Women Building Peace

Two HPA alumnae tackle barriers to women’s rights and peace across the globe

One humid day in New York City at the United Nations Plaza, Eleonore Veillet-Chowdhury ’01 was waiting in line to receive her United Nations ID card. “The person ahead of me looked so familiar,” she recalls. “I said, ‘I think your name is Abbi. How do I know that?’”

The woman was Abigail (Ross) Ruane ’98, also in line that day to get her United Nations ID. Though their paths hadn’t crossed at all since high school, these two HPA alumnae reconnected around their common careers. Both are standouts in the field of global peacemaking and women’s rights.

Today, Veillet-Chowdhury lives in Baltimore, MD, and is a global consultant and senior program advisor with the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP). Ruane works in New York City, where she is a political affairs officer at the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. Both are mothers and team up with their partners to juggle international travel and manage currently hybrid in-person/remote learning schedules for their children, while they continue the work of making a place at the table for women who are leading movements in Libya, Sudan, Ukraine, Bangladesh, and beyond. Now, in the midst of a global pandemic, their work is more important than ever.

In the time of COVID, renewed urgency for women peacebuilders

Last year, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, the United Nations marked the 20th anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). A trailblazing resolution spearheaded in 2000 by the global women’s peace movement, it was the first UN resolution to recognize the centrality of women’s leadership in achieving international peace and security. Two decades later, there has been some progress on women’s participation in global peacemaking—women are increasingly recognized as leaders in protests and movements for social justice around the world—but the work is far from complete. Worldwide, women still too often remain at the sidelines of resolving violent conflict, despite the fact that gender equality (or lack thereof) remains a state’s number one predictor of peace.

The novel coronavirus has made this work even more urgent. By UN estimates, some 2 billion people currently live in countries affected by conflict. With the spread of COVID-19, human beings are now fighting wars and a lethal virus. In October 2020, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for a global ceasefire and later convened a virtual roundtable where he urged governments to recommit to the WPS agenda.

“It’s time to move beyond words and aspirational commitments,” he said. “We must invest and partner with women leaders and their networks to accelerate women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation. I call on all peacekeeping partners to recommit to the women, peace, and security agenda. Let’s make it happen. Let’s summon the political will.”

Eleonore Veillet-Chowdhury ’01, consultant, Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP)

Eleonore Veillet-Chowdhury ’01: Giving voice to girls

One of many nonprofits advancing this effort is the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), a coalition of over 100 women’s organizations from around the world, headquartered in New York City. Eleanore Veillet-Chowdhury ’01 joined the GNWP International Coordinating team in 2011, and currently serves as a global consultant and senior program advisor. Based in Baltimore, she guides the development, grantmaking, and implementation of programs that foster women and youth peacebuilders in conflict-affected countries such as Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Afghanistan.

Veillet-Chowdhury agrees that COVID-19 has intensified the urgency of GNWP’s mission and the struggle for women’s equality around the globe. “Any time there is a conflict or emergency, women and girls bear the brunt of it,” she explains. “They are both first responders and the victims of increased violence in their homes and communities. They suffer the consequences of unpaid labor like caring for children.” Through numerous local partners, GNWP is striving to alleviate these stressors. “It is inspiring to see that in spite of a crisis of this magnitude, our partners were still able to mobilize to support their communities,” she says.

Looking back on her career to date, Veillet-Chowdhury notes that her interest in human rights, and women’s rights in particular, “was always there. I grew up in a diverse community with lots of immigrants. My mom is a feminist, and she taught us to be strong and independent.” Her years at HPA played a role as well: “It was my introduction to a bunch of other cultures and other languages. It opened up the world for me,” she explains.
Although English was not her first language, at HPA Veillet-Chowdhury gravitated toward literature, and she ultimately earned a PhD in peace and conflict resolution in 20th and 21st century fiction. “I sought out peace and justice in literature because there are some issues that people might not be able to talk about without using the cover of fiction: racism, colonialism, or sexual violence, for example,” she says.

After she defended her thesis, however, she was drawn to more hands-on activism. “It became obvious that, for me, my work needed to go beyond literature.” Before stepping into her current role at GNWP, she spent two years working at the Domestic Violence Action Center in Honolulu. “That work is so near to my heart, with a lot of overlap with the work I do today,” she says. “Domestic abuse is a huge piece of the COVID fallout, and we see it in every country.”

Abigail Ruane at the Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations (Photo: Nate Hamlin, State of Mind Media)

Abigail (Ross) Ruane ’98:
Amplifying women’s leadership for peace

Like Veillet-Chowdhury, Ruane has long been a fighter for gender equality. Her career encompasses being an adjunct professor at Hunter College, program director at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and now a political affairs officer at the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, as well as volunteer activism including the Occupy Wall Street movement. Through all these roles, Ruane has tenaciously pursued change by building alliances between institutional “insiders” and social movement “outsiders” for systems change. Contributing to the global movement for women’s rights is, so far, her life’s work.

“The global feminist movement is amazing—full of brilliant, kind, hilarious, and incredibly hard-working women, men, and nonbinary people who are trying to make the world a better place,” she says. “Changing the world for women means changing the world for marginalized people everywhere.”

Ruane grew up in Kona, was homeschooled, and attended Konawaena High School before arriving at HPA. She traces her inclination for activism to early childhood: “When I was three, my dad read a Bible verse that said, ‘Blessed are the sons of God,’ and I asked about the daughters. I’ve always had a feminist curiosity.”

The global feminist movement is amazing—full of brilliant, kind, hilarious, and incredibly hard-working women, men, and nonbinary people who are trying to make the world a better place

Abigail (Ross) Ruane ’98

After she graduated from HPA, Ruane went on to earn an MA and PhD in international relations at the University of Southern California. She wrote an introductory international relations textbook based on The Lord of the Rings, and had two children—all by age thirty.

Now at the UN, she is part of the Gender, Peace, and Security Unit where her work, in a nutshell, opens doors for women to become part of international peace processes and ensure that outcomes address women’s lives. The work is centered around strengthening women’s participation, protection, and rights. Situations in Colombia, Liberia, Somalia, and Northern Ireland (among others) have generated best practices and point the way toward wider inclusion of women into peace processes, as well as post-conflict transitions. “Too often, it’s men with guns at the table while women are excluded or sidelined, but women need to have a role,” she explains. “Women have the right to participate. We’ve also learned that peace agreements are more sustainable when women are meaningfully involved.”

UN Photo/Iason Foounten, Libya / UN Photo/Rick Bajornas, Iraq / UN Photo/Albert Gonzalez Farran, Sudan

From Ruane’s perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated what was always in need of repair. “Before the pandemic, the world was not working for most people,” she says. “Now is the time to recognize that we can’t go back to what was before. Instead, it is time to set things right by listening to global calls of social justice movements to design our world based on justice for people and planet.”

With two children, a “phenomenal” husband, and supportive nearby family and friends, Ruane is grateful for the help and encouragement she’s received as she pursues her passion to overcome obstacles to women’s rights and create a more just world. Gordon Bryson, her English teacher at HPA, even reached out to Ruane during the #MeToo movement and encouraged her to run for office. “That’s the kind of teacher he was,” she says. “He expected great things from his HPA students, and he got them to expect more of themselves.” (As it turns out, Bryson and his wife also live near Veillet-Chowdhury. They’ve reconnected, and she has even joined the Brysons’ book club.)

Inspired by teachers like Gordon Bryson and many others; steeped in the wide perspective of global feminist movements, Ruane looks toward the future with a blend of realism and hope. “Change is always impossible until it happens,” she says of movements for social justice. “What can we each do to be a part of the change we want to see? If everyone does something, change will happen.”

Photos courtesy of GNWP

Young Women Leaders for Peace

Established by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, the Young Women Leaders for Peace program (YWL) empowers young women and girls to act for peace and to build leadership, literacy, and independence for themselves and their communities. Since 2014, when the program was launched in the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 6,000 young women from Afghanistan to Indonesia have benefitted from the program.

Last year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres recognized the contributions of YWL for organizing interreligious dialogues and building local ownership of a new law in the Philippines, noting, “When young people are meaningfully included in all phases of the peace process, the benefits are clear.”

Editor’s note: This story first appeared in the spring 2021 issue of Ma Ke Kula.