Farah Abdi is a Somali refugee and award-winning blogger. Farah arrived in Malta from Libya by boat in 2012, fleeing fear of persecution. Farah is author of the autobiography ‘Never Arrive’ and a human rights activist. Farah is also the recipient of the International Bremen Peace Award by the German NGO, Stiftung die schwelle, and the Queen of England award for young leaders. Farah says: "I have been told many times by family, friends, colleagues and strangers; that I am a black, African, refugee, Muslim, trans woman; that I am outside the norms accepted by society. That my dreams are a reflection of my upbringing in a decadent amoral society that has corrupted who I really am. As a young trans African, I have been conditioned from an early age to consider my gender identity a dangerous deviation from my true heritage as a Somali by close kin and friends. As a young trans African coming of age in Malta, there was another whiplash of cultural confusion that I had to recover from again and again: that accepting my gender identity doesn’t necessarily mean that the wider Maltese community, with its own preconceived notions of what constitutes a ‘valid’ identity, will embrace me any more welcomingly than my own prejudiced kinsfolk do.”

Storytelling - The Emancipation of Mimi

Majd is also co-founder and board member at Enab Baladi, a Syrian independent media organization established in Darayya in 2011. Continued surveillance by Syrian security forces resulted in Chourbaji fleeing to neighboring Lebanon, with her three children. Her husband was killed under torture in prison. In January 2014, Chourbaji founded Basamat in Lebanon, a center to administer support for Syrian refugee women. The organization provides extensive and diverse training in cosmetology, computer technology, visual arts, embroidery, English and French language study, in addition to psychological support and rehabilitation to women and their children. In 2015, she founded the Small World School in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, for children of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The school now has more than 1,000 Syrian students. In 2015, she was awarded the U.S. State Department's International Women of Courage Award, for her work with women and human rights advocacy in Syria, and in 2016, Oxfam's Right the Wrong award.

Erdoğan İşcan is Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Turkey to the Council of Europe since 2014. Before coming to Strasbourg, he has been Deputy Undersecretary of Political Affairs, as well as Director General of Multilateral Political Affairs, at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2009 to 2011 Mr İşcan has been Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, Seoul, and from 2005 to 2009 he has been ambassador to Ukraine in Kyiv.