Regional Focal Point for Central Asia

Heela Yoon is the founder of Afghan Youth Ambassadors for Peace Organization (AYAPO), a grassroots NGO working in the Eastern provinces of Afghanistan, focusing on UNSCR 1325 and 2250 and local peacebuilding. She has more than five years of experience working with humanitarian and human rights organizations. She has worked with GNWP as a peacebuilding fellow focusing on localizing the Women, Peace and Security agenda in Myanmar, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Before joining GNWP, she worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Afghanistan as a program coordinator for UNFPA. 

Heela graduated from Kabul University with a bachelor’s in political science and a bachelor’s in business finance from the American University of Afghanistan. She completed her master’s in international trade and finance from Leeds Beckett University as a Chevening Scholar. She is currently a research consultant with Amnesty International, focusing on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, and works as a trainee with Oxfam Great Britain.

Heela is also the Afghan Coordinator for the International Parliamentary Network for Education and one of the emerging young peacemakers at Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

heela@gnwp.org