an individual and a systemic coach. I
tend to focus on projects that involve youth and/
or refugees, as I believe they hold the answers to a
positive future for all.
I am a proud stepmother of two adult children, a
stepson who is 40 years old, native to France and
lives in Paris, and a stepdaughter who is 29 years
old and lives in Hanover in her native country of
Germany.
During the pandemic, at 58 years old I took the
opportunity to go back to school at the University
of Tours, just down the street from my home. It
was a bold move to improve my French. Needless
to say, I was the oldest person in the class by
almost 20 years, yet I loved it. It was like candy for
me and opened up so many doors to challenging
conversations in both French and English.
33

My earliest mentor
My mother was a tremendous role model, as well
as a friend. She was always very supportive of
everything I did, and willing to be vulnerable and
confide in me when she had doubts about trying
something new. My parents’ divorce began an
awkward, painful and confusing time. I remember
that my mother gave me Jonathan Livingston
Seagull to read. At that time I was dealing with
strong emotions around being different, imperfect
by having divorced parents, and reading this book
helped me to go easy on myself and to support
others in doing so.
What does the future hold?
I focus strongly on humanizing people who we
consider different from us. For example, I want to
contribute to raising awareness about how we
each carry racism and other-isms inside us
because we live in a society that gives us regular
messages to enforce them. Since George Floyd
was murdered, this has become an international
conversation.
A WhatsApp call with the FRN team
The importance of inclusion
I relate more to the word inclusion than to justice
yet I believe they have the same aim. I am
fascinated by people and I believe that, if we really
listen to each other, we can co-create the world.
By deeply listening to each other, I believe we start
to create a world that is more just for all.
I continue to give time and energy in this domain
because it is fruitful and very creative: for
example, in 2017 when Clara Siverson (AAWE) and
I met Grace Christovasilis (AWG Greece) and Kenia
Guimaraes (AWC Brussels) in Paris over coffee, we
started to dream of a FAWCO Refugee Network.
Shortly thereafter it was born.
These conversations are starting to happen even
in France. It has been difficult to talk about race
and racism in France because many misinterpret
equality, as one of the values of the French
republic, as meaning that we don’t talk about race
and therefore we don’t talk about racism. In fact,
many people think racisim doesn’t exist in France,
but is solely a US issue.
In France, many people put so much weight on the
notion of treating people the same way that it
denies any sense of difference and needs to relate
to those differences. The result is that the
structures are set up to support the dominant
culture, which focuses on white, heterosexual
men, raised in the Catholic tradition.
I hope to help people start to see that difference is
beautiful. If we can embrace differences and are
open to conversation about equity we can help
people who have fewer resources in a certain
domain truly have equal opportunities, especially
Today the FRN leadership includes Asma Darwish
(AAWE) and Azadeh Khakhodazadeh (Heidelberg
IWC), who each came to Europe as part of the
recent refugee movement and are active FAWCO
Members. Collaborating with these two women,
along with Ulrike Näumann (Heidelberg IWC), is a
truly enriching experience. In our small way, we
are living the change that is happening in the
world.
An early AAWE Refugee Meeting with Anas
34

in education and jobs. I am excited to have these
conversations in hopes of helping both myself and
others to see our blind spots and where we may
be enabling inequities including unconsciously
committing micro-aggressions.
Applying justice to daily life
I like to take time to know new people by sharing
a meal together. For example, my husband and I
gave a computer to Ghiass, a new friend and a
refugee. We took time to prepare a special meal
and to share it with him, and afterwards give him
the computer. By giving this computer we felt like
we were receiving a gift. We have a new friend and
we transformed an idle computer to something
dynamic and of use.
A person I would like to meet
Shirley Chisholm was the first African American
woman to sit in the US Congress (1968) and to
seek the nomination for president of the United
States (1972). Her motto and title of her
autobiography Unbossed and Unbought illustrates
her outspoken advocacy for women and
minorities during her seven terms in the US House
Strings showing the connections our group made to
support two Syrian families in Paris in the summer of 2016
of Representatives. If I could meet her I would ask:
“With all your life learnings how would you advise
young women today to be an effective catalyst for
positive societal change?”
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35

FEATURE
What is Justice?
Members of the FAWCO Human Rights Team explain what justice
means to them.
Karen Castellon,
FAWCO Human
Rights Team Chair
AWC Berlin,
Germany
Justice is education,
health care and an
environment for
all. But especially
education, because it
enables people to think
on their own, make
optimal choices for
their lives, and create a
better future for their
families and communities. This is a fundamental
human right for every human being. The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights ratified on
December 10, 1948, spelled out these
fundamental freedoms and rights, .
As a member of the FAWCO Human Rights Team, I
have joined with others to read this Declaration
aloud on its anniversary for the past few years.
What an incredible experience.
The Human Rights Team has helped me to focus
on gender-equality questions of our day, which
pervade everything in the world, to act to create a
more just society where I currently live, and to
influence lives in other countries. Contributing to
another’s education by sharing fiscal resources is
one way. Using our collective voices to
communicate about ending violence against
women, an issue in every stratum of society, is
another way. This investment of time and energy
has been uncomfortable in so many ways, yet life
giving and hopeful even in the face of
hopelessness, and I am grateful.
Laurie
Richardson,
FAWCO UN
Liaison, AWA
Vienna, Austria
Justice to me is the
basis of all human
social relations: social
justice, gender
justice, racial justice,
climate justice.
During the pandemic, we're reminded of the
importance of health justice. Justice means
fairness and equality. From each according to
their ability, to each according to their needs. The
first line of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights says: “the inherent dignity and the equal
and inalienable rights of all members of the
human family is the foundation of freedom,
justice and peace in the world”.
Mary Manning,
Heidelberg IWC,
Bensheim,
Germany
When I think about
what a just world
would look like, it
starts with a legal
system that is more
than punishment of
an individual, that respects the victim while
recognizing that crime is often a societal disease
bred from poverty, racism and misogyny, passed
down through generations in our DNA. A just
society would work to eradicate the disease, not
merely treat the symptoms.
But justice extends far beyond laws and norms. A
just society would help all of its members realize
their fullest potential, recognizing that the
resources necessary to achieve that potential may
differ for each individual.
Therese Hartwell,
FAUSA, Austin, TX,
USA
True justice would
mean that all people
have equal rights that
are enforced and
embraced, regardless
of any way in which
they are "other." While
laws are important,
ultimately justice is an inside job. By nature, all
humans have unconscious biases and tend to be
suspicious of and blame the “other.” Rather than
expecting to have no bias, each of us must try to
identify and move beyond our biases. External
laws are very important, but, if we don’t do the
36

internal work and attitudes of injustice remain in
our hearts, they will rear their ugly heads again.
Mary Dobrian, AIWC
Cologne, Germany,
FAWCO 3rd Vice
President Global
Issues
By pure chance, I was
given so much more
than so many other
people. I have thought
about this since I was a
small child. I am of white
European descent; I was
born in a developed country, with a loving family,
enough money and access to a great education.
But why should these factors, over which I have
no control, give me more rights or freedoms than
anyone else?
For as long as I can remember, I have hated
injustice, unkindness and cruelty. Every human
being should have the right to live, learn, create,
express themselves and experience joy. That is
why I am a member of the Human Rights Team.
No one of us can fix the whole world, but each of
us can strive to do small things to make it better.
Azadeh
Kadkhodazadeh,
Heidelberg IWC,
Freinsheim,
Germany
Justice alone seems like
a sweet and simple
concept. At first,
converting the word
into action, may not be
so simple for many!
In any case, it is a beautiful that, in spite of all the
unrest in the world today, there are still people
who care about the well-being of others and do
their best, not only in word but also in social
behavior, to spread this to the whole world.
May each of us be daily defenders of human
rights, without borders, without despair, without
expectations.
Tharien van Eck,
AWC Antwerp,
Belgium, Target
Program Chair 2019
– 2022
Female genital
mutilation has become
an issue in my life!
Chairing the Target
Project is an opportunity to create awareness
about a significant human-rights abuse, to
educate FAWCO Members on FGM, to give FGM
survivors a chance to share their stories and to
give voice to the girls of Hope for Women and
Girls Tanzania, the Target Project.
As a physician can become knowledgeable about
FGM. But together, we as FAWCO Members can
make a difference. We must become informed in
order to become empowered. Let us it our
business to help in the fight to eradicate FGM. We
can't unknow what we know!
37

38

PROFILE
“Justice is Truth
in Action”
Kelsey McKay, member of FAUSA
and founder of the non-profit
organization RESPOND Against
Violence, tells us about her work
in the field.
Kelsey McKay
I was born in Florida, where both of my parents
grew up. We quickly moved to Texas, then
Australia (where we lived in Sydney and Perth),
then England and Boston. In 1990 our family
moved to Jakarta, Indonesia where we lived for
eight years until I graduated from high school. I
attended the Jakarta International School starting
in the 5 th grade and was lucky to have a hold on
moving through the end of high school. We would
generally come home for three months during the
summer, where I would get a taste of American
life—going to the beach and making up dance
routines with my cousins, shopping at a mall, and
going to the same summer camp year after year.
It was at that camp many years later that I met my
husband. I always loved feeling like a typical
American kid for a few months every year, but I
always knew that I was different than everyone
else because of the other nine months.
Leaving home
I left Indonesia after graduating from high school
and moved to Austin, Texas, where I attended the
University of Texas. It was an odd transition
because while I looked like many of the girls
around me, I couldn’t have been more different. I
had never worn makeup, I didn’t know what a
sorority or khaki shorts were, and I wore flip-flops
year-round.
During college, I really became engaged in
learning and consuming information and
processing my perspective and thoughts. I never
took extracurriculars like sports or art—I always
used extra hours to take classes or seminars that
would make me think: epidemiology, presidential
elections, the rhetoric of utopia, political
philosophy, and so on.
Finding my passion
Me aged about four
I struggled early on, not quite knowing what to
study, trying economics, special education,
journalism, government, statistics, and
psychology. There was no major for changing the
world, but I did manage to graduate with honors
with a psychology degree where I focused on
research, statistics, and how they were used to
impact social issues. At the time, I didn’t realize
that I had fallen into what would be my career.
39

Today
I live in Austin, Texas, with my husband, Jared and
an (almost) 11-year daughter and (almost) nineyear-old
son. After college, I was grateful to stay in
Austin for law school, and then I just never left. In
2005 I started working as a prosecutor and spent
the next 12 years navigating the world of criminal
justice and learning everything I could about
violent crime, trauma and became a subjectmatter
expert in asphyxiation-related crimes.
Somewhere during that time (2010 and 2012), we
had two children and started a real estate and
renovation business! In the seven years before
COVID-19 I was traveling a few times a month
across the country, training and consulting with
different agencies.
What is justice?
This is a question I ask a lot when I’m training
police officers, attorneys or advocates—all who
work to achieve justice. For me, personally, it
means the validation of truth. The tagline for the
non-profit RESPOND Against Violence I recently
started is: “Justice is truth in action.” It’s difficult
because it seems like such a simple concept, and
an achievable goal—but with an uneven playing
field that punishes survivors, it’s hard to do.
Getting involved
At first, I thought becoming a prosecutor was
essentially a way to do volunteer work that I was
passionate about but have benefits, a paycheck,
and be an adult. I was doing “justice” every day, on
every case to the best of my ability. Some days
seemed more significant than others, like trials or
verdicts that sent murderers, rapists, or child
abusers to prison. But I started to see that my
involvement or a verdict was not nearly as
impactful on a victim or the broken system that I
was working in. Over the years, I started to see
routine injustice and failures that were ignored
over and over again at the cost of people and
With my family
Me with RESPOND colleagues
lives. At first, I always believed that victims were
only hurt by criminals who abused them. In time, I
learned that punishment often came from the
trauma of the system that failed to protect them
in a meaningful way.
I spent years working on the local level, trying to
fix the failures one by one, only to discover that
most parts of the criminal legal system are very
resistant to change on the systemic level. When I
left prosecution, I was worried about the survivors
that might not get justice but knew that
meaningful change just could not occur one case
at a time.
Different perspectives
I love learning about a different perspective. I’ve
been lucky to be able to focus a lot of my energy
on the very specific topic of strangulation and
asphyxiation-related crimes, which has also forced
me to understand the issues and challenges that
surround this often-misunderstood type of
violence. It has forced me to learn about aspects
of crime that I would never have navigated. My
expertise in the area has also given me the
opportunity to think about the topic from every
perspective. When you walk into an auditorium
full of doctors, or police officers, or army generals,
or defense attorneys, you have to understand
their perspective to be able to teach them.
Fifteen years ago, I discovered an issue: our
community was not responding to strangulation
crimes in a uniform or informed way. Since then,
I’ve talked to anyone who would listen. First our
cadet academy, then our paramedics and
eventually the ERs, probation and parole boards,
people on the plane next to me, and anyone who
dares to sit next to me at a dinner party. As I
40

on topics like crime, gender, and race, we have
first to be informed by truth and accept that the
reality for one person is not necessarily the
experience of another. If we listen more,
understand others, we can work together on
issues. There is so much division in the world, and
conversations are the bridge to working together.
I worry that we don’t have enough voices on our
side, and I’m discouraged that gender-based
violence is seen as just a women’s issue—because
women can’t make men stop abusing them. Only
men can do that. But I find good men are often
defensive on the topic. What I have discovered,
through years of training in a male-dominated
culture (policing) is simply that men don’t live in
the same world as I do. Men don’t fear women the
way women fear men. So when the first responder
to a gender-based crime is a male with a gun—
there is an automatic barrier, and it is the role of
an officer (not a traumatized victim) to try to
bridge that gap.
found solutions, I have traveled the country to
help the criminal system better respond to these
crimes. Seeing that the same problem exists
everywhere allows the solutions I’ve developed to
be utilized universally.
Rewarding aspects
One of the most rewarding aspects has been
conversations with survivors, especially those who
exist in a world of sexual exploitation. Those
conversations and relationships provide me an
understanding of a world that originally motivated
me to do this work. Growing up in Southeast Asia,
I often saw children and women in vulnerable
positions but lacked insight into how complex the
situation was for them. It is the predators behind
the shadows that force them to the front. Until we
see in those shadows, we will continue to punish
survivors. Talking to survivors and learning from
them has taught me how to create policies that
support safety rather than punish survival.
Injustices that I see
After seeing thousands of people victimized by
violence and working with both survivors and
those charged with crimes, I learned that the
criminal legal system does not fulfill this definition.
People are often defined by a defendant or a
victim—without any context of their experience.
As a result, victims who struggle to live through
their situation are often criminalized for surviving.
I see predators manipulate law enforcement,
communities and judges and worry that our
current system often empowers them by
punishing victims. We need to humanize
populations who face adversity and struggle, due
to trauma, and penalize actual offenders who are
What’s next?
I hope the future holds a generation that
prioritizes humanity and equality despite
appearance and circumstances. I hope we see
change that provides the vulnerable with a more
consistent and reliable system to live in a safe
world for themselves and their children. I’m
encouraged by my colleagues around me, who I
have found over the years who speak the same
language as me and fight for justice in new ways.
I often encounter defensiveness on issues where
conversations and perspectives are the solutions.
The way we speak to each other in this world
becomes too adversarial (similar to the court
system) and builds walls rather than bridges.
Headlines are rarely informative or an effort to
change the hearts and minds of society and
encourage division and judgment. To shift culture
Giving a presentation
41

With my daughter
Before COVID-19, I was traveling about 50% of the
time. Since then, my days are a variation of
helping a prosecutor, colleague, or police officer
with a case; supporting a survivor or a family
member understand the reality of the system they
entered; meeting with colleagues from around the
country to develop forward-thinking approaches,
training, or policies; building power points;
presenting virtually to conferences or
communities; working on a variety of publications
to make sure that practitioners have evidencebased
research to support their work; making a
smoothie; making sure the kids are alive; zoom
meetings; taskforce meetings; reading journal
articles; working on curriculums; scheduling
conferences; creating resources without funding;
trying to keep up with emails, requests; getting a
phone call to deal with an emergency; making
sure the kids did school; figuring out what to do
for dinner. And then watching America’s Got
Talent with the kids, and we all crash. Once in a
while, I have time to wash my hair. Other days I
use dry shampoo.
dangerous and pose a risk to our safety. Right
now, we see anyone who commits any type of
crime as a criminal rather than making a
distinction between people and dangerous
criminals. As a result, survivors get caught up in
the penal system as they navigate survival.
The issues are layered and we have a system that
silos every topic rather than dealing with the
complexity. The root cause of addiction,
homelessness and so many other issues is
domestic violence and yet the conversation about
prevention and accountability for that crime still
remains silent.
Policy needs to be evidence-based so that we can
solve real problems with authentic solutions.
Otherwise, we are just making the same mistakes
over and over again and calling it a solution. When
justice is attached to politics, power, or money – I
see this all the time – avoiding transparency and
accountability cover-up truth and progress. At
RESPOND Against Violence, we hope to create
sustainable change through proven practice.
A typical day for me
My days are absolute chaos. My eyes open and my
immediate hope is that my body rested and slept
well enough to take on the day. Regardless of the
reality, the morning starts with coffee and a few
deep breaths. I’ve almost stopped watching the
news but usually wake up around 2:00 a.m. for an
hour and read Heather Cox Richardson’s historical
review of the day. I get a sweet kiss and smile
from my son, an early bird, and I get to work. I
always dream of taking things off my to-do list but
rarely end the day with anything checked off.
There hasn’t been a day in the last five years that
I’ve been able to read every email, text, or
voicemail.
42

FEATURE
“Justice is About Transformation”
In 2021 Ascend: Leadership through Athletics was given a FAWCO
Foundation Development Grant. Here those involved in the NGO tell
us more about the organization and how it helps Afghan women.
The idea to use sports to transform Afghan girls
into independent, driven leaders who would
improve their country came to Marina Kielpinski
LeGree while she was shooting hoops with a
group of them in Kabul in 2008. The founder of
Ascend: Leadership through Athletics recalls the
young Afghan women being average players, but
quite courageous given that their ultraconservative
society frowns on women engaging
in sports.
Marina ultimately chose mountain climbing as the
Marina Kielpinski LeGree and Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, with
Malang Darya, the first Afghan to summit Mount Noshaq in
Kabul.
sport on which she would focus and it made
perfect sense in Afghanistan, which is full of
dramatic peaks. She was also inspired by two
Afghan men making it to the top of their country’s
highest peak, Mount Noshaq in 2009. The
mountain is 24,580 feet (7,492 meters), the
highest peak on any continent outside of Asia. For
comparison, Mount Everest, the world’s tallest
mountain, is 29,032 feet (8,849 meters) high.
Marina once told NPR about why mountain
climbing was a good fit for her NGO: "It's a
profound thing that's been missing for a while in
Afghanistan throughout the war and chaos and
everything else…. It doesn't mean the housewife
who is in her compound in Kandahar is going to
go start climbing mountains, but she will know
another Afghan woman did it and that message is
really important.”
Club Berlin member,
Soraya Sarhaddi
Nelson about her
plans. Soraya, who
hosts the Berlin-based
podcast talk show
Common Ground, has
won top journalism
awards for her
coverage of women around Afghanistan and their
resilience and struggles. But a Gallup survey in
2018 found nearly half of Afghan women want to
leave their country. It is not just the war or
economic hardship to blame; they want to be free
from forced marriages, free to study and work,
free to live the life they choose.
At the time Marina contacted Soraya in late 2006,
Soraya was an NPR foreign correspondent who
had just opened the network’s first Kabul bureau.
She and Marina had first met the month before at
a dinner in Washington, D.C.
Soraya was intrigued by what Marina was
proposing: “How she planned to pull off
something as expensive and exotic as mountain
climbing or find Afghan families willing to let their
daughters become mountaineers who would go
on overnight expeditions in Afghanistan’s volatile
countryside was beyond me, but having known
Marina for nearly a decade at the time, I didn’t
doubt she would,” she explains. Soraya pitched a
series of radio and web stories about the unusual
endeavor Marina was undertaking to her editors
at NPR and they agreed.
Early days
And so in 2014, her NGO was born. The seed
money was her savings from being an aid worker
for IOM, the German development agency, GiZ,
and a media trainer for ISAF, the international
alliance that is leaving Afghanistan this summer.
She contacted journalist and American Women’s
Mount Noshaq straddles the Afghan/Pakistan border.
Tajikistan is across the river in this “finger” of Afghanistan
called the Wakhan Corridor that extends to the Chinese
border. (July 2018)
43

Early obstacles
Building a team, developing Afghan trainers and
organizing the program proved to be a struggle in
Afghanistan, a country rife with corruption, where
rampant poverty means the girls’ parents are
primarily interested in what financial
compensation allowing their daughters to be
mountain climbers will bring. This was captured in
the film, Ascending Afghanistan: Women Rising.
But Marina and the young women overcame
those obstacles and in 2018, Ascend team
member, Hanifa Yousoufi, became the first
woman to summit Mount Noshaq.
Soraya, who was at base camp during the historic
expedition, is currently writing a book about the
work of Ascend.
Also Soraya and Marina brought the Ascend film
to AWC Berlin in September 2019. At the historic
Astor Film Lounge located on Berlin’s famous
Kurfuerstendamm boulevard, they and the
American Women’s Club of Berlin hosted two
events, including a matinee for teachers and
students, which was also attended by a top
German foreign ministry official. The audiences
also spoke with several Ascend girls in a Skype call
projected on the big screen.
Many of the attendees say they came away deeply
impressed and feeling connected to the young
women they encountered.
In 2021, Ascend was awarded the FAWCO
Foundation Development Grant. The NGO plan
for “A Stitch in Time, Hope for Education Grant” is
a “sports-for-health teaching curriculum for
Afghan girls.” The grant helps to expand the
Ascend physical fitness program and reach into
the community by delivering a condensed
curriculum in an illustrated booklet and poster in
Dari, a key local language, that offers health facts
and demonstrates the benefits of athletic activity
for girls.
(From left to right) AWC Berlin members Janel
Schermerhorn, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, Stephanie Biery,
Ascend Founder Marina Kielpinski LeGree, and AWC
member, Sandy Chen Kluth, outside the Ascot Theater in
Berlin following a fundraiser for Ascend.
Ascend team member Hanifa Yousoufi holds up an Afghan
flag after reaching the top of Mount Noshaq. She is the first
(and so far only) Afghan woman to summit the highest
Afghan peak. (August 2018)
What does a program for Afghan women
look like?
According to Ascend, to develop the young
women in mind, body and spirit, participants are
challenged to grow through a comprehensive
program across five key pillars:
•Physical fitness
•Leadership
•Mountaineering
•Service
•Mental health
Each area is considered vital to a young woman’s
growth. While mountaineering is one of the main
activities, it is a commitment to overall physical
fitness through regular workouts, yoga and hiking
that keeps the girls together and moving. By fall
2021, Ascend will have installed a rock-climbing
wall in its new facility in Kabul, which is a first for
the region.
Leadership training includes preparing the girls to
lead expeditions and become instructors via a
certification track. Furthermore, the girls evaluate
and make decisions regarding community needs
and how to respond to them via acts of service. A
core group of leaders initiated the Bamiyan winter
festival, which had close to 1000 participants. The
leadership and service components go hand in
hand. For the mountaineering, the young women
have participated in nearly 30 backcountry
expeditions, including the one to Mount Noshaq.
Where is justice in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan is an incredibly challenging country to
grow up in as a girl or woman. The cultural
practices often impose strict gender segregation
and restrict all facets of their lives, including
education, healthcare, nutrition and security.
Approximately 2.2 million school-are girls are
unable to get an education, with only one fifth of
girls under the age of fifteen being
literate. Moreover, insecurity and violence have a
disproportionate effect on young women.
In May 2021, a girls’ school in Kabul was fatally
44

attacked at dismissal time. No organization
claimed responsibility for a series of explosions
that killed 85 people – mostly women -- and
wounded more than 150 others. Such terror
incidents are devastating for the community, and
yet are a part of everyday life in Kabul.
Currently one-third of Afghan girls marry before
the age of 18 and never go to school; 17% marry
before reaching the age of 15. As a result of child
marriage, girls are less likely to participate in
educational opportunities and face a higher
likelihood of domestic violence.
Mental health in the Ascend context means 100%
of participants attend school and 80% continue at
the university level. Many of the Ascend
participants formerly attended the school that
was targeted in May 2021 but had switched to a
school that offered morning classes to girls so
that they could free up their afternoons to
participate in the Ascend program.
that question does not even compute because
nobody’s ever expected them to have hopes or
plans for their future; their future is that they will
get married when they’re told to get married and
they’ll take care of a family. And we turn that
upside-down and encourage them to really think
for themselves and set goals and go for their
dreams. When that switch happens, where
partway into the program, the girls, after spending
time with their teammates, realize, “I’m in a place
where I’m valued and I’m somebody and I’m
expected to be somebody even more”—when
they take that onboard and really own it, that’s the
transformation we’re after. It’s not specific to any
particular student. It’s more just realizing the
sense of self.”
Girls’ rights are human rights. Women’s
rights are human rights.
Rather than treating them as victims, Ascend
encourages Afghan girls and women to take
charge of their narrative in this complex context
and empower themselves through athletic
endeavors. Ascend aims to develop young
women to become leaders through service to
their communities and learning the sport of
mountain climbing. They also learn, through the
expanded curriculum, about their own bodies and
health so that they can make decisions for
themselves and, in turn, educate their family
members -- both men and women, many of
whom are illiterate.
So what does justice look like for an
Ascend participant?
Justice is about transformation. This from Marina
in an interview with Preston Golson, a director at
Brunswick: “When girls start with Ascend, we
interview them. We always ask about their hopes
and dreams and goals. And for a lot of the girls,
Marina talking to the village elders in Qazideh, near the
Noshaq trailhead. They were determined to keep her from
taking the Ascend team up that mountain because they
didn’t believe climbing was an appropriate activity for
Afghan girls, but she persevered.
What can you do?
1. Support Ascend or an organization that offers
life-transforming experiences to women in less
developed countries.
2. Remain aware and put pressure on your
government representatives by contacting them
(call, write, email) to advocate for programs that
support women and education.
3. Show the movie, Ascending Afghanistan:
Women Rising and have a discussion with your
club or your friends.
4. Follow the United Nations Human Rights
Council proceedings or attend the United Nations
Commission on the Status of Women to learn
more about the role advocacy plays in a civil
society organization.
Situation update: September 17, 2021
The Ascend expedition at Noshaq base camp, located at
15,500 feet. The Afghan girls collected and assembled the
rocks that spell out “Ascend” in the background. (July 2018).
The Ascend management team has been deeply
engaged evacuating staff members and their
families. 56 persons were successfully evacuated
out of Afghanistan to Abu Dhabi, Denmark, the
USA, Chile, Germany and soon, Ireland. Ascend
continues to field offers of help from individuals
in several countries, including France, who are
willing to sponsor Afghans through the visa and
resettlement process. To help in this process,
contact SafeHomes@AscendAthletics.org or visit
www.AscendAthletics.org
45

PROFILE
The Righting of
Wrongs
Wherever
Possible
Rena Levin, member of AWC Oslo,
tells us about her journey into
activism.
Arlington is just outside of DC and it was a great
place to grow up. I went to good public schools,
had a big park and library a few blocks away,
made many friends, and participated in lots of
activities, but I realize now I did not fully
appreciate it until I lived elsewhere.
Friends in college detested high school. I had
gone to an alternative program that emphasized
student autonomy and loved it. I was also spoiled
by the free museums. How fortunate I was to
have had the Smithsonian in my backyard.
When it comes to what impacted my childhood,
that has to be the loss of my father when I was
eight years old. His death was sudden and
unexpected. I was sad when it happened and
missed him, but the longer-term impact was that
of being different. When asked about my parents,
I would use the grown-up, matter-of-fact word
“deceased” about my dad, but that never seemed
to prevent the inevitable expression of sorrow
and/or pity that would follow. This lasted for years
and I hated it. I have been sensitive to the ways
people can deviate from expected norms ever
since then.
Leaving home
Rena Levin
Wanting to study some distance away and if
possible in Minnesota, the state I loved dearly
from family visits, I was thrilled to be accepted
early to Macalester College. It had the kind of
profile a budding activist looking for a good
education would be attracted to and did not
disappoint. I got so much out of my time there
and would have been happy if BA studies were
five years instead of four.
Among many things I carry with me from that
time is a firm belief in the value of liberal arts
education. I spent a semester in Norway in
college. I wanted to see a social democracy in
practice. While there I learned how it works and
that reality does not always match the ideal.
I also met a boy! Wanting to see how things would
go, but in a way that would be good for me no
matter what happened with him, I applied for a
Fulbright grant and was accepted. The year in
Oslo confirmed we were a good fit, gave me
greater insight into Norway, and shifted my grad
school interest from public policy to the
interdisciplinary field of American Studies.
After college
With my husband Christian
Ten years in the US was good for Christian and
me. I got my master's degree and found
employment in advocacy. Having confirmed that
studying computer science was better than
working as a programmer, Christian was able to
start on a new career path. It was his getting a
non-profit job that brought us back to Arlington,
46

ut I was happy. Some high school friends were
also back, a few from college moved to the area,
and there were plenty of engagement
opportunities. When home during college, I had
helped fight a proposed Disney historical theme
park by the Manassas Battlefield. Returning after
grad school, I volunteered with a smart growth
organization rooted in that campaign.
Moving to Norway
A family tragedy brought us back to Norway in
2008. The transition was not easy. Thank
goodness for AWC Oslo! Though advocacy is no
longer my day job, I use some of the same skills
and exercise my liberal arts brain working at the
Fulbright office. Also, Christian and I are now
active members of the Norwegian Green Party.
Who could have predicted that?
What is justice?
My short simple definition is that it is the righting
of wrongs. Though this redress is something I
work for, justice is not a word I use much. I am
more likely to talk about fairness and respect. This
can be in law and policy, but also in social
interactions and how we live our lives. Sometimes
change is bottom-up, other times top-down.
However change comes about, we are not where
we want to be until it is reality throughout society.
There is one area where I find the word justice
useful. When preceded by a specifier, it is
shorthand for issues being connected and a call to
think broadly about causes and remedies. Gender
justice, racial justice and climate justice are all
things I work for, and they do overlap.
First steps in activism
My wonderful high school history teacher's
mantra was "geography is destiny." I think that's
true in more ways than one, including how my
interest developed. Growing up in the DC area
meant being surrounded by people who cared
about political and social issues. My earliest
With my husband Christian
Dressed up for Halloween as Linda Greenlaw. Greenlaw was
a swordfishing captain first made famous by the book The
Perfect Storm.
memories of this include debates with fourth
grade classmates about presidential candidates in
1984, attending a rally outside the Soviet embassy
for refuseniks with my Sunday school, and my first
reproductive rights march which I went on with a
friend and her mom.
Come high school, my friends and I would go on
our own, often with me as the organizer. After the
2017 Women's March in our respective cities, a
good friend recalled me getting a group together
for the 20th anniversary of Earth Day rally.
Wanting to do something tangible as well, we
started the day by picking up trash in a local park.
My mentor
The best mentor I ever had was my co-worker and
later supervisor at Americans United for
Separation of Church and State, Beth Corbin. I was
fortunate to find work for a cause I cared about
and that she was in my department.
Beth will declare that something you're doing is
fabulous or so good she's telling everyone she
knows. While she giggles with you at the
exaggeration, you walk away encouraged.
Somehow, when you mess up, she'll discuss it with
you in a way that makes it a positive learning
experience that ensures you do better next time.
Among other things she taught me: the
importance of responsiveness, how to politely
dismiss someone looking to argue so you can
better spend your energy, to try to listen closely so
you can speak to what's behind an articulated
grievance, and the value of reframing problems as
challenges. I’ve learned a lot from her.
Always generous with her time, Beth is a true
advocate and ally. I will always remember when
she was promoted and said that for her, an
important part of the job was to advocate up the
chain on behalf of her staff.
47

and still don't have a good handle on how people
bring about change.
What we know from where we lived before affects
what injustices we notice and how we think about
them. Instead of projecting our understandings
from elsewhere unfiltered, we should be sensitive
to context and aware of our limited knowledge.
Proceed with humility, but don't remain silent.
Wherever you are, be wary when social justice
work is dismissed out of hand for being "foreign."
If people are organizing, there is a reason.
Thousands of people did not join Oslo's Black
Lives Matter protest last year to focus on racism in
the US. They came to shine a light on
manifestations of racism in Norway.
A person I would like to meet
At a BLM March
My biggest concerns today
1. We need more empathy! This applies to all of
us. Not being able or even willing to try to
understand and feel with others is a major
impediment to progress. I wish I knew how to
bring about more empathy. Some reluctant
people can be moved to act by examples of harm
to relatable others, but it is disappointing that
even this somewhat self-interested approach
doesn't work more. If anyone has tips, I'm all ears.
2. Norway fancies itself a nature-loving country
and enjoys a reputation for being environmentally
responsible. So people may be surprised to learn
of its heavy involvement in fossil fuel extraction. It
is the third largest exporter of natural gas in the
world. It is thirteenth for oil production, but in
2017 it was fifth per capita. Despite years of lip
service to the importance of reducing emissions
and a recent admonition from the International
Energy Agency to stop investing in new oil fields,
the government continues to promote exploration
for more.
A recent study found that the Arctic is heating up
three times as fast as the rest of the planet. (As if
the previously thought twice as fast weren't bad
enough.) Norwegian alarm bells should be ringing
loudly, but I fear that as long as the harm of
climate change is most felt by wildlife and people
living elsewhere, little will change.
The role of culture
Working for justice in a new country can be a
challenge because of both systemic and cultural
differences. I have lived in Norway for 11 years
Rachel Carson. I would like to ask her how she
made Silent Spring happen, both in terms of the
vast data she pulled together from many locations
(pre-internet!) and in terms of the courage it took
to publish something she knew would meet great
resistance from powerful interests. I would
preface the question by telling her what a
tremendous difference she made. It’s tragic that
she died before seeing the creation of the
Environmental Protection Agency, the new laws,
and the rise of the environmental movement
spurred by her work.
Campaigning with Renuka Matthews
Something I would like to change
In a magic world, I would have the ability to turn
my conscious brain off at bedtime and to have it
start up again automatically at a preset time the
next day. Falling asleep is a regular struggle
because my thoughts tend to race. Sometimes
they are the result of stress and worry. Other
times they are about mundane things. It would be
so nice to get more sleep. Even in the real world,
I'm sure the effects would be magical.
48

FEATURE
A Club Inspires:
AWA Vienna,
Austria
Beverly Bachmayer, current Club
FAWCO Rep, from California and
Oregon, introduces her club to
us. AWA Vienna is one of nine
clubs in FAWCO’s Region 5.
When and why was your club started, and by
whom? Since its founding in 1924, AWA Vienna
has focused on raising money for women’s and
children's charities. The first club members were
mainly diplomatic and military wives. This quote
from Hannah Adler, the Chairperson of AWA
Vienna in 1964, gives us a look into the club’s
origins: “AWA came into being, most informally, as
a response to a need felt in the community. It has
become apparent that, no matter how
distinguished and fascinating our speakers, there
was a strong impulse in the community for a more
active and varied program.”
The AWA disbanded in 1939 and remained
inactive during the war. After the war, during the
Allied Occupation, American Embassy and military
wives organized the Children's Friendship Fund
and used the proceeds from a thrift shop to help
deprived and starving Austrian children. AWA
Vienna became active again in 1964, with about 60
members. Today, the more than 280 members of
AWA Vienna continue the tradition of women
helping women.
Over the past decades the City of Vienna has shed
its wartime past and re-emerged as a vibrant,
multi-ethnic city. The building of the Vienna
International Centre (VIC) and the Austria Centre
in the late 1970s and early 1980s led to a dramatic
expansion in the UN presence. 1995 brought
another boost to Vienna’s reputation as a leading
international centre with European Union
membership and the decision to host the
headquarters of the world’s largest regional
security organization, the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). AWA
has developed and grown along with its host city
into a diverse, dynamic and cosmopolitan
community. But the values and interests of the
founders’ original purpose endure: making lasting
AWAV members celebrating women’s right to vote
49

The Board signing the lease for our first clubhouse
friendships, adapting to new places, learning
about our adopted home and its culture, sharing
experiences, working together, having fun, and
supporting worthy causes.
Austria, the sewers featured in the Third Man
movie, the Opera House, the City Hall, the Loos
Haus and a multitude of other places. We have
held group picnics, bike tours, cooking classes,
wine tasting, yoga, Trivial Pursuit, Quiz night, and
talks on many interesting topics. During COVID-19
all these activities were moved to Zoom. Our
flexibility in moving to online meetings really
helped members to stay in touch during the
lockdowns. We even set up a call list to check on
members that we did not see or hear from often
in order to keep them connected.
AWA publishes a monthly magazine called
Highlights (in print and on-line versions) to
spotlight our members’ interests, backgrounds,
and talents.
How many members do you have and what are
their nationalities? AWA Vienna’s approximately
280 members hail from over 41 countries, giving
the club a truly international character. The
women of AWA are enthusiastic, sharing and
generous with their time and resources to make
sure that the over 100 monthly activities all come
off without a hitch.
How does the club run? AWA Vienna is run by an
elected 15-member board. (The exact number of
board members changes from time to time
depending on priorities). In addition, over 50
people regularly volunteer on various committees,
organize ad hoc activities and contribute to
fundraising events.
What kind of events do you have in your club?
Our over 100 events monthly are as diverse as our
membership, from conversational language
(Spanish, French, German, Italian) discussions, to
walking groups, to board and card games,
monthly luncheons and weekly coffee groups. Our
numerous very professional and comprehensive
tours are among the most popular events. Over
the past few years, we toured the only synagogue
to have survived Kristallnacht, the Borealis factory,
which is the largest plastic manufacturer of
An AWAV FAWCO Group Meeting
Do you raise money for any particular
cause? We raise money to benefit our primary
charity, Die Möwe, which supports abused
children and their families. Additionally we cook
food for the poor, knit hats and scarves for the
homeless, collect Christmas presents for children,
and bake and decorate cookies for the homeless
Christmas party. The charity team works hard to
raise these funds and in the process has lots of
fun and comradery.
What was your favorite event last year? We
recently celebrated our 97-year anniversary as a
club with a birthday party on Zoom. Over 60 club
members zoomed in with family and friends to
share an evening of singing, storytelling and
conversation, cooking demonstrations, poems,
yoga and dancing. It was wonderful!
Taking advantage of Vienna’s pleasant climate, we
have held outdoor activities including picnics,
drawing groups, dance and yoga in the city’s
beautiful Stadtpark. These also were well attended
and allowed us to mingle while social distancing.
Zoom wine night.
We hope we can have an in-person one soon.
50
Prior to COVID-19 our diverse tours often booked
out immediately. For many years the US
Ambassador has held a luncheon at the residence

With almost two million people, Vienna blends the
old with the new in architecture, coffee culture,
and traditions. Vienna’s abundant parks create an
enviable “green lung” and provide endless
opportunities for hiking, biking and running
without leaving the city’s borders. Thanks to
sound environmental policies, responsible city
administration and a robust public transportation
system, Vienna enjoys a very high quality of life
and consistently ranks among the top three most
liveable cities in the world.
The city is a top tourist destination attracting 6.8
million tourists a year. It is a gift to live in such a
beautiful city and country that put a high value on
family, children and quality of life.
Bring n Bite at the clubhouse in our Dirndls
for the club’s general meeting. These always drew
more than half the club members and we are
looking forward to the next one.
What else should we know about the club? We
have a wonderful, newly renovated clubhouse
used for small groups studying languages, playing
games, yoga classes, meetings of the board, and
many other meetings and coffees. We hold our
annual Christmas party in the clubhouse as well
as many other festive activities.
Hopefully, in the fall many of you can visit us
during the FAWCO Region 5 meeting. All things
COVID-19 considered, of course.
Tell us a little about your city and country in
general Vienna, the capital of Austria, is rich in
musical, artistic and gastronomic delights. Located
in the eastern part of Austria, close to the borders
with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary,
Vienna benefits from the best of its neighbors
cultures and its imperial past.
AWAV Drawing Group meeting in the Stadtpark
What are a few undiscovered gems in your city
and/or country? Coffee houses and Heuriger
(taverns serving new, local wine): Austrians like to
gather together with friends and (pre-COVID-19) it
was not uncommon to find entire families
meeting at restaurants or coffee houses to pass
the afternoons and evenings, enjoying good food,
wine and each other’s company. People-watching
is a favorite pastime that many indulge in during
warm afternoons in the parks or around the
Glühwein (hot mulled wine) huts in winter.
While many of Vienna’s art museums are worldfamous,
its plethora of unique and eccentric
museums are largely unknown to the average
tourist. No matter how strange your interest in a
particular subject matter, period of history or
famed person, Vienna probably has a museum
dedicated to it. The yearly Long Night of the
Museums allows you to explore as many of these
establishments as you have time and energy for in
a single night.
Any unusual/interesting traits of the locals?
Drawing on their rich ethnic mix and historical
background, the Viennese speak a dialect that is
highly expressive, but nearly incomprehensible to
the non-native speaker. Viennese humor (Schmäh)
is likewise characterized by subtle, indirect and
suggestive wit.
Biking in Neusiedler See, summer 2020
51

PROFILE
I Decided to
Become a Lawyer
When I Was Only
Nine!
Lauren Mescon, member of AWC
Amsterdam, went on to become a
lawyer specializing in
collaborative divorce as well as a
family law judge in Georgia.
I grew up in Savannah, GA, and never moved,
spending my whole childhood in the same house
with myparents and siblings. My four
grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins lived
nearby. I had “Yankee” cousins in New York that
came down every summer. My K-12 education
was spent in the local public schools and I made
life-long friends. Then years ago, nine of us held a
“2 nd Grade Reunion”, and even our teacher
attended - in her 80s!
What I remember is the stability of my family and
town. We had dinner at my paternal
grandparents’ house every Friday night and every
Sunday morning I would wake up to my maternal
grandfather whistling as he came to visit.
My grandmother’s and father’s volunteerism
impacted me. My grandmother volunteered with
the Jewish National Fund, which I still volunteer
with today. We have planted over 240 million
trees in Israel.
My father had a different meeting each night for
all the boards he volunteered for. He was a war
veteran from WWII but was the gentlest man on
the planet. The one exception was the basketball
court. He coached for the Jewish Center and
taught every boy their first four letter word! He
was my hero.
Growing up in the South when I did, I vividly
remember seeing “White” and “Colored”
bathrooms, as well as the discriminations faced
by Blacks and Jews.
Early years
Lauren Mescon
I announced at the dinner table that I was going
to become a lawyer. I was nine years old. Growing
up Jewish in the South I was constantly exposed
to things I felt but did not understand. As a child,
you can know instinctively something is not right,
even if you cannot articulate it. I also grew up on a
steady TV diet of shows about lawyers, like the
public defender Perry Mason and storefront
lawyers like Matlock.
Leaving home
Me as a toddler with my Dad
When I went to college at age 17, I wanted to get
as far away from home as possible. I went to the
University of Colorado in Boulder. Because I loved
it so much, I stayed for summer school and
graduated in three years. I learned to ride horses
and fell in love with the mountains and hiking. I
never did well with skiing, though.
52

Life today
I met my husband through our kids…they were in
school together. He called to ask me on a date, but
when we began to pick a time for our first date, I
started yelling at him about his personal custody
arrangement! He suggested I shut up since he was
asking me for a date, which I did, and the rest is
history 21 years later.
Early years with my boys
Next steps
After college, I headed back to Georgia for law
school - back then the dream was to be the first
female governor of Georgia. After law school at
Emory, I was a prosecutor in Savannah then
Maryland. Finally, I came back to Atlanta and
began working for the City Attorney of Roswell, an
Atlanta suburb. I also did a two-year expat stint in
Hong Kong when my two boys were very young.
After living in Hong Kong, I returned to Roswell
and was diagnosed with breast cancer. A year
later I was divorced and a single mom with two
boys, ages four and five. The City Attorney of
Roswell was still my mentor and probably the
most influential person in my personal and
professional life. He mentored me by giving me
office space and cases to develop a private
practice, which ultimately led to a specialization in
family law.
Starting my law practice
I had my own practice and was able to pay it
forward as my mentor had for me, offering the
same opportunity to a friend who became a
lawyer after her own divorce. She still practices
family law in Atlanta today.
He was a business dean then became a university
president and retired to join his current
organization, accrediting business schools
worldwide. He was hired to create the Europe,
Middle East and Africa office and here we are. It
has been an incredible journey these last six and a
half years!
Getting involved in justice
I guess my first involvement would have been
leading a protest against the dress code at the
Savannah/Chatham County Board of Education.
We even had a lawyer file suit for us. From there,
we protested when Nixon came to town, walked
out of high school during Vietnam and when white
supremacists marched, chanting, “we want our
schools back!”, we ran alongside them chanting,
“We want our schools Black!” I was part of the
Savannah Mayor’s Council on Race while in high
school as well.
Looking to the future
What we are seeing now is a total assault on our
democratic process. It has become party over
country, with politicians literally scheming to stay
in power and take away the thing that has made
the US so phenomenal - a democracy where the
people have a vote. The nuances of elections laws
and involvement of various governmental bodies,
from cities to counties to states to federal, offers
many hidden places for our right to vote to be
tampered with.
I became the first and only practitioner in Atlanta
to practice Collaborative Divorce, which is a more
civilized way to divorce. Lawyers, mental health
professionals and a financial specialist/neutral
party work together with the couple to transition
them to separate households. I taught
Collaborative Law nationally and was named
as a Super Lawyer by my peers in Atlanta from
2004-2009.
I also became a Family Law Judge in Fulton
County, GA, working for the elected judges,
handling case conferences and some hearings for
the family court.
With colleague Denise and Mayors Franklin and Tomlinson
53

Current concerns
My biggest concern is that there is no longer bipartisan
politics. If our politicians will not
communicate and are only interested in their own
power, how can our country move forward
without deteriorating into partisanship with no
focus on policy?
I also am very worried about the inordinate power
of negative social media campaigns that grow
exponentially, often with false information.
That is a huge problem for international relations,
as well. There are many hostile players out there
with no interest in their people or morality. We
need courageous conversations and open debate
between drastically different points of view with
leaders that encourage it. That is how we begin to
move forward and make change.
The role of culture
Living in Europe has made me shake my head in
wonder at the American belief in, and continued
proliferation of, gun ownership and open carry
permits. It really makes no sense to me. I also am
very conscious of where and when I “show” my
Jewish identity depending on where I am in
Europe, which comes from living in a place that
experienced WWII on its shores. Witnessing the
George Floyd murder, subsequent protests and
then the insurrection as a US expat also changes
your perspective, as the commentary is from
My family together for Thanksgiving
outside, not with the narrow lenses of someone
with only an American perspective.
What would I change if I could?
I really do not want to go back in time and start
over, but it would have been nice to work hard
enough to become the first female governor of
Georgia. But I would not change anything, as I
might not be sitting here today, involved with The
FAWCO Foundation, married to my incredible
husband, with amazing kids and grandkids.
Also in one of my moves, a box of my journals
and letters, including a series between me as an
idealistic, very naïve high schooler and a Vietnam
vet in jail, was thrown away. I would love to
re-read what I wrote from a teen to an adult.
54

FEATURE
“Why Did I Join The
Human Rights Team?”
Members of the FAWCO Human Rights Team explain why
they got involved.
Twana Rhodes, AWC
Berlin, Berlin,
Germany
I hold the strong belief
that Human Rights is
not just something “to
do” about something
“over there.” As I
believe Eleanor
Roosevelt stated, “It’s in
your hands,” and I take
this quite literally.
Upholding human
rights, the fabric of human rights, if you will, is
your personal responsibility to do the right thing
in your own backyard. I suspect many “dogooders”
and human rights defenders, activists,
and those of us who sit in front of our televisions
exuding outrage over the latest injustice, are
failing to look at our own indiscretions. What if, in
some collective reality, the tiny injustice that I
impose on my son, or my neighbor, or my coworker
. . . adds another drop of water to the sea
of injustice that forms and swells and lands in
devastating human rights violations, on some
community, some-where “over there.”
Tiina Kujala, AWC
Finland, Espoo,
Finland
When I was offered the
opportunity to join the
FAWCO Human Rights
Team I felt very
intimidated by all the
members, who know
and do so much. I
quickly realized that
every action, every word, every chance to learn
about human rights is valuable.
In my work as a teacher and in a political
organization I have discovered that working for
human rights is in the daily lives and details, just
as much as in the large projects.
Being a member of the Human Rights Team has
changed my life and offered me tools to help
change the world.
Sue ENGLAND,
Munich IWC,
FAWCO UN
Contact and
Human Rights
Team, Munich,
Germany
I joined because it’s
a great
international
group, something I
like a lot, as I have
lived and worked in
seven different countries. I have studied and
taught human rights law, and I can add that
international expertise to our talented group.
All over the world the human rights issues women
face are the same: access to justice and getting
the full range of political, economic, medical,
social and cultural rights that all people have been
given under international law, for real!
Ulrike
Naeumann,
Heidelberg
International
Women’s Club,
Weisenheim am
Berg, Germany
I love the fresh
spirit and the
energy of our
monthly Human
Rights calls and FRN
meetings. I love to
discuss with these smart ladies how to make the
world a place of justice for everybody, especially
for women and girls. Every meeting I hear
something new, something that makes me think
and gives me ideas to make little changes in my
life. Sometimes the stories I hear make me sad,
but I am filled with hope that together we can
make the world a better place.
55

Ann BIROT-
SALSBURY, AAWE
Paris, FAWCO
Refugee Network
and Human Rights
Team, Tours, France
I feel at home with the
FAWCO Human Rights
Team. It is a safe place
to not only talk about
sensitive topics but
more importantly to
brainstorm strategies to
raise awareness in FAWCO and beyond about
human rights issues. I am constantly learning
from my FAWCO HR Team sisters. The FAWCO HR
Team is like a marinade, it tenderizes me and
helps me stay grounded in my own and others’
humanity! AND it gives me hope that together we
can create a more peaceful World for all!
56

PROFILE
The Gentle Touch
of Hands-on Help
Ulrike Näumann, member of
Heidelberg IWC and co-chair of
the FAWCO Refugee Network, tells
us how she got involved in
working with refugees.
I was born and raised in Bensheim an der
Bergstrasse, Germany. We lived in a very small
village in nature and at the edge of the forest. My
mother worked in the Department of Health, as
my father had lost his eyesight and could not
work anymore. My father stayed at home and
took care of my brother and me.
Leaving home
Ulrike Näumann
I decided to study Protestant theology to become
a pastor. The church suggested studying at
different places to get to know different doctrinal
opinions so I studied at the Universities in
Bielefeld, Bern, Münster and Heidelberg.
At university I heard about liberation theology, the
social concern for the poor and political liberation
for oppressed people. I learned about the forms
of inequality such as race or caste. This touched
me a lot. I worked in a shop with Fair Trade Goods
as a volunteer.
I discovered that I love to move and that I love
changes. After marrying, my husband and I
moved to Brussels, Belgium and I worked for the
German Protestant Church. I had three children
while we lived in Brussels.
With my family on vacation in 1974
During this time I joined the AWC Brussels, as my
husband is American. Here I made friends and got
In the elementary school of my little village I
found what we learned very boring. But I did love
to listen to the stories from the Bible because
they made me think and boosted my imagination.
I especially loved the stories about justice, for
example “The Judgement of Solomon.”
As a teenager, I went to a Roman Catholic girls
school and became interested in the Protestant
church. This was where I found my “tribe.”
In my school and in the church we always
supported local and international projects for
people in need.
With my daughter Paula in May 2021
57

change the world. Maybe after raising my children,
I learned that you can make a difference for an
individual person. You can change their world.
My role models
My role model was my mother, who taught me to
be tolerant and to respect other people. My
mother taught me that education is the most
important thing in life. After surviving WW2 in
Dresden she knew that degrees are the only
values you can’t lose. This is why I am helping
refugee children to get settled in the German
school system.
With some of the refugee women in 2018
to know the American culture. I was impressed by
the tradition of volunteering and fundraising for a
good cause.
Moving countries
My role model for my profession was a female
pastor I met.
My involvement today
Before the COVID-19 restrictions, I organized a
meeting of refugee women every Wednesday
afternoon. Sometimes we made trips to a park
during the holidays. This was lots of fun.
Next we moved from Brussels to Germany and to
Princeton, NJ in the US, where my children became
US Citizens. Then we moved back again to
Germany and subsequently Brussels; we just love
this city.
Today we live in the Palatinate in Germany and all
three children are at university. I sing in a choir
and give language training to expats. I am also
involved in the local refugee work, especially with
women and children, helping them to settle in. I
use the skills I learned and the experiences I had
made as an expat myself.
What is justice?
Justice is if everybody has access to equal
prerequisites regardless of origin, nationality, sex
and social status. Justice is laying an equal
foundation for everybody. Justice is if there is no
child left behind.
Why do I do it?
When I was in my twenties I thought I could
A field trip from Freinsheilm to Mannheim in 2018
I also offer language training for refugee women
and am helping a family from Syria with different
issues, for example helping to get the children
tutored. I was very glad that I found two tutors in
our FAWCO community: Tara Scott and Pascal
Shrady. I also helped the father of the family to get
a place in a rehabilitation program for the blind.
The future
I dream of getting more ladies involved in the
FAWCO Refugee Network: helping with “hands-on
activities” or tutoring or giving language training to
refugees, focusing on students and the refugee
mothers.
2.8 million children in Germany are growing up in
poverty. That is one in five children. This is one of
the biggest social challenges in Germany. Around
two thirds of children living in poverty experience
it long term. Concrete effects of poverty in
Germany include not owning a car or electronic
devices and no vacations. https://www.dw.com/
en/1-in-5-children-in-germany-grow-up-in-poverty/
a-54260165.
58

INSPIRING YOU
Founded in 1931, FAWCO is a global women’s NGO (non-governmental organization), an
international network of independent volunteer clubs and associations comprising 58
member clubs in 31 countries on six continents. FAWCO serves as a resource and a voice for
its members; seeks to improve the lives of women and girls worldwide, especially in the areas
of human rights, health, education and the environment; advocates for the rights of US
citizens overseas; and contributes to the global community through its Global Issues Teams
and The FAWCO Foundation, which provides development grants and education awards.
Since 1997, FAWCO has held special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social
Council.
OUR MISSION STATEMENT
FAWCO is an international federation of independent organizations whose mission is:
• to build strong support networks for its American and international membership;
• to improve the lives of women and girls worldwide;
• to advocate for the rights of US citizens overseas; and
• to mobilize the skills of its membership in support of global initiatives for
education, the environment, health and human rights.
MAGAZINE FEEDBACK
We want this magazine to be interesting for all FAWCO Members. In an effort to provide
articles of interest to all of our readers, we have created an online feedback questionnaire. It
should only take a few minutes of your time to complete and will be a great help to us!
Please click on the link or paste it into your browser
to complete our short five question survey.
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ADVERTISING DISCLAIMER
FAWCO receives financial remuneration for page space from advertisers. Views expressed or benefits
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adverts are not endorsed by FAWCO.
Copyright 2021 FAWCO
Inspiring Women© Magazine is owned and published electronically by FAWCO.
All rights reserved. All bylined articles are copyright of their respective authors as indicated herein and are
reproduced with their permission. The magazine or portions of it may not be reproduced in any form, stored in
any retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy or otherwise –
without the written consent of the publisher.
59

MORE ABOUT THIS ISSUE
The Inspiring Women Team
Liz Elsie Karen Berit Michele
For more information about this magazine, please contact a member of the Inspiring
Women team:
Editor in Chief, Liz MacNiven, inspiringwomen.editor@fawco.org
Advertising and Sponsorship Manager, Elsie Bose, advertising@fawco.org
Distribution Manager, Karen Boeker, iwdistribution@fawco.org
Social Media Manager, Berit Torkildsen, iwsocialmedia@fawco.org
Features Coordinator, Michele Hendrikse Du Bois, inspiringwomenfeatures@fawco.org
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to our profilees: Ann, Karen, Kelsey, Kristen, Lauren, Lindsey, Rena, Sue, and Ulrike
with thanks also for the use of their photos and those of their friends and families. Additional
thanks to Beverly, Karen (and the whole FAWCO Human Rights team), Katja, Lauren, Marina,
and Mary for their work on the articles.
The cover photo is of one the survivors of human trafficking featured in the book Hope is the
Thing with Feathers (for more information on the book see the feature on page 22) taken in
The Netherlands in 2016 by My-Linh Kunst, former two-term FAWCO President and member
of AWC Berlin. My-Linh explains "this was one of the Nigerian survivors from the Bijlmer -
Bridge2Hope project who initially did not want to talk to us. I felt bad holding my camera
because it seemed like exploitation. I didn’t expect to get any pictures that day. But when it
finally happened, it was magical." Images of survivors holding feathers symbolize how
fleeting and illusive hope can sometimes be, like birds and feathers that drift away and come
back to you.
Special thanks to the proofreading team of Karen Boeker (AWC Denmark), Laurie Brooks
(AWC Amsterdam/AWC The Hague), Celeste Brown (AWC The Hague), Sallie Chaballier (AAWE
Paris), Janet Davis (AIWC Cologne), Tamar Hudson (AIWC Cologne), Carol-Lyn McKelvey (AIWC
Cologne/FAUSA), Lauren Mescon (AWC Amsterdam), Mary Stewart Burgher (AWC Denmark),
and Jenny Taylor (AIWC Cologne and Düsseldorf).
Please note: images used in this publication are either sourced from the authors themselves or
through canva.com.
60

Coming
November 18
Women and
Hospitality
“Hospitality is Simply Love on the Loose.”
Joan D. Chittister
Hospitality is big business, but to be done
well it requires a passion to serve others.
We encounter hospitality daily and all
recognize when we receive exceptional
hospitality and when it is lacking.
Providing these services is hard work but
can be oh so rewarding.
The next issue of Inspiring Women has
profiles of features on women who have
made hospitality their business in some
way. It also has features to whet your
appetite in time for the holidays!
Make sure you subscribe (CLICK HERE)
to get a copy directly in your inbox. It’s totally free to
subscribe and your friends and family can have a copy too.
61

That’s I
Using Loud Voices to Achieve Equality
This photo shows Rena Levin and Karin Blake taking part in a march in Norway.
62
Rena and Karin met through AWC Oslo. Discovering they shared a
common passion about women’s rights, they organized the Women’s
March Norway. Using activism to spread the message that gender
inequality is human injustice.

nspired!
Using Small Voices to Achieve Equality
Belgian TV and Radio Presenter, Annabelle van Nieuwenhuyse. Photo taken by
Brigitte Meuwissen of AWC Antwerp.
Annabelle is a prominent figure in Belgium. She started a language
school in her home during the pandemic, teaching children both French
and Dutch. Using education to overcome cultural misunderstanding
aids the fight against inequality.
63