Heidi Basch-Harod is the executive director of Women’s Voices Now, a non-profit organization in Los Angeles that uses film to drive social change to advance girls’ and women’s rights globally. She brings experience in international human rights advocacy from her work with Tibetan Nuns Project, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress, and the Palestine-Israel Journal. She has served international women-focused film festivals, including the Herat Women's International Film Festival and the Porto Femme Film Festival. In 2021, she received a Daytime Emmy as a producer of the Girls’ Voices Now series in collaboration with Here Media.
Basch-Harod is a scholar of the modern history of the Middle East and North Africa, specializing in women’s rights movements of the region. She holds a master's degree in Middle Eastern and African history from Tel Aviv University and is a junior researcher of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. She is a published author, both in print and online.
For over 10 years, Basch-Harod has worked with young people ages 12 to 24, teaching empowerment workshops through Women’s Voices Now and its Girls’ Voices Now program. She is a Holocaust educator who works with the Jewish community and is regularly invited to speak at public middle and high schools throughout Los Angeles to teach about antisemitism, other forms of hate, racism and bigotry, and the power of film to make social change. Since 2023, she has been a trained conscious ambassador of trauma-informed care.