Bio

Yara El Harake is a Lebanese human rights activist with over a decade of experience advocating for the basic human rights of justice, dignity and freedom. She believes she is a mix of many identities, each one from an experience, history, country, memory, fight and resistance. With a master’s degree in Peace, Conflict and Development, El Harake turns a critical eye on the dichotomy of peace and conflict, seeing conflicts as opportunities to transform society for good.

Combining interdisciplinary studies and various experiences, Yara El Harake integrates activism with art, journalism and personal storytelling. With her blog on women’s bodies and experiences, Yara shares her perspective as a Lebanese woman from the Swana region, migrant and activist fighting for safe, creative spaces. She firmly believes in the power of storytelling and the ethics of care from a feminist perspective, which is why she stresses the importance of preserving and taking care of one’s own stories as an act of resistance. As a culinary storyteller, El Harake advocates for decolonising freedoms and peace from the Western hegemony and believes creativity is essential to re-imagining peace, especially for refugees and immigrants.