Fellows

Agha Mohsin Ali has been working in the development sector since 2006 with National & International organizations including NRDP, WWOP, Youth in Action, UNDP, BBSA, CPEA Network and SEHER on different management positions. He earned a Master’s in International Relations from the University of Balochistan, Quetta Pakistan. While working with the National Rural Development Programme (NRDP) Pakistan in Islamabad as Manager, Program Planning and Partnership Development, he led overall fundraising, resource mobilization, program research, planning, and program development processes. During 10 years of experience he implemented, coordinated, and developed partnerships with major donor agencies like USAID, DFID, UK-aid, UNICEF, USAID, CIDA, UNICEF, UNDP, USIP and IOM. Agha has had in-depth experience in child rights, education, and youth empowerment in Pakistan. He worked to protect children from abuse, neglect, and exploitation as well as to provide access to education through establishment of child-friendly spaces and temporary learning centers in flood affected areas. He has provided child protection actors opportunity to interact, share their experiences and avoid any duplication of resources through the CPEA Network and 12 larger projects on education, child rights, democracy and nutrition. Over this period, he has developed skills in monitoring and evaluation, program development, program implementation, proposal writing and resource mobilization. He has also written different articles and blogs on child rights and education in different news sites like ARY Blogs, Hamari Web, Duniya News and The Nations News. Agha also participated in different national and international forums like the World Youth Conference, 2010 in Leon City, Mexico, where he was as a delegate.

Host Organization: Creative Associates International

 Role at Host Organization: Agha will be assisting project staff with the development of an indicator database for a new evaluation project with the ExxonMobil Foundation. This project will be assessing the progress of client grantees in women’s economic empowerment on outcome indicators.

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.

Mahwish Javaid is a women entrepreneur, and an aspiring lawyer. She has six years of experience in nonprofit sector, and earned a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) in Reproductive Physiology from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Mahwish studied effects of hormonal contraceptives and stress on reproductive health of women in Pakistan for her thesis. She joined UN Women in March 2014, as Project Officer; specifically, she worked on Gender Training and Capacity Building under the Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) program funded by United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security (UNTFHS), in Sindh. Along with the International Labour Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, she helped to improve livelihoods of 2500 landless peasant women and 2000 informal women workers by enhancing access to social security services, food security, land tenancy agreements, and income generating opportunities. She supervised activities for disaster risk reduction, sanitation, and onsite trainings for gender mainstreaming, numeric literacy among women, and first aid in 120 villages. Her job profile encapsulated skills of project coordination, policy advocacy, women’s entrepreneurship, and capacity building to realize the goals of the program. Mahwish has been winner of national essay writing competition, and debate competitions and has also held leadership positions in the Scientific Academic Society, Quaidian Intellectual Forum, and Literary and Debating Society, respectively, in her university. She hopes not only to be a skilled social entrepreneur herself, but also to develop a successful model which can be replicated at macro-scale.

Host Organization: Concern Worldwide

Role at Host Organization: Mahwish will utilize her background in business, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship by supporting efforts of the Innovations team to sustain and expand programs with a specific focus on the Maker Hub for Maternal and Newborn Health in Nairobi, Kenya.

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.

Muhammad has five years of experience mostly in education sector specifically Technical and Vocational education. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and a Master’s degree in Marketing from Lahore School of Economics and Bachelor’s of Law LLB from University of the Punjab. He has been appointed as a CEO of City and Guilds International in Pakistan. While working at C&G International as a Quality Assurance Manager he has successfully managed to implement the best quality and compliance practices, which has elevated the brand reputation of the organization in Pakistan, and a program of 3000 students, 15 Master trainers of Culinary Arts and Patisserie Qualification was agreed between the Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority Punjab for one year. Previously, he has worked with Information Technology University, Punjab as an Outreach and Linkages Associate and helped the technical team to develop an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to find jobs for marginalized people and post jobs by the industries, it was backed by a research at the grass root level and a baseline survey. Also, during his job he has disbursed vouchers to Training Service Providers (TSPs) and apprentices for apprenticeship training to 1300 trainees over six months period. He has also worked at USAID Chemonics International at Procurement Department and developed robust procurement skills during 6 months period. During his work he has experienced following issues in the country; lack of skilled education, poverty, hunger, homelessness, women empowerment, youth development. Through his experiences, Abdullah has established a strong implementation and coordination skills, training and development, education management, marketing, business development, communication skills and outreach and creating linkages skills. He is passionate to work for skills development and encourage people to develop skills for themselves, businesses and eventually for the economy.

Host Organization: Bronxworks

Role at Host Organization: Muhammad will act as the CQI Coordinator and will be responsible for tracking and assuring that business transactions are properly supported and recorded for various regulatory requirements. He will will work with the CQI team to understand key performance indicators and program metrics, conduct internal program audits, and present metric reports at inter-agency and internal meetings.