Who Are We

The Khalifa Ihler Institute is a global peace-building organization dedicated to building and empowering thriving and inclusive communities. Our mission rests in violence prevention and the celebration of diversity as an integral aspect of thriving and sustainable communities. Employing a holistic approach, we promote peace and inclusivity in fragile areas, in local communities, and in countries seen to be “at peace”.

At the heart of the Institute rests a three-tiered approach to making effective and measurable impact,

Research
Advocacy & policy development
Action & implementation

We aim to identify issues and advocate against them, and directly address them through programmatic efforts. Simultaneously, in our own capacity, we encourage widespread implementation of policy that will build towards our vision of peaceful, inclusive, and thriving communities around the world.

Contact

Get in touch to learn more about our services, collaborations, partners and team.

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TEAM

Featured

Asma Khalifa

Asma Khalifa is a Libyan activist and researcher who has worked on human rights, women’s rights and youth empowerment since 2011. She has begun working on peace-building and conflict transformation in Libya. In May 2016, Ms. Khalifa received the Luxembourg Peace Prize during The World Peace Forum in the European Parliament in Luxembourg. In 2017, she was named one of the 100 most influential young Africans by the Africa Youth Awards. In 2018, Ms. Khalifa was named one of the 30 most extraordinary voices by the African Women in Leadership Organization. Ms. Khalifa is the co-founder of Tamazight Women’s Movement, a think/do tank that is working on gender equality and research on the indigenous women of Libya and North Africa.

Bjørn Ihler

Bjørn Ihler is an internationally renowned researcher and expert in countering and preventing radicalization into violent extremism through the design of healthier communities on and off-line. Ihler is also a member of the group Extremely Together working under the Kofi Annan Foundation to empower youth internationally to challenge violent extremism in their local communities and work against radicalisation across the globe. His most recent appointment as of July 2020 is as Chairperson of the Independent Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism.

Through his international work, Ihler has among others worked with and advised both local organizations, national governments and international institutions such as the EU, OSCE and the UN to develop strategies to more effectively prevent radicalisation into violent extremism that may lead to terrorism, and build more peaceful communities.

Marion Pobo

As the Khalifa Ihler Institue project manager and chief operating officer, Marion enjoys working in the background ensuring that all projects are running smoothly. She has a technical background in international development, agriculture and food security. She speaks French, English and Spanish fluently. Marion is particularly interested in peace and diversity promotion, women's rights, and Excel spreadsheets.

Miriam Fanin

Miriam Fanin holds a Master degree in Diplomacy and International cooperation, and a Bachelor in Intercultural Mediation. Miriam was born in Italy but is currently living in the Arctic. She has always been interested in bringing conflicting groups together and finding common ground. Her research and work focusing on hate-groups has guided her work on the Khalifa Ihler Hate-Map for which she is lead researcher and focus on far-right activities across Europe. She is fluent in Italian, German, English and Russian and focuses on these regions. Her past work includes research on the democratization process in Russia and the roots of Putinism. She is currently researching the far-right movement in the Post Soviet Space.

Hella Grichi

Hella Grichi graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Tunis, specializing in English studies. She is also a Young Mediterranean Voices alumni who loves debating and partaking in workshops and seminars around the world. Her main focus is on social justice, feminism and LGBTQ rights, especially in the context of the MENA region. As a witness of the Freedom and Dignity revolution in 2011, she believes in progressive grassroots activism and the power it holds, despite the challenges that Tunisia is still going through.

After teaching English in Kasserine and working at the German embassy in Tunis for a while, she is now based in Berlin, in pursuit of new challenges. She is fluent in German, Arabic, English, French and Memes.

Pallavi Kaushal

Pallavi Kaushal is passionate about inclusion, feminism, conflict transformation, and peacebuilding. An advocate for sustainable, youth-led social change and feminist leadership, Pallavi holds a MA in Peace, Security, Development, and International Conflict Transformation from the University of Innsbruck. She comes to The Khalifa Ihler Institute with 12 years of experience across a spectrum of roles in international development.

Ava May Callanan

Ava May Callanan holds a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology and graduated from Malmö University with a Master of Science in Criminology. Ava was born in Ireland where she currently lives. Her research has centred around the criminal mind and in more recent times focusing on Extremism, terrorism and media representation of extremism. Her interests are debating, films and media.

Sarah Przedpelska

Sarah Przedpelska works at the intersection of education, research and community development. Over the past 14 years she has worked with social entrepreneurs, universities and research institutions, Norwegian municipalities, grassroots NGOs, international aid organizations, global tech and urban developers in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Canada. Core to her work is how we create inclusion and belonging.

Our Reach

The work of The Khalifa Ihler Institute has since its inception in 2016 reached thousands of engaged individuals and organizations around the globe both through our advocacy efforts, lectures, talks, workshops, trainings, and published writing.

While measuring direct impact is hard in a world where many actors work in different ways towards the same goal we know we have had a direct impact on policy both at the state-level, such as on national policies in the European Union on the approach to the treatment of youth going through radicalization processes, as well as on the work and thinking of international organizations such as the UN and OSCE in their understanding and approach to challenging violent extremism.

We have also seen larger societal shifts such as changes in how the public views violent extremism, among others in places where we have worked to push for a more balanced approach when it comes to focusing on violent extremism as the violent denial of diversity rather than the single-minded focus we saw in the past on Islamist extremism, which fuelled the far-right and led to the alienation of Muslim communities.

In areas where we work we see increased recognition of the rights of minority populations, among others through recognition of native languages as a national language, and through the representation of minorities, women, and youth in national, international, and local processes for peace, justice, and reconciliation.

Working with a range of partners we have also led the charge in the adoption of UNSCR 2250 which guarantees youth a seat at the table in peace processes. We have represented youth at the highest levels in the United Nations and ensured that the voices of young activists have been heard by state leaders as well as leaders in the private sector throughout multiple consultations, panels, lectures, and meetings.

We've seen our work lead to a real change in how grassroots organizations globally work to counter and prevent violent extremism and have also seen that lead to a real change in peace processes where youth and grassroots organizers are represented at unprecedented levels. We still have a long way left to go in this and are working to strengthen the real representation of both youth, women, and non-violent grassroots in the various peace process we engage with.

These changes are long journeys, and stepping stones towards longer, more impactful change. We're thankfully not alone in fighting for the things we believe. We firmly believe both in partnerships for change and also in the interconnected nature of our work, meaning that we happily contribute to and also support activists that might be more indirectly connected to what we do, such as those fighting against climate change, etc / it's good to see things going in the right direction in what we believe in and have been working for, even if direct causality of an impact sometimes is really challenging to track accurately.

Through international networks and collaborations, as well as by providing workshops and resources to activists and advocates from around the globe we are proud and happy to have a reach far beyond the borders of these countries.