Interim Board

After the Global Network of Women's Shelters was founded, we needed to come up with a temporary governance model to use until we could expand membership enough to become a global board with proportional regional representation. For this interim stage it was decided that all the people and agencies who founded, and continued to be active in GNWS would be members of the Interim Board.

It was decided that this interim body would have an Executive Committee led by 2 co-chairs representing the northern and southern hemisphere: Sue Else of the US National Network to End Domestic Violence (north) and Bandana Rana of Saathi-Nepal (south). GNWS also has 3 Committees -- Membership and Governance, Policy, and, Communications and Awareness. The chair of each committee also sits on the Executive Committee.

This GNWS Interim Board is composed of 20 shelter oganizations from 17 countries/regions including: Armenia, Australia, Europe, Canada, Denmark, England, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Pakistan, Rwanda, Sweden, United States, and Vietnam.

Listed below, are the founding and current agencies and members of the Interim Board.

GNWS Region Country Organization
Europe Armenia Women's Right Center - Susanna Vardanyan
Oceania Australia WESNET (The Women's Services Network) - Julie Oberin, Margaret Augerinos, Shirley Slann
Europe Europe Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE) - Rosa Logar, Maria Rösslhumer
North America Canada

Canadian Network of Women’s Shelters and Transition Houses / Réseau canadien des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes - Tracy Gierman

Alberta Council of Women's Shelters (ACWS) - Jan Reimer

Fédération de ressources d’hébergement pour femmes violentées et en difficulté du Québec - Manon Monastesse

A Safe Place - Patricia Vargas
Europe Denmark Danner - Maria Stetter Rubin
Europe England

Women's Aid Federation of England - Nicola Harwin

Imkaan - Marai Larasi
Europe Iceland Stigamot - Gudrun Jonsdottir
Asia Israel Naamat Israel- Ruth Ozery
Europe Italy D.i.Re - Donne in Rete contro la violenza (national umbrella organization) - Anna Pramstrahler, Marcella Pirrone
Latin America Mexico Refugios-Mujeres Red Nacional de Refugios para Mujeres - Rosa María Salazar
Asia Nepal Saathi-Nepal - Bandana Rana
Europe Netherlands

Federation of Shelter Organisations (Dutch umbrella organisation) - Riekje Kok, Liesbeth van Bemmel
Asia Pakistan  Gender Responsive Policing Project - Khola Iram
Africa Rwanda Rwanda Women Community Development Network - Mary Balikungeri
Europe Sweden Swedish Association of Women’s Shelters and Young Women’s Empowerment Centres, SKR (Sveriges Kvinno- och Tjejjourers Riksförbund, SKR) - Katarina Bjökgren, Olga Persson
North America United States

National Network to End Domestic Violence - Sue Else, Cindy Southworth, Kaofeng Lee, Cynthia Fraser, Krista Niemczyk

Day One® - Colleen Schmitt
Asia Vietnam Domestic Violence Prevention Network in Vietnam (Mạng lưới phòng chống bạo lực gia đình tại Việt Nam) - Van Anh Nguyen
The Americas The Americas Inter American Network of Women's Shelters (Red Interamericana de Refugios RIRE) - Margarita Guillé Tamayo

One goal of the Interim Governing Board is to promote and support the development of regional networking so that the future GNWS Governing Board will have balanced representation from each global regions.