Sonya Reines-Djivanides is the Executive Director of the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO), a position she started in April of 2015. She has more than fifteen years of experience in international conflict resolution and works, in her current role, towards peacebuilding and the prevention of violent conflict.

Prior to serving as the Executive Director, she was the chair of the EPLO steering committee for a year and a half. From 2013 until 2015 she was the Director of Search for Common Ground’s (SFCG) Brussels Headquarters managing European fundraising, liaison, advocacy and programme development and support and before that she led SFCG’s Track II Mediation work for seven years based in Washington D.C. with extensive travel.

Sonya brings a great deal of educational background to these roles. She has a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Political Science and French from the University of New Mexico. She has a Master of Arts in International Relations with focus on International Conflict Negotiation and an advanced Certificate in International Conflict Management from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. In addition to these degrees, she completed a Peace Mediation Course with the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs and undertook further training at the United States Institute of Peace in post conflict reconstruction, conflict analysis and international mediation.

Sonya is a skilled and experienced facilitator and manager with a proven ability to build successful, high performing cohesive teams. She has an exceptional ability to communicate and network effectively with a diversity of high-level personalities and strong analytical capabilities and a keen ability to solve problems creatively.

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