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Gulalai Ismail
Country/region: Pakistan
Conflict: Oppression and injustice against women
Organisation: Aware Girls
Field of work: Women´s rights; Strengthening young activists; Youth Peace Network

Gululai Ismail is a youth and peace activist working for awareness and social mobilization to ensure the right of women to live a dignified life. She runs a social organization, “Aware Girls“, which promotes women’s awareness, democracy and peace. Her organization teaches girls and women from deprived communities in the region about their political and social rights.

She started the organization at the age of 16 to provide young women with leadership through which they can act as agents of change for women’s empowerment, peace and democracy. Within ten years Gulalai has developed Aware Girls into a well-supported, women’s-led organisation working towards gender equality and peace in Pakistan in one of the most fragile regions by developing a “Youth Peace Network”. The trained peace activists then work at the community level using peer education, study circles and peace education. The overall goal is to promote an alternative pluralistic discourse based on the values of tolerance, non-violence and peaceful co-existence.

Gululai Ismail has won the 2009 YouthActionNet Fellowship, the 2013 Democracy Award and the International Humanist of the Year Award in 2014. Her work is supported by Peace Direct.