Quick Facts
Biography
Ola Abu Al Ghaib is a Disability Rights Activist focusing on disabled women in the Middle East. She earned her master's degree in Project Management from Birzeit University. She is the executive director and founder of Stars of Hope Center which is an organization that seeks to empower women with disabilities and works to change social conditions so that women with disabilities in the Occupied Territories have full inclusion into society. She advocates for governments to adopt the Convention on the Rights for People with Disabilities (CRPD) and her organization trains other organizations the work with the disabled on implementing the CRPD. In an interview, she stated that public attention in the Occupied Territories towards disability is low as the entire population is struggling with meeting their basic needs.
A list of her accomplishments and connections
- Disability Rights Fund Global Advisory Panel by the Arab Organization of Disabled People 2008-2013
- Regional Disability Rights and Advocacy Coordinator and Musawa Project Manager for the Middle East Regional Office of Handicap International
- German Organization for the Disabled
- CARE International
- Swedish Organization of Persons with Disabilities (SHIA)
- Agent of Change Awardee chosen by Worldwide Network on Disability and Human Rights, 2006
- Ashoka Fellow, 2007
- US International Council on Disabilities (USICD) featured speaker, 2011
- Board Member for the Disability Rights Fund
- Compliance Officer for the Disability Rights Advocacy Fund
- Global Head of Influencing, Impact and Learning at Leonard Cheshire Disability