Katrien joined the Mukwege Foundation in 2019, and is responsible for strategic leadership and operational management of our team, and developing a strategic network of donor and partners. She has extensive experience in humanitarian aid and advocacy gained during more than two decades of work for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic Congo, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Iraq, Colombia and Haiti. She also served as Delegate Director for MSF Holland, and as interim-head of the department of International Humanitarian Law of the Netherlands Red Cross.
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Leadership team
Katrien Coppens
Executive Director
Banu Altunbas
Banu joined the Mukwege Foundation in 2022 as Programme Director and her responsibilities include the strategic orientation of the programming and supporting the implementation of all three pillars of the Foundation’s work. Banu has thirty years of professional management experience, twenty four of which were in senior humanitarian and not-for-profit management positions. She worked in many conflict settings like Liberia, East Timor, Albania, Kosovo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Somalia/ Somaliland, South Sudan, Kenya, and Mozambique. Banu’s background is management, international law and humanitarian assistance. Her main interest areas are conflict resolution, peace and reconciliation, gender, justice and accountability.
Programme Director
Dominique Vidale-Plaza
Dominique joined the Mukwege Foundation team in 2019 as a senior programme manager, responsible for the development of the holistic care international programmes. She worked at Panzi Hospital and Foundation in the DRC between 2011 and 2015 before joining the UN peacekeeping mission as a Women Protection Advisor, then UNICEF as a Child Protection Specialist. While with the UN, Dominique specialised in coordinating multi-sectoral assistance for sexual violence survivors, sexual exploitation and abuse cases and gender sensitive care for child ex-combatants. She is particularly interested in militarisation, civilian protection, post-conflict rebuilding and advocating for justice for victims of conflict related sexual violence.
Director of Care and Country Programs
Debby Gruiters
Debby joined the Mukwege Foundation in 2017 and is based in The Netherlands, with a two-year interim period (2022/2023) when she was based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, deployed as General Director of the Panzi Foundation to lead their organisational change process.
As a member of the Management Team, she is responsible for organisational effectiveness by providing leadership for the organisation’s financial, human resource and office management functions, overseeing daily operations and ensuring that organisational resources are used in compliance with ethical standards, donor requirements and in the most cost-effective manner.
Debby has over 25 years of experience in financial management, programme management and fundraising in the non-profit sector. She specialises in compliance with eligibility requirements from a wide variety of donors and has a successful track record in NGO organisational development.
Director of Resources – Finance & HR
Programme team
Tamara van der Putten
Tamara joined the Mukwege Foundation in 2023 as Programme Manager for the Holistic Care team. She has worked for various international, national, and grassroots NGOs, including in Greece, North Iraq, Colombia, and South Sudan. Her roles involved providing managerial and technical guidance on projects related to health, protection, peace-building, mental health and psychosocial support, and sexual and gender-based violence. With a background in medical anthropology, Tamara’s interest lies in survivor-centred, culturally sensitive and community-based approaches to mental health and wellbeing, with a commitment to enhancing access to high-quality care for individuals in conflict and vulnerable situations.
Programme Manager, Holistic Care
Mariia Yefimchuk
Mariia joined the Mukwege Foundation’s newly created team in Ukraine as Programme Manager in 2023. With a background in legal assistance in the governmental institution Social Insurance Fund of Ukraine, she then shifted to the humanitarian sphere and joined the Danish Refugee Council as a lawyer. Mariia worked as an advocacy officer with a focus on legal advocacy for domestic violence survivors’ rights protection and also as a grant officer in support of SGBV survivors. She is particularly interested in protecting human rights and ensuring high-quality care for those who survived violence.
Programme Manager
Lwaboshi Kayombe
Lwaboshi KAYOMBE joined the Foundation in January 2022 first as a Clinical Psychologist in the Central African Republic (CAR) and now as a Programme Manager. He has 13+ years of experience in the emergency and humanitarian world. Prior to joining the Foundation, he worked with the Refugee Education Trust International in coordinating the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with the Centre de Transit et d’Orientation approach, with the Panzi DRC Hospital and Foundation in setting up a psychosocial service within Panzi hospital to care for victims of sexual violence and other patients, with the Jesuit Refugee Service in CAR in the care and education of children who have lived through armed conflicts using the community approach. In short, he has expertise in mental health and psychosocial support, in child protection and in the response to and prevention of sexual and gender-based violence in emergency and humanitarian situations.
Programme Manager, Central African Republic
Apolline Pierson
Apolline has over seven years of experience in the field of conflict-related sexual violence, specializing in movement-building and survivor-led advocacy. She has played a key role in launching networks of survivors in more than eight countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, as well as in supporting SEMA, the Global Network of Survivors of Wartime Sexual Violence, since its establishment. Previously, she spent several years in the field in Africa, including at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu (DRC), working closely with Dr. Mukwege’s team. Passionate about amplifying survivors’ voices and strengthening their leadership, Apolline is committed to ensuring their experiences shape policies and drive lasting change.
VOICE Team Leader
Prerna Bhagi
Prerna began working in the international humanitarian system seven years ago as a social worker in Greece. She went on to work with the Mukwege Foundation and the Panzi Foundation in Bukavu in 2017, learning in-depth how Dr. Mukwege’s team supports the recovery and healing of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). Between 2018 and 2021, Prerna worked with different international NGOs in the Horn and North of Africa as a specialist in responding to the immediate needs of at-risk populations. Prerna now works as a Programme Manager for the National Survivor Networks that the Mukwege Foundation accompanies in different countries. Her background is in History and Anthropology, and she is particularly interested in community-based social work and trauma-informed care.
Programme Manager, National Survivor Networks
Clarisse Reberteau Gouraud
Clarisse joined the Mukwege Foundation team in 2023 as a Programme Manager, responsible to support the National Survivor Networks to amplify the voices of survivors across the world. Before joining the Mukwege Foundation, she worked few years on the design and implementation of health programmes in Turkey. Then, she worked at FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights) and coordinate human rights projects, focusing on women’s rights and contributes to strengthen local CSO’s into documenting sexual gender-based violence. Her background is in human rights law and she’s particularly interested into feminism and women’s rights movements, fight against impunity of conflict-related sexual violence and access to justice for survivors.
Programme Manager, National Survivor Networks
Camille Risler
Camille joined the Mukwege Foundation team in 2023 as a Programme Manager, responsible to support the Global Survivor Network. Prior to joining the Mukwege Foundation, she worked in Thailand in a regional network of women’s rights organisations; in Colombia in the UN Verification Mission of the 2016 Peace Agreement between the FARC and the Colombian government; and in a Swiss institution working on gender and security. Her background is in human rights law, and she is particularly interested in conflict-related sexual violence, transitional justice processes, peace negotiations, and the links between climate change, gender and security.
Programme Manager, Global Survivor Network
Erin Farrell Rosenberg
Erin is the Senior Legal and Policy Advisor for the Mukwege Foundation’s Red Line Initiative. She is also an adjunct professor and visiting scholar with the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. She spent a decade working in international criminal law at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Appeals Chamber and the ICC Trust Fund for Victims. She spent extensive time working directly with victims of atrocity crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, and Mali. She also served as the Senior Advisor for the Centre for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She is a member of the Editorial Committee of the Journal of International Criminal Justice (JICJ) and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow with News Lines Institute.
Senior Legal and Policy Advisor, Red Line Initiative
Support team
Jainaba Ngum
Jainaba joined the Mukwege Foundation as Finance Assistant in January 2024. With a background as Audit Senior at PKF Accountants and Business Advisers, she brings years of external audit experience, particularly in NGO audits. Her career trajectory led her to transition into a Finance and Admin Assistant role at The Medical Research Council – London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (The Gambia Unit), which focuses on promoting maternal and child nutritional well-being. She later took on the responsibilities of Stores and Archives Manager within the same organisation, before relocating to the Netherlands. Her qualifications as Accounting Technician (AAT) and ACCA-Part Qualified, along with her extensive international work experience, positioned her well for this role.
Finance Assistant
Elena Chavez Goycochea
Elena is the Communications Specialist at the Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation. She started her career in journalism, working for independent media outlets in her native country, Peru. Her passion for women’s rights advocacy, indigenous movements and unbiased news production led her to a career as researcher, lecturer and communicator at the City University of New York. She has actively collaborated with renowned women’s rights advocacy initiatives, including Feminist Press and international artivists. In 2021, Elena obtained a doctorate in Cultural Studies, focusing on the artistic and cultural production of women-led activist movements in Latin America, the United States and Spain. She has over seven years of experience developing and executing communications plans as a communications specialist.
Communications Specialist
Siobhan Richards
Siobhan joined the Mukwege Foundation in 2018, and works as Fundraising Officer, responsible for institutional fundraising with foundations, governments and multilateral organisations. She has many years experience of both fundraising and grant-making gained in the UK and the Netherlands. Her diverse experience includes public-facing roles as a trainer and coach, managing partnerships and networks, and support and capacity building in the non-profit sector. Prior to her work for the Mukwege Foundation she worked for the Heritage Lottery Fund in the UK, and as a freelance entrepreneur in the Netherlands.
Fundraising Officer
Esther Kimenju
Esther joined the Mukwege Foundation in 2021 as the Compliance & Projects Controller. She started her career in journalism in conflict-affected areas in North Eastern Kenya, where she interviewed and wrote articles on the socio-economic dynamics of internally displaced people, refugees, and female genital mutilation. Before relocating to the Netherlands, she worked for humanitarian organisations on first response post-conflict, living conditions of the marginalized, conflict prevention and gender-based violence. She has over ten years of experience in compliance and control of programmes and projects.
Compliance & Projects Controller
Olivier Vanderveeren
Olivier is the Special Assistant to Dr Denis Mukwege and the Mukwege Foundation Advocacy Officer. He is responsible for carrying out advocacy work, particularly with respect to the justice and accountability pillar of the Mukwege Foundation. Olivier has more than 15 years of experience in the field of human rights, including in peace missions in the DRC, Afghanistan, and Mali.
Special Assistant to Dr Denis Mukwege & Advocacy Officer
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