Shirley Graham, Ph.D.
Programmes that support women to become more authentic, courageous & powerful and make a difference in the world...
Women's Rights Work
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Do you need someone to work with talented women in your team, to support their personal and professional development, and build on their strengths to step into leadership and influential roles?
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Are you looking for a consultant to design and deliver a research project and deliver high quality analysis and documentation (reports, podcasts, videos, and powerpoint presentations).
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Do you need a training programme designed and delivered to women in your organisation, team or client base, that will respond to their confidence building needs by magnifying their talents and skills and supporting them to bring their best ideas to fruition?
My mission is to use feminist practices and processes that support women's movement into influential roles within their organisations and communities. And to develop gender sensitive analyses of programmes, missions, projects, organisations thereby supporting the development of the entire community.
All of my projects aim to support women and girls to reclaim their power, status and rights through clearly defined outputs and carefully analysed outcomes.
Not for Profit Work:
The National Women's Council of Ireland and Amnesty International commissioned me to lead a consultancy process to inform Ireland's first national action plan on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.
As part of this consultation process I designed the methodology for gathering information, facilitated a series of discussions, recruited counsellors to be present at each workshop, worked with notetakers and facilitators to gather and analyse the data, and wrote and presented a report outlining the women's experiences and recommendations.
Over 200 women took part in a series of workshops using sensitive and creative methods to engage with women many of whom had been traumatized by conflict. The consultation included women from Northern Ireland, the border counties, Liberia, DRC, Somalia, Colombia, Darfur, and Palestine who shared their experiences of how structural and systemic violence had impacted their lives and their exclusion from formal peace-building and decision-making processes. The process was considered highly innovative and a report outlining the findings of the consultation was circulated to the Department of Foreign Affairs and members of the Consultative Group on UNSCR 1325 to inform their decision-making on the content for the Action Plan.
Corporate Work:
Having worked in the corporate sector for 16 years I have a deep understanding of the issues faced by senior managers and team leaders when it comes to developing people's skills and motivating a diverse team of experts and support personnel. As the UK Communications Manager for Unilever PLC I managed internal teams and external suppliers to deliver AGMs, Investor Relations events, Team Building workshops, and Brand Awareness projects. Amongst other responsibilities my role was to inspire and motivate members of the UK Division of Unilever to deliver to the highest standard.
As the Development Director for a high-tech agency, Bluewave Web Design, I was the client relationship manager and interface between corporate clients such as British Technology Group (BTG PLC), GridCom and ING Bank and the internal team of programmers, designers and testers, tasked with the delivery of the overall Client Solution. My understanding of the client's brand story and how to communicate that via the web has led to the creation of many innovative corporate websites.
With a Masters degree in International Relations and an inter-disciplinary PhD in Gender & International Relations I have excellent research and analytical skills. Some of my research is published in 'Gender and Peacebuilding: all hands required' by Lexington Books, and I have conducted consultations and written reports on women, leadership, peace and security.
