Sawssan Abou Zahr is an independent Lebanese journalist who perceives her profession as a medium to promote democracy, peace and human rights and exert social activism. She worked for 16 years with Annahar, the leading newspaper in Lebanon. Her writings in Arabic focused on Arab Spring issues and emerging democracies, women causes and human rights, Syrian and Palestinians refugees and Islamic radical movements. Through her work, she covered political events and human rights issues from several countries around the world and notably  Afghanistan and Libya, where she focused on new political systems, women rights and peace building efforts after the wounds of war.

Sawssan works on mapping local peace building actors as a partner in Lebanon for Peace Direct, whose website Peace Insight is a leading source on peace building efforts throughout conflict zones in the world. She contributes to comprehensive reports, case studies and research projects with other correspondents in the network. On her blog, she writes articles in English on internal reconciliation, human security and refugee issues, especially women.

She works with Women Human Rights  Defenders in the MENA and the regional coalition supporting them. Her role is consultancy, proof reading and editing the web material and producing manuals and reports in Arabic.

Sawssan served in 2016 and 2018 as a jury member for Tomorrow’s Peacebuilders Award. She was a speaker at World Press Freedom Day in Jakarta in 2017 on portrayal of Syrian refugees in Lebanese media media, took part in several international forums on journalism and women empowerment, as well as panels at International Peace Institute in New York on countering violent extremism and peace building.

Participant in: December 2018 Fellowship: Peacebuilding and Women’s Meaningful Participation in Peacebuilding Processes