Supporting, empowering, Mobilizing
Our Staff
Our Team
Our organizational and administrative team are hard at work supporting our Global Grassroots Activists Network around the world. They act as connectors, supporters, and emergency contacts in times of need.
Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh
Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh is one of the three co-founders of Solidarity 2020 and Beyond and its current Director. She is an expert on peacebuilding, social justice movements and nonviolent strategy and resistance. She trains, convenes, and researches hundreds of grassroots activists and nonviolent campaigns and movements struggling for peace, self-determination, women’s rights, economic and environmental justice, and immigrant rights in Africa, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Latin America and North America.
Over the last 10 years, she has traveled to 75 countries, invited by organizers and activists, to provide training and education, strategic planning, capacity building and solidarity for social justice movements. She was a 2020 Rotary Peace Fellow at the Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and, upon return, co-founded Solidarity 2020 and Beyond, an international network of grassroots activists, journalists and scholars supporting nonviolent movements. She provides consultancy expertise for the Global Fund for Women, the EU Peace Initiative in Palestine/Israel, UN, EU and Danish-led Youth Advisory Panel, YAP, in Palestine, Women in the Peace Process in Afghanistan, curriculum development, training, and strategic planning support for Action Aid projects with African Youth Movement and Afresist.
Previously, Katherine served as the Director of Global Field Initiatives at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, ICNC, the Executive Director of Peace Brigades International USA, and Director of the Teamworks Program at the Commission on the Status of Women. She earned her MA in International Development and Peace and Conflict Resolution at the American University School of International Service and completed the Arab Studies program at Georgetown University, both in Washington, DC.
Ms. Hughes-Fraitekh is on the board of Day Africa, an economic empowerment and micro-farming initiative for women and youth in vulnerable communities in Kenya. Ms. Hughes-Fraitekh is herself a grassroots activist involved in anti-racism, anti-Islamophobia, anti-militarism, indigenous rights, gun control, immigrant and women’s rights and Palestinian human rights organizing in the US. She provides commentary on international news programs, serves on panels and speaks on webinars, publishes articles and contributes to books, including in Open Democracy, and the Middlebury Institute, and teaches classes on movement building and MENA, specifically Palestine/Israel.
Pawan Bam
Pawan Bam is a dynamic and ambitious young professional from Nepal. He possesses a versatile skill set and a passion for general administration and operation management within organizations. He is a proficient problem solver and an excellent communicator. He is the co-founder of Niwan Events– a event management agency in Kathmandu– and currently working as a Chief Executive Officer at Aakar Media, a Nepal based media startup. Pawan has been deeply involved in organizing and managing various events and projects including co-organizer of TEDx Jamal 2022, and a Lead Organizer of TEDxYouth@Gyaneshwor 2019.
A believer of “Jack of All”, Mr. Bam describes himself as an autodidact who has an affinity to self-teaching. Currently pursuing a Bachelor of Business Studies in Nepal, he is a Economics and Finance enthusiast, also keeping keen interests in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Movies, Education, Deep-tech innovations, Science and Spirituality.
Pawan is excited to be supporting the international work of Solidarity 2020 and Beyond and has a history of commitment to social causes and community service evident through his involvement in various organizations and volunteer work including organizing free health camps, youth empowerment events, and educational bootcamps.