Fellows

Ali Zain Ul Abidin has more than 5 years of diverse experience in human resources, talent management, and capacity development of youth in for-profit and non-profit sectors. Ali earned his Master’s in Management Sciences from Baluchistan University of IT, Engineering and Management Sciences (BUITEMS), a leading public sector university, in Quetta, Pakistan. Ali has worked with BUITEMS, closely engaging with local, national, and international stakeholders for promoting employability. In this capacity, Ali has developed a talent pool of graduates from a diverse range of academic disciplines, assessed their profiles, and referred outstanding and qualified profiles to employers for jobs, training, and internships. Ali is also proficient in mentoring students for personal and professional career development. As Talent Coordinator Fellow at Partnership with Chldren, Ali assists the Chief Equity Officer and Talent and Equity Manager in managing talent acquisition goals, overseeing the PWC school intern program, and involves himself in overall performance management. He has also worked as HR Executive with a multinational logistics corporation (TCS Holdings), leading the Baluchistan Region, and Ali extended his expertise in talent acquisition and HR operations. Through these experiences, Ali has gained a firm grip on youth capacity building, peer education, HR operations, and management. He is avidly interested in broadening his perspectives on HR international practices, leadership, capacity development, talent acquisition, job training, and civic engagement.

Host Organization: Partnership with Children

Role at Host Organization: As the Talent Coordinator Fellow at Partnership with Children, Ali will assist the Chief Equity Officer and Talent and Equity Manager in managing talent acquisition goals, overseeing the PWC school intern program, and the overall performance management. The Fellow’s responsibilities include developing and implementing a strategic recruitment plan; facilitatig the hiring process for all program and administrative roles; and ccordinating and managing intakes for all new opportunities. The Fellow will also prepare and support managers to facilitate performance management process, including an annual review and goal setting; and support managers in addressing performance issues in conjunction with the Director of Human Resources.

Awais Farooq is a marketing professional with an avid belief in the power of love and empathy to connect with people. Awais has 4 years of experience working in the nonprofit sector. After he earned his MBA, he worked at a Stanford-funded education and leadership startup called Amal Academy, helping fresh graduates be the best versions of themselves through soft skill development and self-discovery. Awais is passionate about and skilled in a wide range of areas, including outreach and marketing, tech management, professional development, curriculum design, program management, and counseling. He cares about working for a cause bigger than himself. Other than Amal Academy, Awais has taken part in Seth Godin’s Marketing Seminar and the altMBA programs to develop better empathy for his team and his approach to work. These experiences have helped him appreciate the exposure that humans can provide each other and have inspired him to become an Atlas Corps Fellow. He enjoys working in education, youth empowerment, and social awareness and has an overwhelming passion for social inclusion. Awais loves humans and hopes to connect with some amazing humans through his Atlas Corps fellowship.

Host Organization: American Red Cross

Role at Host Organization: At the American Red Cross, Awais will serve as the International Response Knowledge Management & Learning Fellow: supporting the Knowledge Management and Learning efforts for response operations and readiness activities to facilitate access to, utilization of, and learning from existing data, evidence, and knowledge generated from past operations both within the American Red Cross and with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement Partners.

Faryal is a youth development and community engagement specialist with 7 years of working in the not-for-profit sector. She holds a Master’s degree in Mass Communication and is an IVLP alumnus of the Young Leaders: NGOs and Civic Activism program. As the Program Manager, Faryal manages Lincoln Corners (American Spaces) in Sindh, Peshawar, and Balochistan, where she supported the implementation of the Academy for Women Entrepreneurship (AWE), STEM workshops, entrepreneurship boot camps, digital storytelling for GBV & Climate Change workshops, and campaigns against gender-based violence facilitating over 2000 young women. She is passionate about exposing the youth of Pakistan to more opportunities and building their capacities through volunteering, networking, and skills development. Faryal has also worked as a communications and content development specialist at for-profit and not-for-profit organizations for 6 years, where she maximized the causes and built brands through social media campaigns, copywriting, and editorial content. Faryal volunteers with not-for-profit organizations and underserved schools to mentor teenagers in communications, resilience, dialogues, and active citizenship. She loves exploring new places, meeting new people, bonding over food, and making friends over tea.

Host Organization: Generation

Role at Host Organization: As a SAMEA Strategy Fellow, Faryal will be a strategic thought partner and force multiplier to the Region COO. This is an exciting year for Generation’s growth for Kenya, India, Pakistan, and their newly-launched Ghana program, and the Fellow will focus on supporting key innovations (e.g. freelancing), regional strategy development, and country launch support in Ghana.

Hira Tauqeer is a Project Management Professional. She has worked as a Resident Administrative and Project Officer with the NDI office in Islamabad, Pakistan. In this role she has used her well-honed organizational and communication skills to make a positive contribution to Political Parties Development Program. She also utilizes her master training, leadership, team building and personnel management skills to benefit the program. She is adventurous, loves challenges, and believes in lifelong learning. She is flexible, creative, and loves to work in teams. . Currently, Hira is working with the Senior Project Manager of Training Fellowship Program. In this role she is a master trainer to train young members of political parties to assist them with leadership, political organizing, communication and public speaking skills. During her university life, she organized workshops and seminars, and she managed events. Hira organized an International Applied Business research conference for her university. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a major in Finance and a Master’s degree in Project Management from Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology. She has written a number of research papers including “Conflict among global virtual teams” and “Mentoring”. She is fluent in English and Urdu.

Host Organization:  Making Cents International

 Role at Host Organization: Hira will be supporting the full cycle development and implementation of Making Cents’ annual Global Youth Economic Opportunities Summit. She will support the execution of a thoughtful and well-planned industry-leading Summit, which in 2016 will be celebrating its 10th anniversary. She will also YouthEconomicOpportunities.org learning hub and webinar series, which leverage relationships and content from the Summit and provides a learning platform that strengthens the youth economic opportunities field.

Mahak has five years of experience in engaging talent for sustainable organizational performance through capacity building initiatives focused on women and youth empowerment for energy and financial sector of Pakistan. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from the National University of Computers and Emerging Sciences, Islamabad. At USAID-Training for Pakistan Project, she worked on capacity building needs assessments to highlight technical areas which will contribute towards new global practices, challenges and developmental needs in line with Pakistan’s regional pacts. She successfully initiated and implemented 18 training programs focusing on financial management, cyber security, leadership and communication to achieve international best practices for sustainable organizational development. She has worked closely with young leaders from energy and financial sectors to enhance their capacities in areas promoting innovation to help strengthen long-term results. During the implementation of training programs, she also facilitated successful implementation of two courses by USACE for climate and water experts resulting in introduction of new simulation tools for effective management of the overall Indus River Basin. She also worked with ITCILO in organizing a Works Procurement Management course based on Pakistani needs which was later introduced as a regular course at Pakistan Audit and Accounts Academy, Lahore. Previously in 2013, she implemented a nation-wide USAID-Energy Internship Program for youth belonging from underdeveloped areas of Pakistan and it successfully increased women participation from 2% to 9% at Thermal and Hydro Power Plants of Pakistan. The program helped her draft the Gender Strategy for ministries of Pakistan; strategy detailed inclusion of more women in the energy sector in technical areas. She has been voluntarily working with a postpartum self-help group for endorsing mother-child health awareness campaign. All these experiences have developed her working knowledge in program development and implementation, stakeholder liaison and strategic planning for effective project management

Host Organization: Teach For All

Role at Host Organization: Mahak will play a key role in helping build an influential network of champions for the MENA region (Middle East, North Africa) and provide critical behind the scenes support to early stage entrepreneurs seeking to join the Teach For All network.

Maryem has 5 years of experience in the development sector and earned a master’s degree in business administration from Bahria University in Islamabad, Pakistan. Maryem’s association with the development sector has been diverse both in terms of thematic and functional areas. While working as a program officer in USAID’s Small Grants and Ambassador Fund Program, she provided assistance to the grassroots level organization in designing initiatives in education, health, economic development, entrepreneurship, disaster, women’s issues, culture, and the environment. As the regional manager at a consultancy firm, she helped with research and monitoring and evaluation. She also carried out institutional assessments and conducted capacity building exercises for DFID, EU, World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF and USAID funded projects. Through these experiences, she developed strong project coordination and implementation skills. Maryem enjoys focusing on the topics of economic empowerment and social entrepreneurship and has a strong passion for women’s empowerment.

Host Organization: Global Communities

Role at Host Organization: Maryem will provide support to Global Communities’ economic development portfolio with a particular focus on entrepreneurship, enterprise development including cooperative development, access to finance, workforce development and private sector partnerships. She will develop specific technical products and tools, including programming frameworks/models for business advisory services and workforce development; cooperative enterprise development tools; and research briefs.

Masooma has 6 years of experience in the non-profit sector with the United Nations (UN) in Pakistan. She has earned a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Karachi, Pakistan. During her tenure with the UN, Masooma has worked with the World Food Programme as a Food Aid Monitor looking after the planning, implementation, and monitoring related to food assistance in emergencies (2010 floods in Pakistan) to recovery projects including Cash for Work, Food for Work, and Nutrition-specific interventions. Masooma has specific expertise in Cash and Voucher Programming and has also worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN as a Cash Working Group Coordinator. During this time she worked to promote efficient response analysis, implementation, and harmonization in cash and voucher projects during emergencies, early recovery, and social protection by bringing together humanitarian organisations and Government to the CWG coordination platform. Cash and vouchers are considered as ways to address basic needs and to protect and re-establish livelihoods, especially when the local market system is functioning during or post disasters.
Over the years, Masooma has been able to develop specific knowledge and skills in the Food Security and Livelihoods Sector, Coordination in Emergencies, and Cash and Voucher Programming. Masooma is passionate about playing an active role towards the betterment of society, continuously developing her knowledge and skills across the various Humanitarian and Development sectors, and applying them to support communities build resilience and sustainable livelihoods.

Host Organization: American Red Cross

 Role at Host Organization: Masooma will support the design and implementation of a new disaster preparedness and business continuity initiative, with the opportunity to leverage and enhance skills in disaster preparedness, knowledge management, data analysis, and stakeholder outreach. The primary aim of this initiative is to build disaster resilience of small and medium-sized enterprises, and in turn help make safer communities as the two continuously rely on one another.

Mehak has three years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Environmental Policy from the Lahore School of Economics. While working as an Assistant Manager for Communications and Knowledge Management at Nur Center for Research and Policy, Mehak spearheaded a DFID-UKAID funded project for developing the first National Knowledge Portal for Maternal and Neonatal Child Health (MNCH). This knowledge portal serves as a platform to share and collate maximum available MNCH knowledge in Pakistan, to facilitate public health experts and establish policymakers in developing evidence-based policies to strengthen the MNCH sector in Pakistan. Mehak also worked as Project Lead for an operational study with UNICEF on the Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) initiative, where she was intricately involved in organizing training sessions for skilled birth attendants and designing interventions based on the findings of the research. In the past she has worked for different social and development projects, supporting youth and women’s rights, which she feels passionately about. Previously, Mehak has worked on a one year USAID funded project on rehabilitating survivors of gender based violence (GBV) at a shelter-home. Her work involved developing holistic rehabilitation plans for the GBV survivors in order to reintegrate them back into society. Through these experiences, she has developed strong project management, report writing, event planning and communication skills, especially with regards to donor-funded projects. She is also a certified fitness instructor and works part-time at a fitness studio, leading High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workouts.

Host Organization: Atlas Corps

 Role at Host Organization: Mehak will be responsible for managing the Atlas Corps Global Leadership Lab (GLL), a training program for rising global nonprofit leaders participating in the Atlas Corps Fellowship. She will also plan and manage this leadership development program to empower Atlas Corps Fellows in their professional journeys. Mehak will ensure the overall excellent experience for staff, speakers, and Fellow participants.