A conversation with three inspiring Geneva-based leaders, “former-refugees” and real-life chameleons. 

The seeds for this event were planted during a breakfast presentation of the SEP Jordan model at Geneva-based Law Firm FRORIEP. A debate was born, regarding the stigma associated with the "refugee" label: a label which some thought over time can de-humanise the person who has been forcibly displaced. 

On February 4th, from 19:00, at the Boutique SEP in Carouge, we will hear the views of three ladies who come from three different backgrounds, all of them Swiss. Each of them grew up in a family which had to deal with statelessness and with losing everything due to "historical events". We will brainstorm with them, hear their views and ideas and we will challenge many stereotypes in the process. 

Meet our speakers:

Philanthropist and advocate of positive change, Della Tamari is the President of the Tamari Foundation, which she has been running since it was established in 2012. Among 30+ Education-focused projects and scholarships to which the Foundation allocates its resources, is the SEP-Tamari Foundation Academy which trains SEP Jordan embroiderers in the Jerash refugee camp (Jordan), one of their focus projects since 2015 for its tangible social impact. Della's father, Abdallah Tamari, has been a refugee twice in his lifetime: each time, he started a new life, created long-lasting successful businesses and with his wife Samia, a Lebanese Refugee of 1975, started the Foundation which today Della manages.

Evin Durmaz has been a trainee lawyer at FRORIEP in Geneva since July 2018 and takes the Geneva bar exam in early April this year. She previously worked as an associate in an international leading investment company specialised in emerging, sustainable and inclusive finance. She also assisted an international organisation with the drafting of bilateral investment treaties. She holds a Master in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Her parents were meant to be an economist and a chemistry teacher before life took a different turn and brought them to Switzerland. Born stateless, Evin will share with us her experience as a Kurdish "former-refugee" in Switzerland and the importance of access to education and work for refugees. 

Rania Daoudy is the CEO and proprietor of Aramex Switzerland. A busy business leader with a passion for interior design, Rania holds a Swiss and a Syrian passport. Her mother, Amal, had to seek refuge in 1948 and leave her home in Palestine when she was a teenager. Her father was a Syrian diplomat and politician, who fought for the rights of Palestinian refugees throughout his intense career. Rania's maternal grandmother, Lebanese-born Wadi'a Qaddura Khartabil, was a remarkable champion of human rights and pioneer feminist in the 1940's and played a key role in post 1948 Palestine; at her funerals she was defined " a symbol of Lebanese-Palestinian solidarity and of patriotic commitment and national dedication". Rania is currently President of the Swiss Association Palestine Demain and will discuss the development of her personal involvement with refugees as well as how growing up in a family exposed to politics and "statelessness" has shaped her, as a person and as a business executive.