Bangladesh

Shahrukh Mirza is an international development professional with over ten years of experience, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Shahrukh holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Warwick and a Master’s in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Currently serving as Senior Manager, Strategy and Operations at BRAC International, she provides support in strategy development, organizational planning, and communications and advocacy. Shahrukh has extensive experience in program design, proposal development, and managing annual planning and reporting across multiple countries in her previous roles at BRAC and WaterAid. She is passionate about community-driven solutions and leveraging her skills to address poverty and inequality in the Global South.

Nawra Mehrin is trained in economics and political science and has six years of experience in nonprofit and intergovernmental organizations. Her areas of expertise include strategic program development, research and evaluation, and technical assistance. She has extensive experience in working across the international development spectrum, including BRAC, UNDP, and the World Bank. Nawra cares deeply about human dignity, the politics of underdevelopment, displacement, and children in crisis. She is constantly looking for new opportunities to improve her technical and interpersonal skills to become a seasoned development practitioner. Nawra has a 3-year-old toddler and baking with him is her favorite pass time.

Dr. Md. Shabab Hossain is a medical doctor, a clinician turned researcher, who is currently working as a Research Investigator in the Nutrition and Clinical Services Division of icddr,b, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Upon receiving his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree and completing a year-long postgraduate training in Internal Medicine, Dr. Hossain joined icddr,b as a fellow, aspiring to contribute in the field of maternal and childhood malnutrition through clinical research. Dr. Hossain’s focus of interest is in gut health and enteropathy and its association with malnutrition and growth. His research work has been published in renowned international peer-reviewed medical journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Scientific Reports, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Open, etc. He has presented his study findings in several international conferences and has received the Young Investigators Award in the Asian Society for Pediatric Research (ASPR) held in Manila, the Philippines. He is working as the Principal Investigator in several projects related to gut health and enteropathy.

Mozammel Hossain (Nayon) is a driven young professional. Mozammel has five years of experience in digital and social media marketing. Mozammel obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh and is now studying to earn a Master of Science in Digital Technology Management at Munich University of Applied Science in Germany. Some of his proven skills are strategic planning, growth hacking, graphic design, fundraising, website development, creative thinking, and more. He founded a startup named Trendy Pitch in 2016 and helped more than 300 US and EU top notch companies and organizations design stunning PowerPoint and Prezi presentations. His friends call him Pitch Man. Before that Mozammel worked as a Marketing Associate at Viser X and helped the organization to plan and execute all digital marketing campaigns including SEO, SEM, email marketing, social media marketing, and display advertising. He has vast extracurricular experience and participated in lots of business and case competitions such as Hult Prize, HSBC-IBA Business Case Competition, and Telenor Youth Summit. Mozammel worked alongside other students to organize the first-ever Hult Prize competition at the University of Dhaka, which was worth 1 million USD in seed capital. He is an outstanding debater and was even selected as the champion and best speaker in the first FBS IT/IS Entrepreneurship Debate Championship organized by the Management Information System Department at the University of Dhaka. Mozamel dreams of a world where there is no poverty, sexual harassment, child labor, or refugees.

Host Organization: Leonardo

Role at Host Organization: At Leonardo, Mozammel will serve as the Community Development and Digital Marketing Fellow: bridging and scaling Leonardo’s global network through multiple events, dissemination of information, and by helping the organization track their customer journey.

With seven years of experience in leading and managing youth-led voluntary organizations, Mizan has been working for youth with disabilities through diversified activities since 2008. He earned a Master’s degree in Arts from the Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. To promote inclusive leadership and empower youth with disabilities, Mizan and his team officially launched the Physically-challenged Development Foundation-PDF in 2008. PDF is the largest organization in Bangladesh working to empower the youth and youth with disabilities. As of late, Mizan has been leading research on these issues and publishing reports. In 2014, The Daily Star publication recognized him as a Young Achiever of Bangladesh. Besides his non-profit works, Mizan worked professionally with Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed (CRP) as a disability rights activist. Mizan worked closely with its founder, Ms. Valerie Ann Taylor, and gained experience fundraising and grant writing for national and international donors. In his most recent role, Mizan has worked with one of the world’s largest organizations, Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC), as a policy advocacy specialist for road safety issues. He is also experienced in facilitating the leadership training sessions at BRAC and National Youth Center, Bangladesh. These excellent experiences promoted his skills to liaise with government officials, and network with INGOs and NGOs. He has honed his problem identification and leadership, advocacy and communication, staff management and event management, facilitation and training intervention skills as well. Mizan enjoys focusing on the topics of youth empowerment and community mobilization, and has a strong passion to protect and empower youth with disabilities.

Host Organization: Community Options, Inc.

Role at Host Organization: As the Training and Grants Fellow, Mizan will assist with the design and delivery of management related training and the roll-out of a day program curriculum. In addition he will assist writers in writing federal, state, local and foundation grant proposals to enhance housing development and employment for persons with developmental disabilities.

Imran has about five years of professional experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned the “Cambridge International Diploma for Teachers and Trainers” from Cambridge University, United Kingdom and a “Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Communication Engineering” from BRAC University, Bangladesh. While working for different philanthropic organizations including BRAC (the world’s largest nonprofit), he imparted education to underprivileged children, trained teachers, and facilitated international exchange and volunteer development programs. These activities addressed issues like the social and leadership development of young people, many of which were supported by the U.S. Embassy of Dhaka. Simultaneously, he was teaching the “Cambridge International Diploma for Teachers and Trainers” to educators of various schools for about two years. Based on his understanding of young people’s needs of leadership development, Imran started his own initiative, “Mind Mechanics,” at the beginning of 2014. There, he designs and facilitates programs for various target groups representing different socio-economic, political and faith-based communities such as human rights activists, young political leaders, and students of ‘Madrasas’ (religious educational institutions). He does these to equip them with soft skills that promote employability, tolerance, co-existence, transformational leadership and democracy. Through these experiences Imran has developed strong leadership qualities, design thinking and facilitation skills for empowering youths of different age groups, and socioeconomic and educational backgrounds. He has a strong passion for holistic youth empowerment through youth leadership development.

Host Organization: Compass Partners

Role at Host Organization: Imran will be supporting the Executive Director through strengthening the program across 16 university campuses. He will play a pivotal role in revamping the curriculum, creating new hard-copy and online communications materials, enhancing regional and national communication/connectivity and improving upon campus-specific issues.

Tisa Muhaddes has three years of experience in the nonprofit sector and four years of experience in the communication and public relations sectors in South Asia, United States, and the United Kingdom. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Arts from Marymount Manhattan College, and a Master’s degree in Gender Studies from the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London. In her last position, Tisa Muhaddes was the Research and Communication Officer at the James P. Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University in Bangladesh. She was in charge of the communication and press department for the whole school and its various centers. As a trained qualitative researcher, she also co-coordinated and co-managed a multi-country research project looking into violence against marginalized women in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal that lasted for eighteen months. The project was envisioned by Creating Resources for Employment Action (CREA), a rights-based NGO in India, and overseen by the United College of London (UCL). Tisa Muhaddes is also an activist for sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) and women’s rights in Bangladesh. As part of her activism, she founded and participated in civic groups to raise awareness, tolerance, and recognition of rights of disenfranchised communities in Bangladesh; she also maintained a column in one of the largest English daily newspaper in Bangladesh where she highlighted social issues and discrimination faced by women. She is also a published writer of fiction, her short stories have appeared in a series of international and national anthologies, literary magazines, and newspapers.

Host Organization : McKinsey & Company

Fellow’s Role at McKinsey & Company:
Tisa conducts research on social sector issues with the knowledge team. Additionally, she also provides operational and communication support for the Social Sector Practice.

Sarahzin has eight years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Master’s of Social Science in International Relations from the University of Dhaka. She earned a Post Graduation Diploma in Journalism from the Bangladesh Press Institute under the National University. Currently she is working at Plan International Bangladesh for more than 2 years as Communications Coordinator. Her focus is in Mass Communications, and thus, is developing communications strategy, yearly implementation planning with budget, and writing reports for the Donor like Netherlands Foreign Ministry. While working in Save the Children for 17 months, she was the team member of translating United Nations Concluding Observations from English to Bengali. She has also contributed her expertise in formulating National Child Policy. Besides participating in a Training of Trainers (ToT), Project Cycle Management, and Executive Certificate Course on Understanding Developments, she also conducted trainings for journalists and Fellows of American Center, Dhaka on child rights and protection. Through these experiences, she developed qualities of strong project coordination, making large campaign program and capacity building. Sarahzin finds interests in developing diversified communications materials for different types of stakeholders. She wishes to develop more knowledge and skills on child rights and protection issues, and to work for the common good.

Host Organization: Save the Children

Role at Host Organization: Sarahzin will join Save the Children in Washington, D.C. She will work with the child protection team and represent Save the Children on the community level. She will also work to provide assistance to field based projects. Sarahzin will develop skills in program development and research through her experiences working with project leaders and stakeholder groups.