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Manal Omar is an author and activist. She is the founder and CEO of AcrossRedLines and the Associate Vice President for the Middle East and Africa Center at United States Institute of Peace (USIP). She was an inaugural fellow for Foreign Policy Interrupted and is a 2016 Truman National Security Fellow. She is the founder and CEO of AcrossRedLines, which aims to address the gap in women’s knowledge on sexuality, gender, and intimacy within an Islamic framework. Omar was named among the “Top 500 World’s Most Influential Arabs” by Arabia Business Power in 2011 and 2012. She was also recognized among the “500 Most Influential Muslims in the World” by Georgetown University and The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in 2009. In 2007, Islamic Magazine named Omar one of the ten young visionaries shaping Islam in America.

Background and Education
Omar was born on May 12, 1975 in xxx. She holds a master's degree in Arab studies from Georgetown University and a bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Mason University.

Career
Omar launched her career as a journalist in the Middle East in 1996. Soon after, UNESCO recruited her to work on one of her first lead assignments in Iraq in 1997-1998. She also spent more than three years with the World Bank’s development economics group. Omar served as an international advisor for the Libya Stabilization Team in Benghazi in 2011. Prior to that, she was regional program manager for the Middle East for Oxfam - Great Britain. She worked with Women for Women International as regional coordinator for Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. In addition, she lived in Baghdad from 2003 to 2005 and set up operations in Iraq. Omar is on the board of directors for the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and AltMuslimah. Previously, she served on the advisory board of Peaceful Families Project - an organization with international reach that recognizes domestic violence is a form of oppression affecting people of all faiths. She also serves on the advisory boards of Prosperity Catalyst, Women’s Voices Now and Sisters Against Violent Extremism in Austria.

She has authored several articles published in the Encyclopaedias of Activism and Social Justice and the Encyclopaedias of Women and Islamic Cultures. She is the author of In the Sea of National Building: Anchoring Women’s Rights in the Iraqi Constitution which appeared in Critical Half''. Manal was lead author and researcher in Women for Women International’s 2004 Briefing Paper titled Windows of Opportunity – The Pursuit of Gender Equality in Post-War Iraq and one of the lead contributors for Oxfam International’s 2007 Briefing Paper titled Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge Inside Iraq''. Manal has also contributed a short story for the anthology Living Islam Outloud: American Muslim Women Speak.

Projects
Generation Change

Omar developed this project through the State Department and United States Institute of Peace's. It is called Generation Change and is dedicated to empowering and building the capacity of civically engaged youth as they emerge as leaders in their communities. The program provides these civic leaders with a range of skills and experiences in the hopes that if they are equipped with these skills and a more dynamic community of peers, they will be able to sustain their social change efforts, ensure their work is effective and increase their resilience as leaders.

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Regional Facilitators Forum

The Middle East and North Africa Regional Facilitators Forum (MENA Forum) is a group of experienced practitioners, who facilitated dialogues on the community, national and regional level. The Forum is a regional virtual space established to increase the capacity of individual facilitators and provide opportunities for collaboration on dialogue initiatives. This platform further serves to professionalize the field of peacebuilding and, as such, strengthens the region's capacity to prevent, mitigate, and manage conflict through facilitated dialogue, by allowing the members to optimize their experiences through peer learning mechanisms and exchange of resources and tools.

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AcrossRedLines Fellowship / #AcrossRedLines

The fellowship works with young Muslim women to equip them with Islamic knowledge so they may define their own paths, and works to bridge the growing divide between secular and Islamic women’s rights groups. The Fellowship aims to provide women with resources and education based in Islamic teaching to start conversations and outreach programs within their communities on gender, sexuality, and Islam. By providing women with the skills and tools necessary, Safina Fellowship hopes to provide women who identify as practicing Muslims with knowledge about sexuality, intimacy, and gender within an Islamic framework in order to develop a stronger, resilient, female-led Muslim movement led by women who are able to live from a place of authenticity and open dialogue. The goal of the fellowship program under the Safina Fellowship is to provide women who identify as practicing Muslims with knowledge about sexuality, intimacy, and gender within an Islamic framework in order to develop a stronger, resilient, female-led Muslim movement led by women who are able to live from a place of authenticity and open dialogue.

Our Choice Not Yours

Launched and created in partnership between with Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom and altMuslimah, to convene an international solidarity mission consisting of a group of interfaith women coming together and traveling to peacefully protest women’s freedom to wear what they want. Through our efforts and travel we will be educate the public (you will see the outcome of our mission through PR when we return) on several things: 1) women of faith coming together to communicate it is our choice 2) Jewish and Muslim women coming together to communicate that we are waging peace 3) interfaith women coming together to communicate that we will not allow hate of the other to separate us or stop us from participating in anything. As women of faith we will come together to act with our mouth, arms and feet. We defend freedom of choice for women of any belief.. Women’s bodies are being used as a proxy war in the rise of extremism across the political spectrum

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Publications

 * Barefoot in Baghdad, Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, 2010. ISBN 9781402237294,

Videos

 * Manal Omar on Issues for the Trump Administration, United States Institute of Peace, Feb 2, 2017