Build Partnerships

Negotiating new ways forward.

Colleen, with her vast network of partners across the globe, negotiates political and funding partnerships grounded in new solutions and approaches to addressing forced displacement, that nurture community-driven initiatives.  Through her efforts, she has forged local and global coalitions that enhance the well-being of disadvantaged and displaced individuals, a mission that has taken her to over 100 countries in pursuit of meaningful and impactful change.

Help to Ukraine: Europe Prykhystok

At the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in February of 2022, Colleen co-founded Europe Prykhystok (EP), an award winning NGO that is connecting Ukrainian and European communities to address the needs of Ukrainian internally displaced persons (IDPs). The vision is to catalyze political and funding partnerships to enable greater community-driven action and solidarity with Ukraine.

So far, EP has provided short-term get-aways in France for over 800 recently orphaned and displaced Ukrainian children, and EP is now expanding to German cities. Colleen chairs EP’s board whose members include the Governor of Lviv, Maksym Kozytskyy, and founder of Doctors without Borders, former Minister Bernard Kouchner. Learn More.

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Higher Education

Colleen Thouez is a thought leader within the higher education sector, launching various initiatives that have pushed the sector to be more innovative, collaborative and action-driven. With NASH, she has launched new city-university initiatives such as the Chicago Hub for Displaced Ukrainians at City Colleges of Chicago. She has designed partnerships with state governments, for example designing the first ever Humanitarian Assistance Scholarship in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  She has also brokered partnerships at the federal level recently through ‘Welcome Corps on Campus’. She helped design and fund the University Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk Migrants (UARRM) in 2017 originally housed at Rutgers University, and has advanced migration governance from the Columbia University’s Global Policy Initiative where she was a senior fellow from 2016-2018.  Colleen frequently lectures widely in the United States and abroad.  In New York, she is senior fellow at the New School for Social Research, and faculty at Bard College.

Advocacy and Partnerships

Colleen is regularly called upon to advise national, state and municipal governments, regional bodies, the UN, and the World Bank, foundations and civil society, among others on topics ranging from higher education to migration.

Colleen spent 17 years at the UN in leadership positions in the dual fields of migration and adult education: first as the youngest Head of UNITAR in New York, and later as special advisor to the UN Secretary General’s first representative on migration, the late Peter Sutherland. While at the UN, she forged successful education-focused partnerships in the fields of peace and conflict resolution, e-governance, migration and development, and special technical assistance for developing countries.  She continues to serve as special advisor at UNITAR. 

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An advocate for all.