Speaker

Olena Zakharova
Co-founder and President of the Centre of Public Initiatives «Ideas for Change»

Since 2015 Ms. Olena Zakharova acts as Head of the Centre of Public Initiatives “Ideas for Change”, a Ukrainian NGO realizing a number of projects aimed at conflict transformation and regulation, sustainable development of the local communities, cultural diplomacy, and gender equality. These activities are realized in the cooperation with the European CSOs, partners from the Eastern Partnership countries and Russia.

Since 2016 the CPI “Ideas for Change” in the cooperation with the German NGO “OWEN – Mobile Academy for Gender Democracy and Promotion of Peace” and other partners from the region has been implementing the transnational project “Women’s Initiatives for Peace in Donbas(s)- WIPD”, aimed on the creation of a permanent platform for transnational dialogue on the conflict in Donbas. The platform, on the one hand, strives to rebuild trust through intensive dialogue and, on the other, fosters joint action on problem-solving.

Earlier Ms. Zakharova worked as the Director of the ICPS’s Foreign Policy Department. Between 2003-2013, she worked at the Political and Security Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and at the Department for Association and European Integration of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Between 2007-2011, she was the First Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine in Canada (Ottawa).