Fellows

Abida has four years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Peshawar in Pakistan. She has diverse work experience as a program support personnel in planning, monitoring, evaluation, research, reporting, and knowledge management. Abida has worked with host communities, internally dislocated people as well as with refugees, in development and emergency contexts. While working as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer with the Sarhad Rural Support Program, she helped in providing social mobilization support to the Community Driven Local Development policy of the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, under the funding of the EU. Abida has also helped in providing opportunities to the rural women of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in their homes, through the provision of skill development and microfinance trainings, under the AUSAID-funded livelihood strengthening project. Previously, Abida worked as a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting Officer with the Danish Refugee Council in Pakistan to support sustainable solutions for Afghan refugees living in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, by creating livelihoods and improving general living conditions. Through these experiences, she has acquired strong monitoring and evaluations skills, which are applicable across different areas. Abida enjoys focusing on the topics of women empowerment, economic development, promotion of Civil Society Organizations and rural development.

Host Organization:  Empowered Women International

 Role at Host Organization: As EWI relies heavily on monitoring and evaluation of our program impacts for use in fundraising and communications with potential clients and donors, Abida will be helping shape the continued improvements to Monitoring & Evaluation by both assessing and updating the current systems, and researching & implementing a new Customer Relationship Management system by late 2016.

Aziz Ullah has four year of experience in learning and development, entrepreneurship, business development and public speaking; working with non-profit and for profit both in private and public sector. He earned an MBA from National University of Modern Languages Pakistan, and B.Sc Civil Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar Pakistan. He is a certified trainer from School of Leadership Pakistan and has earned multiple
national and international certifications. As an Acumen fellow Pakistan, he is working on creating sustainable solutions to enable the graduates from unprivileged areas receive training, improve their entrepreneurial and employability skills to be socially and economically stable and live a better life. Aziz has for four years of experience as a Co-Founder and CEO for the Center for Awareness Training and Development Pakistan, which is a training and management consultancy working with public and private sector to develop market needs based skills in individuals and employees, promote entrepreneurship and build capacity of startups and entrepreneurs, and fill the skill gap between job sector and academia. As a trainer, learning and development profession, he helps people and organizations reach their goals and perform with greater impact. Aziz Ullah facilitates learning programs nationally and internationally for corporate, nonprofits, academia and youth to enrich their leadership values, employee efficiency, team performance and creativity and entrepreneurship skills. He has designed and delivered
professional training modules & courses for 30 + local, national and international organizations during the past four years and has facilitated more than two hundreds learning programs, workshops and training conferences. Aziz has akeen interest is working with non-profit and for profit sector on promoting and developing entrepreneurial ecosystem, capacity building of graduates, startups, entrepreneurs and employees to help organization and individual be more effective, more efficient and more productive in creating greater impact with the work they do.

Host Organization: The Resolution Project

Role at Host Organization: Aziz will learn about and map Resolution’s 100 existing social entrepreneurship ecosystem partners (known as Pathway Partners) and plan a new activation framework for Pathway Partners through a public-facing online platform.

Fayyaz Yaseen is a development practitioner with four years of experience in the nonprofit sector. He earned his Master’s degree in Economics and completed several professional courses on monitoring and evaluation, learning and accountability, qualitative and quantitative research methods, report and project proposal writing, and project cycle management. In 2012, the IDRC-SDPI awarded Fayyaz a fellowship in governance, security and justice for his M.Phil. in International Development Studies. Throughout his career, he has gained diverse experience by working in remote areas of Pakistan in different fields such as education, health, voice and accountability, women’s participation in political process, violence against women, child labor, and conflict resolution. In September 2012, in Islamabad, Pakistan he was one of the coordinators of the South Asia Economic Summit organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). Fayyaz continued his work on the promotion of good governance in Pakistan with the help of civil society initiatives by establishing nationwide networks of CSOs known as Pakistan Social Accountability Networks (PSAN) to over 125 organizations. These diverse experiences in education, health, women’s participation in political processes, violence against women, child labor and conflict resolution provided him with various skills and competencies; such as project design and management, research tools design, donor liaison and reporting, resource mobilization, monitoring and evaluation and financial management. His hobbies include reading political analyses and reviews and traveling.

Host Organization : The Atlantic Council

Role at Host Organization: Fayyaz will serve as a Research Associate, and will conduct on-the-ground research for an issue brief on U.S.-Pakistan relations in terms of security, public policy, and economic development.

Hajira has four years of experience in the nonprofit sector and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Kinnaird College, Pakistan. She worked as a marketer, recruiter, and fundraiser for nonprofits from around the world by applying her knowledge of management and starting an action group in 2010. Due to her strong communication skills, she was able to establish affiliations with international organizations like British Council and Peace Child International. Her four years of work experience taught her management and interpersonal skills, created in her a passion for campaigning, and showed her how progressive organizations can be by creating new partnerships. For a year, she served on the Steering Committee of a youth-led advocacy campaign ILMPOSSIBLE which is working on making sure that Pakistan’s government’s promise of free and compulsory education is implemented. Hajira is one of the few female delegates who represented Pakistan at various international events like the 5th World Youth Congress, Commonwealth Young Professionals’ Forum, and 4th United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. Last year she spoke of her experiences as a volunteer and the importance of volunteerism at TEDxKinnaird. Due to her determination to help achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals she has been recognized by organizations like the British Council that awarded her the National Active Citizen Award 2010, and the U.S. Department of State that granted her Study of the United States Institutes Scholarship on Women’s Leadership, 2011.

Host Organization: Meridian International Center

Role at Host Organization: Hajira will join Meridian International’s Global Connect division focusing specifically on international exchange for leadership development. She’ll leverage her skills and experience to support the development of service learning criteria and programming.

Huma has over six years of professional experience in the nonprofit sector, having worked to fight against poverty, hunger and illiteracy in her country. She earned her last degree in Business Administration from the Institute of Management Sciences. Huma has worked as an Assistant Project Coordinator for a UNWFP funded project which provided food assistance to the FATA region of her country. Previously, she worked for a UNODC funded project that helped provide health assistance to drug users in the province’s female prisons. Through her professional career, Huma acquired highly praised leadership, humanitarian-based research and communication skills. Huma also has an unbeatable command over her technical and report preparation skills. Easily commanding cameras and laptops, Huma’s dream is to improve the quality of education in Pakistan by providing employment opportunities to the youth and empowering Pakistani women.

Host Organization: Halcyon

Role in Host Organization: Huma will work alongside the Director to help manage projects including the Halcyon Dialogue, Incubator Intensive and Halcyon’s scoping for international expansion of its social enterprise incubator. She will lead on several components of these programs, maintaining connections with external partners, and representing Halcyon in various scenarios.

Ishaq has over five years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned two Master’s of Science degrees in Project Management and Applied Statistics from the University of Management and Technology in Pakistan. He earned a Rector’s Award for scoring four out of four GPA during his MS in Applied Statistics. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Statistics from Government College University in Lahore, Pakistan with a Gold Medal for securing first position in the class. While working as a Monitoring and Evaluation Analyst with Chemonics International Inc. in Pakistan under the USAID-funded Punjab Enabling Environment Project for more than two years, he worked to measure the impact of policy interventions made for the economic growth in the Agribusiness sector of Punjab. Ishaq has also worked with USAID funded Pakistan Firms Project implemented by Chemonics International Inc. as Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for more than two years that focused on accelerating sales and creating jobs in the targeted value chains of Agriculture and Industry sectors. Through these experiences, he developed strong monitoring and evaluation, project management and data analysis skills. Ishaq enjoys focusing on the areas of economic growth, women empowerment and gender equality, and has a strong passion for human and institutional capacity development initiatives.

Host Organization: SEED SPOT

Role at Host Organization: Ishaq will help design, collect, and track SEED SPOT measuring and evaluation work enabling more accurate and up to date data. Working with High Schools and SEED SPOT Communities across the country, he will help develop new modules and curriculum for Schools and Communities programs.

Lamia has five years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Bachelor’s degree in International Business and Marketing from NUST Business School in Pakistan. Currently, Lamia works as a Grants Writer with IOM within their Pakistan Transition Initiative project in Pakistan under the USAID/OTI project to strengthen government-community relations and improve the socioeconomic status of communities in conflict-prone areas of Pakistan. She supervises grant closing, reviews final evaluation report and oversees donor and independent monitoring unit queries. Previously, Lamia worked with a capacity building organization on a mission to create change-makers who promote socio-economic transformation. Lamia has a preceding background in Microfinance. She worked with a prestigious roster of clients including ADB, UNIDO, UNDP, ILO, and the Government of Pakistan. She has had the opportunity to focus on multiple thematic areas, including community development, youth empowerment, livelihood and enterprise development, gender sensitization and mainstreaming, institutional development and good governance. Lamia was able to acquire project design, project implementation and management, curriculum design and training cycle management, monitoring and evaluation, documentation and report writing, and client coordination that enhanced her leadership skills.

Host Organization: World Vision International

 Role at Host Organization: Lamia will coordinate and expand a global, multi-agency network of facilitators and organisations using a unique internationally recognized conflict analysis tool called ‘Making Sense of Turbulent Contexts’ (MSTC). She will manage network communications and resources, while making a key contribution to strategic planning and resource development for future network growth.

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.