Please join us for this special CSW70 Parallel Event in Honor of International Women’s Day 2026
sponsored by the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York, International Women’s Rights and Domestic Violence Committees, and the United Nations Association of New York
Neda Bolourchi, JD, PhD
Historian, Rutgers University
Senior Fellow, Institute for Global Affairs, Eurasia Group
Allison A. Dunlop, Esq.
Senior Attorney/Domestic Violence Specialist
Brooklyn Legal Services
Tani Gurkova
Founder and Executive Director
Steps With Sisters, Inc.
Esther Nyiransabimana Myers
Pastor, Musician, Evangelist
Dr. Eleanor Nwadinobi, MBBS, EMA, FAAC
President
Medical Women’s International Association
Elaine Weiss
Journalist and Author
Moderator
Fay Yvette Parris, Esq.
Co-Chair, Women's Bar Association of the State of New York,
International Women's Rights Committee
____
Wednesday | 18 March 2026 | 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
UN Church Center
777 United Nations Plaza (corner 44th St. & First Ave.)
Tenth Floor
New York, NY
Registrations for this event to come
“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
____
What we uphold in small spaces informs culture and reverberates. Therefore, our power as individuals and in the collective to positively impact the world at large is unquestionable. Esteeming Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quote, during CSW70, the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York International Women’s Rights and Domestic Violence Committees, and the United Nations Association of New York, will introduce a panel of experts who will share their personal narratives, and with audience participation, address the unwavering commitment to engender systemic change — one story, one voice, one commitment at a time.
Please join us this evening for a timely discussion with our guest panelists: Neda Bolourchi, JD, PhD, Historian at Rutgers University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group; Allison A. Dunlop, Esq., Senior Attorney/Domestic Violence Specialist at Brooklyn Legal Services in NYC. Tani Gurkova, Founder and Executive Director of Steps With Sisters; Esther Nyiransabimana Myers, a pastor, musician and evangelist who volunteers for Youth with a Mission; Dr. Eleanor Nwadinobi, Immediate Past President Medical Women's International Association; and Elaine Weiss, American journalist and author of books of narrative history. The panel will be moderated by Fay Yvette Parris, Esq. Co-Chair, Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, International Women's Rights Committee.
Panelists
Neda Bolourchi
Topic: Where Ripples Begin: Small Places, Brave Voices, Global Change
Transformative change in women’s access to justice often begins in the small institutional and community spaces where rights must become real in daily life — whether in the courage of women protesting systemic repression in Iran, or in the quieter but consequential struggles of young women navigating inequity in American universities and corporate environments. Drawing on my experience across corporate law, academia, and nonprofit leadership, I would speak to the power and limitations of working within these “small places,” and how cross-sector collaboration can translate local momentum, echoing Eleanor Roosevelt’s reminder that universal rights must first have meaning close to home.
Neda Bolourchi, JD, PhD is a historian at Rutgers University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group. A former human rights attorney with extensive field experience in Iran, Syria, and across the Middle East, she has advised the U.S. Department of Defense, the State Department, diplomatic missions, senior government officials, and multinational corporations on geopolitical risk, sanctions, and regional security. She currently serves as Executive Director of a national nonprofit that educates Members of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the American public on issues at the intersection of foreign policy, civil rights, and U.S. national security.
Allison A. Dunlop, Esq.
Topic: Human Rights begin at home, one of the most dangerous places for a woman. Learn about Brooklyn Legal Services’ First Response Project, a collaboration with the New York City Police Department, designed to enhance officers’ interactions with survivors of Intimate Partner Violence by providing trauma-informed, survivor-centered training that advances survivors’ human rights and promotes community safety.
Alison Dunlop is a Senior Attorney/Domestic Violence Specialist at Brooklyn Legal Services. For over two decades, Ms. Dunlop has represented survivors of Domestic Violence and sexual abuse. She practices law through a trauma-informed lens and has litigated extensively in the Family, Supreme, and Integrated Domestic Violence Courts in New York City. She represents survivors in matrimonial and family law proceedings. She also represents survivors in gender-based humanitarian applications for immigration relief. She is a first-generation Dominican American and works closely with many immigrant and limited English-speaking survivors.
Under her leadership, she secured funding and co-created a trauma-informed training series for first responders (NYPD), including producing training videos, that assists first responders in identifying trauma-responses exhibited by survivors and best practices for enhanced interactions. She obtained her Juris Doctorate from SUNY Buffalo School of Law, where she specialized in International Law and Human Rights and her B.A. from New York University.
Tani Gurkova
Topic: The Architecture of Silence: Where Small Spaces Begin
Tani Gurkova is the Founder and Executive Director of Steps With Sisters, a nonprofit organization dedicated to community empowerment and advocating for positive mental health. She holds a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Tennessee State University. Her professional background spans Wall Street, NBA Security, criminal law investigations, and corporate leadership as CEO of Alexander Service Corp, equipping her with a multidisciplinary perspective on leadership, governance, and operational excellence.
Tani’s diverse experience informs her strategic vision, strengthens organizational infrastructure, and advances inclusive community partnerships, including collaborations with Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York during sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women. She is an active member and guest speaker with the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, Win With Black Women, National Alliance on Mental Illness (Peer-to-Peer Certified), Women Empowered NYC, and an affiliate member of the New York State Bar Association. She also serves as a Board Member of the We Are Floyd Foundation and remains committed to volunteerism through direct service initiatives supporting vulnerable families and communities.
Esther Nyiransabimana Myers
Topic: To be announced
Esther Nyiransabimana Myers entered prison in Rwanda with a smile on her face and a rock-solid faith that God would provide for her every need over the next seven years without complaint or despair. Esther redeemed her time behind bars using her education and God-inspired ingenuity to counsel, teach, and care for the needs of hundreds of women around her while trusting that her husband and four-year old son would find their own way to survive in her absence back in the United States. How did this come about?
Esther, a gifted pastor and musician, was preaching at a local church in her home country Rwanda about her experience as a genocide survivor after an eight-year absence. She was arrested the very next day for speaking outside of the legal parameters about genocide. Esther was tried, convicted and received a 10-year sentence. Because of Esther’s joyful spirit and love for her fellow prisoners, she soon rose to a position of leadership of all the church leaders in the prison. She was called on day and night for help and earned the honored name of Mama Pastor. When Esther was finally released from prison on December 14, 2021, she was given numerous gifts and awarded a plaque inscribed with a long list of accomplishments during her imprisonment.
Esther studied at Youth with a Mission and volunteered doing mission work with that organization in South Africa for six years. In 2007 she traveled to the United States and studied counseling, leadership and pastoral studies at Christ for the Nations Institute. She graduated from Dallas Theological Institute and in 2013 she graduated from Crow College as Valedictorian with a degree in Counseling and Psychology.
She resides in South Dakota with her husband and son and is a passionate evangelist and speaker.
Dr. Eleanor Ann Nwadinobi
Topic: Human rights and human wrongs in small places close to home
Dr. Eleanor Nwadinobi is a medical doctor, women, peace, security and gender expert with a master’s in Human Rights. She is the first Nigerian to rise to the position of International President of the Medical Women's International Association (MWIA) in its over one-hundred-year existence. She sits on the boards of several National and International Organizations including Every Woman Treaty, a coalition advocating for a global binding norm to end all forms of violence against women and girls and is Co-chair Immunization Agenda (IA) 2030 Partnership Council. Eleanor has authored several publications and received numerous awards of merit.
Elaine Weiss
Topic: Spell Freedom: The small, secret classrooms that built the civil rights movement
Elaine Weiss is an American journalist and author of books of narrative history. Her book on the women's suffrage movement, The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote received the American Bar Association's highest honor, the 2019 Silver Gavel Award. Her newest book, Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement has won high praise from scholars and readers alike, described as "a beautifully crafted and dramatic tale" told with "elegant writing, masterful storytelling, and prodigious research." Spell Freedom was long-listed for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in nonfiction books, awarded by the American Library Association, and was selected by Amazon's editors as one of the best history books of 2025.
Moderator
Fay Yvette Parris, Esq.
Fay Yvette Parris, is an international law consultant, immigration law practitioner, and writer with extensive experience in humanitarian and international human rights law. Recently, she also provided extensive service to McGuire Woods, LLP. as part of a financial crimes investigations team. In her private practice she prepares National Interest Waiver petitions for physicians, medical researchers and scholars with exemplary portfolios, and has successfully represented individuals in removal proceedings, including those seeking asylum or withholding of removal under the UN Convention Against Torture.
She served as a Visiting Professional with the International Criminal Court (ICC), Office of the Prosecutor, where she advised the Court on modalities for prosecuting gender-based persecution which occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2011); as Advisor to the ICC Trust Fund for Victims for a June 2009 Board Meeting, and as a Supervising Attorney with the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights. From June 2021-June 2022 she served as President of the Queens County Women's Bar Association, and she is currently a member of the American University School of International Service Board of Advisors, an Ex-Officio Director of the Global NGO Executive Committee and serving in her nineteenth year as Co-Chair of the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York (WBASNY) International Women's Rights Committee. Fay was the 2019 recipient of the WBASNY Marilyn R. Menge Award for outstanding work on behalf of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York.
Fay and Michael A. Eastridge, Esq. recently co-founded Global Justice Advocates, PLLC through which they collaborate with other stakeholders to incorporate international human rights principles as practice within public and private spaces.
Fay received a Master of Arts (MA) in Law and International Affairs from The American University School of International Service; a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the American University Washington College of Law and Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in International Affairs with a Minor in Criminal Justice from The American University, School of International Service.