Nivar Mohamad is a twenty-six-year-old woman who has recently emerged into the world of politics and diplomacy starting her career in the Presidency of the Kurdistan Region two years ago. She is a women’s rights activist and a believer of gender equality having to be implemented throughout the public organizations in the region. She works as the administrative assistant to the Chief of Staff to the president having multiple responsibilities such as official letter writings, minute taking in officials’ meetings, protocol work, research writings, holding seminars and workshops with other departments, also selected as the master of ceremony for most events in the presidency.

Born and raised in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a region that has been through countless conflicts, Nivar was born into a family of generations of Peshmarga’s and politicians, in which they were refugees for two decades before she was brought into the world. Not only is Kurdistan a part of a country that is never at ease, but the region itself has been under threat by the many regimes and dictators that have ruled the country, trying to pragmatically destroy the culture, the nationalism, the languages and most importantly the will of the public of Kurdistan. This has been of interest to Nivar since her childhood where she would speak up in public events for all the atrocities committed against the Kurdish people at the time by the dictator Saddam Hussein.

Nivar has been an advocate for peace, conflict resolution, gender equality and women’s rights throughout her childhood and adulthood. Now she wants to take it a step further and implement these ideologies by mainstreaming a gender unit in the highest level of decision-making institution in the region, the Presidency, by leading more women in decision-making positions which would result in peace-building and preventing conflicts from happening in the future.

Participant in: November/December 2022 Fellowship: Peacebuilding and Women’s Meaningful Participation in Peacebuilding Processes