Heartwarmingly Launches Comprehensive Gender Equality Strategy

We’re thrilled to announce the official launch of our Gender Equality Mainstreaming & Diversity Promotion Plan (GEP), effective October 1, 2025. This isn’t just a policy—it’s a deep commitment to fostering truly inclusive, equitable, and safe environments across all our work and partnerships.

Key Pillars of our GEP:

• Intersectional Approach: We embed gender equality by recognizing its complex interaction with other identities (race, class, sexuality, ability, etc.), informed by the frameworks of Kimberlé Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins.
• Feminist Research Principles: Our approach centers lived experiences, values diverse perspectives, and commits to co-creating solutions with those most affected by inequality.
• Actionable Commitments in Research: We’re moving beyond mere compliance, committing to specific actions like ‘building in’ gender and diversity from project design, promoting female/minority leadership in projects, unpacking binary gender roles, and challenging biases in co-authorships and quotation systems.
• Concrete Objectives: We’re setting measurable goals for female leadership representation, fair participation in projects (especially for those with lived experiences of trauma), and ensuring equal pay through transparent remuneration.
• Strong Governance: 
  • Leading the implementation of this vital strategy is Helena Wacko, our newly appointed Gender Equality Mainstreaming and Diversity Promotion Officer (as of October 1, 2025). Helena is a renowned Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality researcher, a Fulbright Scholar with a Master’s from Columbia University , and further training at the London School of Economics.
  • We also have established a Gender Advisory Board which acts as Independent Gender  Equality & Research Ethics Advisory Committee –  to ensure accountability and impartiality.This Gender Advisory Board  is composed of three distinguished academics, Dr. Colleen Bolland,  Dr. Lenka Drazanova and Dr. Gabriella Sanchez, renowned for their commitment for gender equality, intersectionality  and diversity promotion in migration  and borders research.   We will be presenting them shortly. 

This GEP is our promise to not only meet international legal and policy standards but to be a living example of equitable, participatory, and transformative organizational practices. We believe that mainstreaming gender equality and diversity is essential for impactful social innovation!

Discover the Gender Equality Mainstreaming & Diversity Promotion Plan (GEP): https://www.heartwarmingly.com/gender-policy/