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.

Kashmala has twelve years of experience in the nonprofit sector. She is an ACCA Finalist from ACCA, Pakistan. She also earned Masters in International Relations from the University of Peshawar, Pakistan. As Finance & Administration Manager with different organizations including Medecins Du Monde – France, Rural Development Policy Institute, Community World Service Asia, and Oxfam Novib she worked on budgeting, financial management, general accounting, and administrative tasks. During her tenure with Rural Development Policy Institute, she had the opportunity of working as a coordinating partner with Asia Peace Film Festival. Asia Peace Film Festival is a multi-country consortium aimed at promoting peace through cinema by curating film festivals. Two festivals have been organized so far in Pakistan, with more than 70 international delegates invited to participate in the festivals. Kashmala was the focal person for the finances, and the logistics of the event. While working with Medecins Du Monde she worked on a project funded by Operations Smile for acid survivors in Pakistan. During her work experience with different organizations, she worked on projects funded by USAID, ECHO, European Union, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, ACT Alliance, and British High Commission. She has extensive experience in budgeting, financial reporting to donors, and making variances analysis. One of her greatest strengths is her ability to work in accordance with Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) and Sphere. CWS nominated her to attend the training of financial management for nonprofit organizations organized by a British organization, MANGO. Through these experiences, she developed strong project financial management and implementation skills. Kashmala also enjoys focusing on the financial resource planning for organizations and she has strong passion for youth development.

Host Organization: Feedback Labs

Role at Feedback Labs At Feedback Labs, Kashmala will serve as the Finance & HR Fellow: supporting the growing organization’s management by developing long-term financial systems and processes.

Madiha is a development practitioner with more than seven years of experience in the nonprofit sector with various leading international non-governmental organizations such as German Agro Action, American Red Cross, World Vision, and Oxfam. She has earned her Masters degree in Economics and several professional courses on project cycle management, monitoring and evaluation, learning, and accountability. In 2008, she was granted the Nuffic Fellowship for a course on Projects and Program Management and Administration. Throughout her career, she has gained diverse experience by working in remote areas in different fields such as health, food security and livelihoods, education, advocacy and campaigning, community drive initiatives, agro-forestry and human trafficking, child and human rights, and capacity building of local non-profit organizations. This experience has equipped her with various skills and competencies such as project design and management, donor liaison and reporting, resource mobilization, monitoring and evaluation, and financial management. During her working tenure, she has conducted and facilitated several research studies. During her work with American Red Cross, she developed a behavior change communication strategy for 30 villages. By working with World Vision, she gained experience in monitoring and evaluation of more than 15 different projects. By working with Oxfam for three years, she added financial management, program monitoring, and donor compliance strategies to her skillset. She also gained rich experience on advocacy and policy initiatives. Her hobbies include reading biographical books and traveling. She aspires to write a book consisting of her non-profit experience in United States.

Host Organization: CARE

Kamran Malik has 8 years of experience working in the non-profit sector. Kamran holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration with two independent majors in Financial Management and Project Management. For the past 3 years, Kamran has been working with The Asia Foundation in Pakistan for improving and strengthening Human Rights in Pakistan. Kamran has played a key role in establishing a national network of 25 organizations to promote religious freedom and protection of rights in Pakistan. With an Undergraduate Degree in commerce, and a Diploma in cost and management accounting, Kamran started his career in the corporate sector. Driven by his passion towards establishing a fair and just society, Kamran left the lucrative corporate sector after four years and started working in the nonprofit sector. Over the past 8 years, Kamran has worked with several national and international nonprofits in Pakistan on issues including disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, post-disaster rehabilitation, health and hygiene, and protection of religious minorities in Pakistan.

Host Organization: CARE

Role at Host Organization: Kamran will be responsible for assisting with the financial management of advocacy department of CARE USA. In addition, he will assist with monitoring and reporting of international advocacy grants, and he will have the opportunity to learn about how CARE utilizes advocacy to help achieve its mission. Kamran will also support the women and girls lead global international advocacy program—an advocacy initiative that receives quarterly reports from offices in five countries.

Hamza has five years of experience in the development sector of Pakistan, and has a strong academic background in Development Economics with a Postgraduate Degree (MSc.) in Economics from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Hamza’s thematic areas of expertise are regional connectivity and trade, development economics, democracy and social accountability, quantitative analysis, gender development, social budgeting, and child rights governance in Pakistan. He has gained experience progressively working for global, regional and national organizations on forwarding human rights of children, youth, women, and the most vulnerable populations in Pakistan. He was associated with the Economic Growth Unit at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), a premier think tank in Pakistan, in the capacity of Project Associate. Hamza also has experience working with various international non-profit organizations such as the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Save the Children, Actionaid International, The Asia Foundation and national non-profit organizations like Social Innovations, Pakistan Microfinance Network, Bedari, and Youth Parliament of Pakistan. He has shown resilience and commitment to working in sensitive areas of Pakistan for Afghan refugees and Internally Displaced People from the conflict area of Swat, in Khyber PakhtunKhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). Hamza’s core competencies include a drive for results, working with people, communication, formulating strategies and concepts, analyzing and interpreting, networking, and strategic thinking.

Host Organization: International Center for Research on Women

Role at Host Organization: Hamza will be a Research Fellow specializing in quantitative data analysis and program monitoring and evaluation. This research will help to support ongoing projects by providing input into the design of new studies in various gender related initiatives.

Nafeesa has six years of experience in the nonprofit sector in education, poverty alleviation, and humanitarian relief in emergencies. During these years her exposure to many parts of the country and abroad through extensive field visits provided her with the chance to see the ground realities and interact with people at the grassroots level, at the same time enabling her to deal with government officials, civil society including people from pluralistic backgrounds. Nafeesa earned a postgraduate degree in Human Rights from Curtin University of Technology, Australia, where she was a scholarship holder under the Australian Development Scholarship. Nafeesa is also trained in Program and Project Management and Administration (PPMA) by Management Development Foundation (MDF) in The Netherlands. She earned a fellowship with the Nuffic Fellowship Programme for this course. Nafeesa has worked with CARE International in Pakistan in the Floods Emergency Response Programme (FERP) where she was engaged in supporting Implementing Partners (IPs) in understanding donor compliance, accountability and quality in humanitarian relief projects. Nafeesa has also worked for the Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE) as Research and Advocacy Coordinator where she was responsible for supporting coalition work through conceptualizing, developing, executing and reviewing advocacy campaigns. These campaigns were aimed at policy-makers and emphasized over the need for a rights-based approach to education in national policies.

Host Organization: National Democratic Institute

Sadia Ijaz completed her Master’s in International Relations, from University of Peshawar, an LL.B degree from Ayub College of Law, Haripur, and Bachelor’s of Education (B.Ed.) from Hazara University Mansehra (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) in Pakistan. SadiaIjaz brings more than ten years of rich professional experience mainly in child rights, education, health and hygiene, communications, monitoring, reporting, documentation, and professional practice leadership roles. She has held progressive management roles at Saibaan Development Organization and De LaasGul (DLG) Welfare Program in child rights, child labor, women empowerment, library development, and water filtration plant projects funded by OXFAM Germany, ILO, Asia Foundation, Association for Development of Pakistan, and Global Funds for Children. She has seen great success in the development and implementation of these projects, and also has shown great leadership and initiatives that shows her persona. Sadia worked in Early Childhood Care Education (ECCE) project with Save the Children International funded by Netherlands Embassy for a year. She is presently the Senior Officer of Documentation, Reporting and Communications at Save the Children International. She has experience in improving coordination with external stakeholders and has overcome many challenges, which ultimately improved the impact of the projects implemented by Save the Children in the region. Sadia is an effective and dynamic leader with sound knowledge of issues related to teacher education, school development, leadership, and ECCE in the context of Pakistan. Through these experiences, she developed strong project coordination management, communications, monitoring, evaluation, reporting, documentation, and program implementation skills.

Host Organization: RESULTS

Role at Host Organization: Sadia will ensure effective coordination of the International/Northern Civil Society Organizations constituency, through the establishment of an online communications platform, development of a constituency advocacy strategy, and contributions to ongoing research and analysis of key constituency issues. She will also regularly communicate across the other Global Partnership for Education Board civil society constituencies to ensure coordinated actions.