For the October 2025 episode of the International Gender Champions podcast, we are joined by Edit Schlaffer, Founder and Chair of Women Without Borders. She highlights how engaging parents and particularly women as architects of peace within families and communities is essential to building resilience, preventing violence, and shaping peace far beyond formal negotiation rooms.
TRANSCRIPT
Hannah Reinl
Hello and welcome to a new episode of the IGC podcast. My name is Hannah Reinl, and I’m with the International Gender Champions Secretariat in Geneva.
Today, we will be discussing the essential role that women play as architects of peace – within but especially beyond the negotiation room. Here to have this conversation with us is Edit Schlaffer, Founder and Chair of Women Without Borders and one of our International Gender Champions.
Edit founded Women without Borders (WwB) in 2001 with a view to building up the competence and confidence of women to effect positive social change in countries of crisis and transition around the world. She focuses on gender-based peacebuilding strategies that harness the strength of civil society in building a new security architecture from the bottom up.
Edit, welcome to the IGC podcast!
Edit Schlaffer
It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for the invite.
Hannah Reinl
We're very glad that you can join us today. And I'd like to dive into our first question. I'm curious, can you tell us a bit more about the founding vision behind Women Without Borders and what inspired its creation back in 2001?
Edit Schlaffer
I started Women Without Borders, as you said, in 2001. That's almost a quarter of a century ago. And I was working as a researcher, the head of a research institute, before that teaching at the University of Vienna, and always focusing on research we could translate into action, very much around domestic violence, around gendered issues. But at a certain time I felt frustrated because I thought: We do all these papers, books and everything, but how can we really translate it into action? And I think that research is one of our sharpest tools, you know, to tackle social inequalities and injustices.
But still, I felt that the action piece was missing the way at that time, we still had a very strong women's movement. So I thought, why not tap into this resource and create something that's inclusive and is kind of expanding the resilience of women in all of our societies and go beyond borders since we always, I always was engaged in the international women's movement and research was also focusing on international issues- and particularly gender-based violence is a global issue and is something that concerns all of us.
So this was the idea. And I thought that what we as women need, that we need to build up our social capital and men do have it. So social capital is investing in what we need to make, to become change makers or make real change. That is investing in trust, to build networks, because we can't do change alone. And finding shared norms, you know, find like-minded actors so that we can really become change makers. So this idea of building the social capital was there from the very beginning.
And when I look back, I think I would like to share an anecdote. I remember that the first programmatic Women Without Borders conference, which we held in Vienna, which is our headquarter, had the title “Women Included. Men can change the world, but will they rebuild it?”. And this is still, I think, a reality for all of us. Women need to be included. The change makers, in not the most positive way, are men across the world.But we saw over time and what we still see is that the world is changing in so many ways by going to war, leading revolutions, organising who did tasks. And societies take for granted that women would rebuild what was destroyed.So including women, right from the outset in preventing extremism, violent extremism, conflict, wars, was at the starting point.
And when we had this meeting in Vienna, women in, I would say, one voice raised their concerns that in all of their countries, the path to building and strengthening democracy was impeded by excluding women's voices and women's visibility. I mean, women usually are not in the centre. They are more sidelined and this is still happening. So this is our founding philosophy, bring women into the fold. And a quarter of a century later, I think that we have made incredible progress. I think we can be proud as a global women’s movement that a lot has happened and we are now facing, I would say, an incredible attack on equality and democracy. So this is the time to rethink, regroup and take action and think of allies which have not been recognised yet or have not been appreciated enough.
Hannah Reinl
Yes, I agree. The women's movement definitely has its work cut out for itself. What would you say, in almost 25 years of work, and I understand your work has spanned dozens of countries and communities- what remains a core challenge that continues to drive your mission today?
Edit Schlaffer
I think, again, the core challenge is the change of our political landscape. I mean, it always has been challenging, to work in a patriarchal setting, this is the makeup of our world. But now we're seeing in real time that autocratic systems, and they are expanding in all its variations, are merged with persisting patriarchal norms. And I would say that's quite a challenging mix now we are facing. And of course, this has consequences. And adds to the severe backlash in women's rights, human rights, and women's rights equal human rights and the other way around. So I think that now we face backlashes on all fronts. Look at, I mean, the most obvious examples are reproductive health, questions of survival, climate change, affecting women's abilities to safeguard their livelihoods, and particularly domestic violence is again on the rise.I mean, so much has been done, to raise awareness, to push back, particularly after the pandemic. The normalisation of gender-based violence continues to be deeply rooted in our communities. And we can see this in our daily work. And we can see this currently in all the geographies we work from Bangladesh to India, Zanzibar, across the Western Balkans. And of course, right here in Europe and Austria and Germany around us. So this is very concerning.
Hannah Reinl
Yes, a number of our Gender Champions have sounded the alarm bells, including on this podcast this year already. This is why it's so important as well to really start working at the community level, right? And at Women Without Borders, I understand you really champion the idea that peace starts at home.
Can you speak a bit more to the role that parents, that households play in preventing violence and building cohesive communities and maybe also resilient communities in the face of the pushback that we're witnessing all around the world?
Edit Schlaffer
We realised in our work that parents are far more than educators of the next generation. They are anchors of trust in a time, I would say, when trust is one of the most precious resources. And from this trust can arise courage, the courage to learn, to hope, to act. But when we look at mothers as potential architects of social networks that can provide support in the neighborhoods, in schools and at home. And when we look at them as the heartbeat of communities that go beyond the private sphere, this untapped potential that is there, that needs nurturing, you know. That is something that doesn't just happen.
So we, at Women Without Borders, we soon saw dealing with issues of the whole spectrum of violence, you know, from violent extremism to gender-based violence, we realised that parents have been overlooked in the field of the prevention work that was also on the political agenda of a number of governments. And we thought that there must be a way to bring in parents as stakeholders since they are so close to the children at risk, to the children potentially at risk. They are a steady presence, they are participant observers of the lives of family dynamics, of the lives of the children, of their challenges. And they have the emotional bond, they have the ongoing connection. And how can we use this potential, the presence? Jokingly, I once said, the parents can be our undercover agents, you know, to detect early warning signs of unease, attraction to toxic influences, and interest in interest in polarising ideas which they might voice in the family.
The mothers, the fathers need to have kind of a toolbox to respond. This was the early idea, but we also felt that we need to be sure that we're on the right path. So we, coming from academia, from research, we conducted a large-scale research study addressing mothers of, at that time, adolescent boys, because those who were mostly interested in violent extremism were young males. So we asked them, we asked these mothers, it was a survey of over 1,000 mothers across various geographies, what they feared most for their children. And those were the obvious answers, radicalised individuals around them, who might actually achieve to radicalise the kids, religious leaders, political leaders, media. But then we asked them the second question which was, whom do you trust most? And the response was quite interesting. They said, we trust other mothers most. That was over 90% of the response. And then we trust teachers. So obviously, people, individuals who were connected to the lives of their children, and we trust fathers and other relatives most.
So the data gave us a clear mandate. Mothers are best suited and situated to recognise and react to early warning signs of radicalisation due to their place in the family, at the heart of the family. It was a translational research project. So to translate this into a model was the task of the whole thing. And we also shared these findings with experts in the PBE prevention and countering violent extremism space. And that was really interesting when we said we should work with mothers. The response was “mothers? Why,?”. So there was this big question mark. I mean, what do they know? What is their competence? How can we activate them?
But only a few years later, when we had developed our flagship models of the educational model, the mother schools, the father schools, there was not the why anymore. It was the how, and the how was actually to create something to approach mothers who were interested in coming together, in learning how to respond to the challenges in their families, and kind of build up a whole armada of unlikely partners in the field of preventing and countering violent extremism.
And it took quite a long time until this was welcomed, I would say. But now the approach is traveling across countries, we started out in 17 countries, we're currently operational in 9 countries. That's of course always depending on government priorities since we work with governments and also funding resources.But I think that this idea of creating educational models like the mother schools, the Parenting for Peace movement is really the road to success.
Hannah Reinl
Edit, thank you for sharing this story. It so brilliantly illustrates exactly the vision that you laid out for your organisation in the beginning of this podcast of translating research into tangible action. So thank you for sharing that.
You just said that you've led the Parenting for Peace movement across 17 countries at this point in time. What would you say have been some of the most powerful lessons or transformations that you've witnessed through the Mother and Father Schools programmes?
Edit Schlaffer
I would like to mention that the Mother and Father Schools are, of course, not physical schools. You know, they are embedded in the communities. So they take place in community centres, trained psychologists, social workers, teachers trained by Women Without Borders based on the curriculum we developed over the years, come together and walk through the various stages, building up the self-confidence and learning about the early warning signs and networking and sustainability of the programme, how to go out in the community and continue. to relate with, to relate to each other. I think this is really important.
And the lesson, and this is connected to the lesson we have learned, it is so important that it is community driven, embedded in the communities. You can't bring something into the communities from the outside. So all our activists, the teachers, the organisers, the mobilisers, are community stakeholders. I think this is the most important lesson that you collaborate with the local stakeholders because the change has to happen at the local levels. And what we as international stakeholders have to contribute is also the bridge building so that this comes to the table of international peace builders that this feeds into programmes preventing extremism, policy changing. So the policy level is woven into the programmes.
And we see this change, I would say, at the local level we can see that the groups that have graduated over time from the programme, they continue to meet, they continue to build network, they create their own NGOs maybe, they create little task forces in places where they see changes needed. And in Zanzibar, for example, after the programme, the participants created circles, which we found fascinating because they brought in family members, neighbours, local stakeholders into these informal meetings to talk about their learnings and their needs and ongoing challenges. So this is kind of opening up a space to talk about pressing issues that come from the private sphere and they bring it into the public sphere.
I think this is really important: that change goes into the social fabric of the whole environment. What we do is redefining the notion of motherhood and also the notion of fatherhood, because we started to create father schools on request of the families a few years later. So to encourage the idea of multiple identities is I think very important. And I would say that a lesson for donors is, and this is a tall ask in times of limited budgets and shrinking budgets, that consistent engagement over a certain period of time is necessary to ensure this local ownership, to safeguard the achievements that have been made.
Hannah Reinl
A couple of days after we recorded our podcast, Edit got in touch with me to share a testimony from a local implementing partner in Zanzibar, which has been running the mother schools since 2014, and the father schools since 2023. Let’s hear it from Aisha Karume, Programme Manager of Zayedesa.
Aisha Karume
The mother schools and father schools programme have had a positive and lasting impact on the lives of both mothers and fathers who participated in the programme in Zanzibar. Through the sessions they gained confidence and knowledge that empowered them to strengthen their relationships with their children, families and communities. Many participants reported the programme helped them adopt positive parenting approaches and effective communication skills to support their children’s emotional and social development. As a result, parents are now better equipped to recognise the challenges their children face, such as peer pressure, behaviour changes and exposure to negative influences. One father shared that his son had dropped out of school and started spending time on the streets and using illegal drugs. Their relationship deteriorated to a point where out of frustration the father would beat the son and eventually ask the son to leave the house. Through the father schools programme he learned about the different stages of child development and how to communicate more effectively with his son. By applying what he learned he approached his son with empathy and understanding, which helped restore their bond. The son eventually returned home and they now enjoy a positive relationship with mutual respect.
Hannah Reinl
Thank you for sharing the voices of the participants of your programmes with us. It's been really powerful to hear that testimony. Before we close, I was hoping you could share with us, Edit, one call to action with international leaders, such as your fellow Gender Champions.
Edit Schlaffer
Yeah, I love that question. I think that at the time when technology and social media is so polarising and disruptive, we need spaces of dialogue. We need to come together. So I would like to call on my Gender Champions to create offline opportunities for exchange and debates, to use each opportunity you see to come together, to open a space around you, to raise issues and bring people together, bring women, men together, who take this on.
For example, at Women Without Borders, we have institutionalised open house talks and we invite leaders, activists, artists, authors to talk about current affairs, intellectual findings, personal experiences. And I love the Gender Champions Network, the idea. I think this would be so needed at this time where we are very often more in online spaces than offline. So let's come together, create the spaces and use our connectivity and our connections to create these offline spaces, opportunities for dialogue, for exchange and engagement.
Hannah Reinl
That is an excellent call to action. Edit, thank you so much for joining us today and for showing us that peace begins when it takes root in our homes, our families, and our communities.