Courses related to women’s issues are offered through various divisions, especially the Humanities and Social Sciences divisions. Research Conferences, Seminars, and Workshops: Special Events: Annual Film Festival & International Women’s Day Action and Development Programs: Basic Living Skills Program (BLSP), Second Edition, 2003, Empowering Arab Women through Literacy, 2005, & Rehabilitation and Vocational Training Programs for Women in Lebanese Prisons namely in Tripoli.

Zico House has inside and outside projects. By inside, we mean events that are presented in Zico House, on the roof, in the garden, on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd floor. This is where small events take place with a maximum of 80 persons per event. Exhibitions, movie projections, installations, concerts, poetry readings, etc… are part of the monthly yearly program. On the other hand, Zico House is the organizer of the Beirut Street Festival, the first street festival in Lebanon and in the region. The BSF aims at presenting the best of European, African, American, Arabic and Lebanese street events. It stresses on collaboration between foreign and Lebanese artists for the creation of a site-specific performances. Zico House is also the organizer of Al-Mawsam, a project aiming at reviving forgotten cultural spaces with an artistic diverse program.

Global.me project aims for providing high quality global education course for Finnish upper secondary school students (age from 16 to 19) in selected schools around the regions of Helsinki, Tampere, Jyväskylä, Mikkeli and Oulu. International teacher trainees will act as trainers in the global.me course in teams of 3-4. The aim is to have as wide cultural diversity as possible. The course utilizes interactive and innovative teaching methods and is discussion-based. The course concentrates on human rights education, peace education, media education, intercultural education, development education and education for sustainable development. The course has been running yearly since 2007. Before the course starts the volunteers will be trained by (non-) governmental organizations working in the field of global/development education (KEPA, Unicef, Peace School, etc.). Each volunteer group will be signed for 4-6 schools in one region, and they will be training in these schools for 7-8 weeks for 3-4 hours a day. The course is finalized with regional closing events, where the students from the area get together for one day of workshops and other activities organised by the volunteers. The volunteers will also interact with local society outside of the schools.

The yearly programme of more than 100 events consists of seminars, debates, exhibitions, performances, meetings and other activities appropriate for fulfilling the mission.

My areas of expertise are in humanitarian aid, organizational development, gender issues and inter-religious cooperation.

Main blog and five other blogs in English - all about the same content but different readership; one blog in Finnish language, active participation to different discussion forums.

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Current research projects / activities
Finnish Academy Fellow. Project on On "Glocal" governance: On the meanings and consequences of the "vernacularization" of Human Rights Concepts
Challenging Power - Power in Finland (CEREN, university of Helsinki)http://sockom.helsinki.fi/ceren/power/index.html
Poga the language survival network homepagehttp://www2.hu-berlin.de/poga/
EU project ELDIA (European Language Diversity for All) http://www.eldia-project.org/index.php?lang=en
Human rights education and national minorities in Europe (Humboldt University in Berlin) (2003-2007)
Member of the Expert Group for the UN Speacial Rapporteur on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
Vice-president of the International Human rights Education Consortium (www.ihrec.org)

Besides news journalist I have written books. The first one, dealing with Iran has the title: Iran: Huntu ja haaste - Yritys ymmärtää Iranin yhteiskuntaa, Like, 2009, 304 pages (in English: Iran: The Veil and the Challenge - An attempt to understand Iranian society) with an update of 60 pages published the next year: Iranin vihreän liikkeen digitaalinen vallankumous (in English: The Digital Revolution of the Iranian Green Movement). In 2013 I published a book on Saudi Arabia describing the birth of civil society in that country with the title: Saudi-Arabian toiset kasvot - Rohkeita naisia ja kybernuoria, Like (in English: Another face of Saudi Arabia - Brave Women and Cyber Youth, LIke 404 pages. The book on Saudi Arabia was published in Italian strongly updated with the title: L'Arabia Saudita. Uno Stato islamico contro le donne e i diritti, Castelvecchi, 2016, 304 pagine (in English: Saudi Arabia - An islamic State against women and the rights). This book was elected by Italian Institute for International Affairs (IAI) as the book of the month in November 2016. I also wrote the chapter on Saudi Arabia for e book on Syria: Siria. Una pace impossibile, Castelvecchi, 2017, edited by Claudia De Martino, a researcher in the Unimed office of Rome. Now I am working on a book on the regional conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia for my Finnish editor, Like. For the research of this book I have been recently in Lebanon and in Iran and before in Saudi Arabia.

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