Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative
IGLI encourages engagement between researchers and activists on how to most effectively wage and support movements for social change.
Our Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative (IGLI) initiates research, education and programming aimed at elevating and amplifying the work that women-identified and gender non-conforming activists are doing at the grassroots to promote peace, justice and human rights around the world. IGLI embraces a commitment to nonviolence and feminist principles of leadership. This initiative is Directed by Professor Marie Berry.
Learn more about IGLI and access participant resources here.
Our Three Core Components
Research
How do post-war empowerment interventions impact women's lives? The Women's Rights After War (WRAW) project asks which women benefit from new opportunities, suggesting that the implementation of gender egalitarian laws and policies often maps onto existing socio-political cleavages.
Learn MoreProgramming
The IGLI speaker series brings speakers and practitioners-in-residence to the University of Denver as part of an effort to convene conversations that catalyze inclusive leadership related to global peace and security. These guests conduct innovative programming that actively includes members of the broader community in Denver and beyond.
IGLI Summer Institute
The Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative's annual Summer Institute brings women-identified activists working on the frontlines to promote peace, justice and human rights around the world to Colorado to receive advanced training in waging successful nonviolent movements for social change. The Institute is designed to strengthen their role as leaders in movements by offering women activists evidence-based training, networking opportunities and a space to exchange stories about their particular struggles and successes.
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Learn About Dr. Marie Berry's Award-Winning Work
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Faculty & Staff
Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative Bridges Gap Between Art and Academics
On January 12, 2023 Dr. Choman Hardi joined the Sié Center in a discussion on feminist activism in Iraq. In the event titled ‘Women’s Resistance: On the Page and on the Ground’, she discussed what it meant to be Kurdish and feminist in her home country and her transformation into an activist. In 2015, Hardi founded the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani’s (AUIS) Center for Gender and Development Studies, and in 2017, she established Iraq’s first interdisciplinary gender studies minor. Her research includes a range of topics from poetry and feminist literature to masculinity and women’s activism, to gender and genocide. It was that night, in a room full of people from the US and around the world, that Hardi read the words of her poems, talked about living the life of an activist, academic, and poet, and brought, for those who haven’t been to Iraq, her world into the intimate setting of Maglione Hall. -
Faculty & Staff
2020-2021 Practitioner-in-Residence: Togolese Activist Farida Nabourema Brings Her Work to Korbel Class
Farida Nabourema grew up in Togo watching her father model activism and the importance of political participation. By the time she was 13, she was already involved in that same work, and by 20 she had co-founded a movement known as Faure Must Go.
The movement’s goal was — and remains — to remove Togolese dictator Faure Gnassingbé from power and steer the country toward democracy by mobilizing its people. Because of this work and ongoing human rights abuses in Togo, she has faced threats and even had to flee the country. -
Faculty & Staff
'Oprah of Syria' Brings Fresh Perspectives to DU
Honey Al Sayed, a Syrian media personality, spent fall quarter 2019 teaching Media and the Arts for Peace. Honey is an award-winning independent media expert and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the United States.
In Syria, Honey Al Sayed's work earned her comparisons to Oprah. For years, her daily three-hour live radio show, “Good Morning, Syria,” reached millions with a refreshing lineup of uplifting storytelling and discussions about taboo topics ranging from sexual education to corruption. Al Sayed has spent years rebuilding her career in the U.S. and leaping through hoop after hoop in the immigration process.
Past Events
Self-Defense, De-Escalation and Healing Space: A Workshop with IGLI Alumna Rana Abdelhamid
November 9, 2018
The Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative (IGLI) at the Sié Center was pleased to invite the DU Community to join IGLI alumna Rana Abdelhamid for a dynamic self-defense, de-escalation and healing space workshop. Rana is the founder of MALIKAH, a global collective of women committed to building security and power for ourselves and our communities. Over the past eight years, MALIKAH has conducted healing spaces and trained over 3,000 women in self-defense, economic empowerment and organizing. MALIKAH believes that it is our human right to exist in the world free from all forms of violence, and provides women and non-binary individuals with skills to de-escalate violent situations.
Book Talk: War, Women and Power with Marie Berry
April 10, 2018
This talk and panel convened experts in the field of gender, peace and security to discuss the themes in Marie Berry's book — War, Women and Power: From Violence to Mobilization in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina. This panel featured Yolande Bouka, Erica Chenoweth, Milli Lake and Zoe Marks, with an introduction by Josef Korbel School Acting Dean, Pardis Mahdavi.