Author: IFWE

Nada is a passionate and highly motivated person who is committed to excellence and innovation; she seeks to make a difference in people’s lives and build a better world. Nada is passionate about worthwhile causes, especially those involving education (strengthening education systems and educational institutions, and improving learning outcomes and educational equity), human rights, gender equality, women's empowerment and youth leadership. She is currently working on two projects, within a course at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and in collaboration with a few UN agencies and relevant NGOs; the projects are about “Generating Groups of Young Leaders” and “Empowering Women politically.” Nada founded the International Foundation for Women's Empowerment (IFWE) in Virginia, USA, in March 2019; IFWE seeks to empower women and help them thrive both on the personal and professional levels, regardless of nationality and religion. Nada also founded the American Foundation for Educational Excellence (AFEE) in 2015; AFEE is specialized in assessing organizations’ needs, evaluating programs and helping improve them, building new programs, and facilitating accreditation. Nada served as director of the Christian Lebanese Foundation (CLFW) from the day it was founded in November 2013 till March 2019, and she co-founded the Maronite Academy in 2012. Nada taught English for more than 20 years both in school and college settings. She also co-created and co-taught at the GWU Graduate School of Education an online Methods Course for Teachers of Arabic as a Foreign Language. She is the Co-Editor in Chief of “Teaching World Languages: A Practical Guide- Arabic Edition”-- The National Capital Language Resource Center. Nada follows Results-Based Management Approaches and Methodology (RBM) and works with the end in mind, always seeking great results based on strategic planning, formulation, implementation, assessment and monitoring.
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Lebanon Chapter Sees the Light!

On Tuesday, June 11, 2019, IFWE launched the Lebanon Chapter!

Thank you to all the people who managed to attend our first meeting:

  • Lina Beydoun, Director of Development, American University of Beirut
  • Fadi El Hage, Délégué du Recteur pour développement régional et programmes externes- Formation Continue; Titulaire Chaire citoyenneté et développement durable, Saint Joseph University (USJ), Beirut
  • Daisy Abboud Helou, Pharmacist
  • Julie Daccache Khalil, Lawyer
  • Nada Salem, President, IFWE & AFEE
  • Helen Achou Tayar, Alumni Relations Coordinator, Saint Joseph University (USJ), Beirut

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IFWE at LDE 2019 in Lebanon

Congratulations to IFWE President, Mrs. Nada Salem, on taking an active part at the Lebanese Diaspora Energy Convention (2019) in the “Lebanese Women and Youth: The Power of Change” Workshop, alongside Mrs. Violette Khairallah Safadi, Minister of State for Economic Empowerment of Women and Youth, Mr. Gebran Bassil, Minister of Lebanese Foreign Affairs, and Dr. Joseph Jabra, President of the Lebanese American University.

Click here for more info.

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We Believe That…

      • If We help women to improve at the personal level,
      • If We help women to improve at the professional level,
      • If We help women to improve their education,
      • If We help women to improve their social status,
      • If We help women to improve their economic status,
      • If We help women to improve their political status,
      • If We help women to improve their psychological and physical health,
      • If We help women to fight inequalities and discrimination,
      • If We help women to fight violence against them (domestic and sexual abuse),
      • If We help women to fight gender stereotypes,
      • If We help women to better participate in decision-making processes,
      • If We help women to be autonomous,
      • If We help women to be better represented in politics and policy making,
      • If We help women to climb the ladders of success…

We will be ensuring that the world will be a better place for us and our children.

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Transform Your Weaknesses Into Strengths

We all have weaknesses; we all make mistakes that we usually prefer to ignore and forget about…

In fact, if we didn’t have weaknesses, we would not be human… we would not learn lessons and have experiences… we would not have anything to teach…

Embrace your weaknesses… work on overcoming them… learn from them… and transform them into strengths.

Embrace your weaknesses and use them to help others overcome theirs, benefit from them, and benefit the world from them!

We will then all thrive together.

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Thank You for Joining Our Cause!

A BIG THANK YOU to all those who joined our cause and our foundation!
We were positively overwhelmed with the number of people who signed up either to attend workshops and be empowered, to give workshops to empower, to start a chapter, to join the “Leadership Committee for Women’s Empowerment” in their country, to volunteer to help coach the team, to partner with us, to join our Advisory Board, or to donate for the cause!
We are looking forward to working with you!
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Fighting Stereotypes…

There are two stereotypes that we would like to fight:

1- “Women cannot work well together… Women cannot look out for each other… Women cannot empower one another… ”

We would like to prove to the world that:

Women CAN work well together…
Women CAN look out for each other… 
Women CAN empower one another… 

We are counting on you to help us prove that.

Join Our Cause!

2- “Empowering women is aimed at defying men… it is against men… it is to have power over men… it is to take away from men’s rights!”

And we say: NO, empowering women is not in any way aimed at defying men, or against men, or to have power over men, or to take away from men’s rights…

Empowering women is just aimed at giving women their very basic rights: Human rights! Equal Rights! Equal Protection! Equal support! Equal justice! Equal pay!

MEN are NOT our ENEMIES! Men are our fathers, husbands, or sons… how can they be our enemies?

MEN are the ones who will help us get our rights… which father really wants to deprive his daughter from her human rights? From her equal rights?

“We all fight over what the label ‘feminism’ means, but for me it’s about empowerment. It’s not about being more powerful than men – it’s about having equal rights with protection, support, justice. It’s about very basic things. It’s not a badge like a fashion item.” –Annie Lennox, singer & political activist