About - Impact

IMPACT is a diverse global organization advocating for arts and culture to transform conflict and build more creative, inclusive societies.

We support those on the ground delivering impactful work through capacity building, making connections and sharing their practice and learning. We learn from existing knowledge to develop advocacy tools, explore cross-cutting issues and connect diverse thinkers from different disciplines to our network. We advocate by organising and attending events and platforms, producing and sharing useful resources, working with partners and networks, and reaching wide audiences.

IMPACT FOSTERS A COLLECTIVE SPIRIT BASED ON MUTUAL RESPECT, BUILDING CONNECTIONS TO SHARE STORIES AND KNOW-HOW.

At IMPACT

we’re guided by

EQUITY

Remaining aware of the role of privilege, we work to amplify lesser heard voices and counter power imbalances.

INCLUSIVITY

We welcome diverse perspectives, identities, languages, traditions, and worldviews with respect and compassion.

RESPECT

We are open and supportive of diverse ways of being and thinking, and strive to honor each person’s integrity.

JUSTICE

We challenge power imbalances, oppression, and inequality to develop more just relationships based on dignity and respect.

we act with

INTEGRITY

Communicating transparently, we openly and thoroughly engage with data and lived experience

COLLABORATION

We listen, think, and act together across our networks.

CREATIVITY

We support artistic and cultural expression offering ways to imagine and enact possibilities for constructive change

COURAGE & CARE

Taking steps to mitigate risk, we champion and protect ideas and actions put forth in the face of danger

Meet the team

Armine Avetisyan, Program Manager (Armenia/USA)

Armine is a peacebuilding practitioner focused on creative approaches to peacebuilding and conflict transformation. She has been involved in nurturing trusting relations Read More

Rosanna (Rosie) Lewis , Board Member & Senior Advocacy Manager (Belgium)

Rosanna is IMPACT’s Senior Advocacy Manager. She has over 10 years’ experience working on the role of arts and culture to address local and global challenges, including gender equality Read More

Nagnouma Sako, Bookkeeper
(Guinea/USA)

Nagnouma has been the bookkeeper at IMPACT since 2022. She holds a BA in finance and an MBA in accounting. With in-depth knowledge of nonprofit accounting, Read More

Kit Nicholson (he/him) , AHA Project Manager (South Korea)

Kit is currently a PhD student in International Cooperation at Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea. He is a junior specialist in international cultural diplomacy Read More

Moamin Abuewaida, Web Dev. & Comms Officer (Belgium)

Moamin has been based in Brussels, Belgium since 2019 where he started a new professional path by joining a coding bootcamp that focuses on web development and agile teamwork Read More

Meet the board

Lee Perlman, Board Chair (Israel)

Lee researches arts, politics and cultural policy and seeks to understand and influence how artists create social change and open dialogue in conflict zones and divided societies Read More

Kyoko Okumoto, Board Secretary (Japan)

Kyoko is a professor in the Department of International and English Interdisciplinary Studies at Osaka Jogakuin University. She is currently President of Peace Studies Association of Japan (PSAJ), Read More

Boneh Roth, Treasurer (Canada)

Boneh is the CFO of Concord Premium Meats, a large food processor in Canada with branches in the Greater Toronto Area and near Montreal. He holds a BA in mathematics Read More

Kitche Magak, Board Member (Kenya)

Kitche is a professor of literature at Maasai Mara University (MMara-U) in Kenya. He has held numerous academic and administrative positions in the Kenyan higher education system, Read More

Victoria Gandini, Board Member (Argentina)

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1983, she has been working for the last twenty years in the fields of art creation and education. Read More

As a cultural worker, she integrates her work as a musician and writer with the support of artists, organizations, and public and private institutions in the design and implementation of sociocultural projects.

She holds a degree in Music from the National University of the Arts and a master’s degree in Public Policies from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.

In 2012, she began working in artistic education institutions with the goal of improving their integration with the civil community, first serving as Secretary of Institutional Liaison, and later as Academic Secretary of the Music Department at the National University of the Arts, a role she held until 2023. She works on creating different musical ensembles with hospitalized children, mental health patients, school communities, women victims of gender-based violence, and people deprived of their liberty in prisons.

The need to share the collective experience of these projects led her to apply for the Fulbright FNA scholarship in Art and Social Transformation, which she received in 2017. She trained with Cindy Cohen at Brandeis University for four months and published the book Music, What For? Music, University, and Social Transformation in 2019, with the publishing house of the Department of Musical Arts at UNA.

In the field of cultural management, she has also produced experimental music festivals and concert series focused on the recontextualization of spaces and programming based on diversity, both in Argentina and Chile.

As a professor, she teaches at the National University of the Arts, the National University of San Martín, the National University of Misiones, and various universities across Argentina and Latin America, leading courses in communication and cultural policies.

In her music, she explores different genres, including experimental song and music for performing arts. In 2016, she released her first EP, La mujer búho, followed by Todos los mundos (2020–2021). She composed the original music for No dispares Boris, by Román Podolsky, and I Can Get Lost Again and If Memory Does Not Fail Me, by Gonzalo López López, which premiered in Madrid in February 2023.

Her first novel will be published by Larria Ediciones in November. The novel was supported by the 2021 Creation Grant from the National Arts Fund (Argentina), which allowed her to participate in a playwriting workshop with Argentine playwright Mauricio Kartun.

Currently, she prioritizes her work as a consultant, supporting artists, organizations, and public and private institutions in the design and implementation of artistic projects aimed at positively transforming reality.

Dijana Milošević, Board Member (Serbia)

Dijana is an award-winning theatre director, writer, and lecturer. She co-founded Dah Theatre Research Center in Belgrade, Serbia and has been its leading director for over thirty years. Read More

Ezgi Yılmaz, Board Member (Türkiye)

Ezgi Yılmaz is a strategic fundraising and cultural management professional with ove a decade of experience supporting leading arts and cultural institutions in Turkey and internationally. Read More

Bonface Njeresa Beti, Board Member (Kenya)

Bonface is an international artist-peacebuilder, educator and cultural leader who applies theatre-based interventions with individuals and communities to create a story of peace. Read More

Rosanna Quesada Palm, Board Member (Philippines)

Dessa joined the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) at age 13 and has since devoted her life to theater as a performer, teacher, organizer, director, and playwright. Read More

Meet our Senior Fellows

Polly O. Walker, Senior Fellow (USA)

Polly is of Cherokee ancestry and a member of the Cherokee Southwest Township. She is Associate Professor Emeritus, Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College. Polly earned her PhD at Australia’s University of Queensland Read More

Cynthia E. Cohen, Senior Fellow (USA)

Cynthia is co-director of the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts (PBA) at the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life at Brandeis University, and a senior fellow at IMPACT. At Brandeis, she initiated an undergraduate minor in Creativity, Read More

Friends of IMPACT

Toni Shapiro-Phim, PBA Partner (USA)

Toni serves as Associate Professor of Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation and Co-director of the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts (PBA) at the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University. Read More

Carmen Olaechea, Former Board Member (Argentina)

Carmen has been working with Latin American civil society for over 34 years. She has developed conceptual and strategic frameworks, led institutional change processes; designed and implemented collaborative Read More

Read About IMPACT History