ABOUT LEYLA
Dr. Leyla Hussein is a psychotherapist, specialising in supporting survivors of sexual abuse. She is an international lecturer on female genital mutilation (FGM) and speaker on gender rights. She is recognised as one of the key experts on this issue globally and is a leading and award-winning international campaigner against all forms of violence against women and girls. Leyla founded The Dahlia Project, the UK’s first specialist therapeutic service for FGM survivors. In 2020, she was elected as Rector of the University of St Andrews for a three-year term, making history as the first Black woman to hold the position. She currently works as the Global Advocacy Director for the The Girl Generation: Support to the Africa-led Movement to End FGM/C.
Current Initiatives
Leyla’s passion is to create safe spaces for women and girls around the world. Most recently, she co-founded Safe Spaces for Black Women with her colleague Fatima Hagi to provide emotional support for Black women across the globe. In 2018, she founded Magool to harness her expertise as an activist and psychotherapist to develop emotional wellbeing tools whilst promoting the rights and wellbeing of women and girls. Leyla has often created communities and wellbeing services after identifying a need for them in her own life, leading her to contribute consistently to more inclusive and safe spaces in society.
Consultancy
Dr. Leyla Hussein has worked as a consultant on a wide array of development projects with global NGOs and organisations including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Department for International Development. She has experience designing workshops and bespoke programmes that focus on a wide range of topics including the impact of female genital mutilation (FGM) on communities, gender rights, and the emotional wellbeing of activists working on the frontlines of some of the most pressing issues of our time. She regularly chairs conferences and panel discussions as well as giving talks on her own experiences as a survivor of FGM.
Higher Education
Leyla received a postgraduate diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy from the University of West London. Leyla was awarded an Honorary Doctorate and became an associate professor there from September 2018. In 2020, Leyla was elected by the students at the University of St Andrews to her office as University Rector. She now works closely with young student activists to improve access, action, and accountability in higher education.
Past Initiatives
Leyla founded the Dahlia Project, which empowers communities to lead change and support survivors of FGM. Following her relocation to Nairobi, Kenya, Leyla is no longer active with the Dahlia Project Team. Leyla was part of the team behind the project, The Girl Generation, that focuses on the importance of the emotional wellbeing of activists in the field working with survivors of FGM. She worked as a Strategic Advisor and Global Ambassador for The Girl Generation Movement, working to end FGM globally. She has shared this approach through consultations with the UN and presented the success of its impact at the ICPD summit in Nairobi. She created the ground-breaking Face of Defiance project, a series of photographic portraits and interviews with FGM survivors. The documentary she presented The Cruel Cut was nominated for a BAFTA.
Public Speaking, Writing, and Media
Leyla is an experienced public speaker and regularly participates in international conferences, films, and media interviews. Her work has been presented at Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Leeds, Exeter, Coventry University, International School of Geneva and many Ivy League faculties in the US including Columbia, Harvard, Georgetown, George Washington and Pennsylvania university. As a writer, Leyla has been published in national and international media and she regularly appears in both print and broadcast as an expert commentator on women’s rights and health. Leyla was named Cosmopolitan Campaigner of the Year 2010 and she was included in the BBC 100 Women List in 2013, Woman’s Hour Power List 2014 and Debretts 500 as one of the UK’s most influential people.
Honours and Awards
In 2019, Leyla was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for her work in tackling female gender mutilation and gender equality. She was awarded the Freedom Borough Award from Walthamstow Borough Council in April 2018.