Fellows

Abie is a humanitarian worker whose work focuses on migrant protection and supporting the sexual and gender minority community around the world. In 2019, he founded BRANI, a virtual safe space for Indonesians that encourages discussion and provides information on SOGIESC-related issues. Abie has previously worked with diverse organizations, such as Amnesty International, Project Hope 4 Kids, and International Organization for Migration. He has experience in program management and providing direct assistance to vulnerable groups such as asylum seekers, refugees, and victims of human trafficking both in Indonesia and abroad. Abie earned a Master’s degree in Theology from Uppsala University in Sweden and a Master’s degree in International Humanitarian Action from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Abie holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law from Universitas Gadjah Mada. Abie aims to bolster BRANI by learning about effective online campaigns and how to reach those without Internet access. He also wants to gain insight into the unintended negative consequences of outreach campaigns, including backlash, confusion, and desensitization. Abie now focuses on acquiring skills in organizational management, leadership, fundraising and grant-writing, marketing and communications, and strategic planning.

Host Organization: Princeton in Asia

Role at Host Organization: As a Programs Fellow, Abie will develop relationships with host countries and organizations; improve tools for evaluating new and renewing partnerships for Princeton in Asia; and implement equitable, inclusive best practices in recruitment, application, review, and fellow support in partnership with PiA staff and Board of Trustees committees.

Asma Razaq has been working in both print and electronic media for the last six years. At present, she is working as a Reporter in Samaa Tv, Pakistan’s top news channel. At Samaa, her primary responsibilities include: the coverage of economic affairs including the Federal Board of Revenue, the Ministry of Finance, financial institutions, foreign investment and assistance to Pakistan, the Privatization Commission, and health issues. Earlier, she worked for Abbtak news channel for two years. She was also working in an English Daily ‘Business Recorder;’ the biggest financial daily in Pakistan, and the first such publication in the Muslim world. She worked for Daily Business Recorder for five years. One of Asma’s articles was included among the top stories of a New York-based website ‘www.tobacco.org;’ her stories exposed a pharmaceutical company that was selling an anti-hepatitis injection without conducting human tests. Asma’s news articles on health issues put pressure on the government to form a Drug Regulatory Authority (DRA) in Pakistan. Recently, her news package titled ‘IMF and Pakistan’ was widely appreciated and got national recognition, as well. Asma has worked with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a Coordinator. She had been nominated by the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan for the reporting tour on Global Food Security in the year 2011. She had also been selected as a participant of US-Pak Journalist Exchange Program-2014 by the East-West Center in Hawaii. During the program, she was selected as a guest in ‘Global Journalist,’ a popular radio program in Columbia.

Host Organization: Universities Allied for Essential Medicine

Role at Host Organization: “As the Media and Communications Fellow, Asma Razaq will support the creative development and implementation of a media and communications strategy for UAEM North America. This involves implementing the interactive new website design so it is usable to share media and foster communication work in building a more effective and efficient internal communication strategy.

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Concillia has 7 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. She holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management and Marketing from the University of Cape Town, South Africa and a Bachelor’s of Science in Journalism and Media Studies from the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Zimbabwe. She is an events management enthusiast with particular interest in fundraising, as well as managing events that empower vulnerable communities and underrepresented members of society. She currently works as an Alumni Affairs Officer for NUST. She is responsible for the development of an effective relationship with all university alumni, as well as initiating and implementing fundraising activities and events. She develops, supports and promotes alumni strategy, including operations and communications plans. She is also the University Liaison Officer for the Association of African Universities (AAU), a voluntary position which involves bridging the information gap between NUST and the African universities community. Amongst the various duties in this portfolio is organizing events, such as the African University Week, and creating awareness of the goals and mission of AAU to the NUST community. Previously, Concillia worked for Zimbabwe International Trade Fair Company, an events management company, where her role comprised of market research. She spearheaded the company’s business development arm through conceptualization and implementation of new events. Through her educational background coupled with work experience, she has balanced expertise within the field of corporate communications, marketing, fundraising, and project and events management. Concillia enjoys conceptualizing fundraising events for the development of our society, especially the education sector.

Host Organization: Atlas Corps

Role at Atlas Corps Concillia will serve as the Training Manager Fellow: planning and managing Atlas Corps’ leadership development program for Fellows, Global Leadership Lab (GLL), comprised of over 200 hours of theoretical and practical experiential learning over the Fellowship year.

Ephrem has over eight years of experience in the nonprofit and social enterprise sectors. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Dire Dawa University. While working as founding Executive Director of SunEko Art for Social Development, he designed and executed a social circus for peace and development programs where children and youth can acquire the therapeutic benefits of art. Since 2013, he reached more than ten million radio listeners through a bi-weekly radio program on areas of mental health, peace, child protection, education, reconciliation, employability, and youth empowerment. He helped improve the mental and psycho-social health of more than two thousand women and youth every year, using a community-based social enterprise project. Previously, he worked as a remote Regional Content Manager for Zeno Radio, a technology-based media company. Ephrem also worked with Save the Children International, Handicap International, Population Services International, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pact, Reach for Change, Growth Africa, and Total S.A. on human resource capacity building programs and social entrepreneurship business models. He organized a youth networking and empowerment event which reached more than five thousand youth. WHO Africa awarded Ephrem the “Top 30 WHO Health Innovator Challenge” honor in 2019. Through these diverse experiences, he developed skills in project designing and coordination, volunteer management, media, and capacity building. Ephrem is passionate about innovative projects on mental health, social entrepreneurship, and youth empowerment.

Host Organization: Making Cents International

Role at Making Cents International: At Making Cents International, Ephrem will serve as the Youth Engagement Fellow: supporting multiple youth engagement activities for YouthPower2: Learning & Evaluation (YP2LE), a USAID-funded project implemented by Making Cents International that is designed to build, expand, and disseminate Positive Youth Development (PYD) evidence and learning.

Grace has over 4 years of experience working in the nonprofit area with focus on social development. She has completed her Postgraduate Diploma in Monitor and Evaluation at Cavendish University in Zambia. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Social Science from University of Malawi, Chancellor College. In 2010, Grace joined, Theatre For a Change as a volunteer, a nonprofit working in Malawi to promote behavioral change amongst groups of people that are at high risk of HIV&AIDS. Later on, she was hired to support with the monitoring and evaluation of the sex workers behavior change program where she conducted baseline and end line studies, needs assessments, and routine monitoring to help the program team make informed decisions regarding impact of the program. In 2012, Grace successfully joined Global Health Corps as an M&E Fellow at Dignitas International in Malawi for a year. Prior to becoming an Atlas Corps Fellow Grace was working with Riders for Health, an NGO working with the Ministry of Health in Malawi. Grace’s role was taking lead in managing the monitoring and evaluation framework of Riders Malawi to ensure outcomes, indicators, and donor requirements are met. In general, Grace has experience in monitoring and evaluation, project management, facilitation through experiential learning, training and planning logistics. Grace considers herself a student of life; looking out to learn from all her experiences and using them to improve herself, and where possible, help others learn and grow as well.

Host Organization: Population Action International (PAI)

Role at Host Organization: Grace will serve at Population Action International and work in the fields of subject expertise, research, strategic planning, and external representation. She will participate in producing written reports and analysis based on PAI’s strategic initiatives and make recommendations for leveraging PAI research and analysis products for the organization’s advocacy and funding purposes.

Born in a middle-class family in Karachi, Pakistan, Hira used to envy the life of bankers. The lavish branches chilled with ACs, shiny cars and home loans just for using computers all day. Wow! After completing the Intermediate, she got all excited to study chartered accountancy. Unfortunately, life had other plans and her family couldn’t arrange the fee. She got the talent farming scholarship, completed her business administration degree and won Gold. That’s where she found her Entrepreneurship gut. She was 18 when she started a business of organizing training on career-counseling. It failed and she entered into the corporate world (unwillingly). Writing has always been her passion, be it a personal diary, or an exam. The words flow as she takes out the pen. As her first internship, she stepped into the world of digital and started making social media strategies for them and her unique selling proposition was still her ‘words’. Tech industry embraced her talent like no other thing and she got recognized by many local and international companies because of her exceptional work. Fast forward to 5 years, she is currently a Tech Journalist writing for multiple top-tier tech publications including VentureBeat, TheNextWeb and Entrepreneur.com. She also heads blog and media for Coinschedule.com, a leading ICO listing the company in the UK. She is also the facilitator of Startup Weekend Karachi. In local sphere, Hira is famous has a tech evangelist and a public speaker involved in digital skills penetration and bringing inclusivity in the tech industry. She founded of a copywriting agency, Digital Doers and a closed community, Tech Geeks Pakistan where tech enthusiasts share their love for technology on one platform. She is also a certified Editor from IBA. Her website is www.hirasaeed.com

Host Organization: Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship

Role at Host Organization: Hira will work as a GSBI Women’s Economic Empowerment Fellow to implement new research, initiatives, and/or projects to help her host organizations advancement of women’s economic empowerment through GSBI programs and resources.

Issam has three years of experience in the nonprofit sector and earned a Master’s of Science in Big Data & Knowledge Management from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. While working as the Community Engagement & Innovation Officer with UCAS Technology Incubator (UCASTI) in Gaza, he improved external engagement between UCASTI and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. He planned and executed three initiatives that targeted enrolled and graduated entrepreneurs, ICT graduates and companies, and girls & women respectively. Previously, Issam designed and implemented an incubation model which recruited over ninety startups, led them through an incubation pipeline of pre-design challenges, that resulted in nine successful startups. Before that, he was an IT Project Manager and led a broad range of web, mobile, machine learning, and data warehouse solutions. Issam utilizes highly attuned analytical skills to develop IT and business strategies and employs cutting-edge technologies to increase productivity. He has volunteered as speaker, mentor, and organizer for several technology initiatives like Google Developer Group and Facebook Developer Circle. He was also an organizer for the first Gazan education startup and AI/Big Data community driver. Issam enjoys focusing on the topics of business and social entrepreneurship, new technologies such AI, Blockchain and Big Data, and has a strong passion for youth empowerment.

Host Organization: Hatch

Role at Host Organization: Issam will support on all parts of the Hatch stack and will suggest ways to scale and improve the product. Issam’s role will be on designing APIs, data modeling, and developing infrastructure to collect and report data.

Lucy has over seven years of nonprofit experience focusing on elections, public health, and youth development. She earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in Human Resource Management from Kenya Methodist University. She also earned a Diploma in Community Development and Social Work, and a Certificate in Peace Building and Conflict Resolution in Kenya. Currently, Lucy works as a stringer for the Voice of America’s South Sudan Program where she reports on a variety of political, humanitarian, and social issues affecting South Sudanese in their day-to-day lives. In 2012-2013 Lucy worked as a Producer for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting project in South Sudan, training young women journalists and empowering them through training in gender sensitive radio reporting skills, and outreach strategies by raising fundamental rights issues at local, regional, and national levels. Lucy successfully coordinated the production of more than 50 half an hour women magazine programs. Previously, Lucy worked as a News Editor for one of South Sudan’s most trusted radio stations, Eye Radio, formerly Sudan Radio Service, a USAID funded radio where she spearheaded the coverage of some of the most important historical events in the country. As the news team leader she focused newsgathering efforts primarily on stories of national interest including political stories from Khartoum and northern Sudan, and reviewed news coverage patterns to ensure a balanced coverage of all the states of South Sudan. Through these experiences Lucy has cultivated a range of contacts and has developed an understanding of how media operates, and some basic understanding of the role a nonprofit has in its community. Lucy is passionate about educating the vast majority of South Sudanese population that is illiterate on their political, human and social rights to improve their living standards through radio.

Host Organization: Voice of America

Role at Host Organization: Lucy will serve with VOA staff to identify and research stories in Sudan and South Sudan that are of interest to the audience, and conduct interviews. She will expand her skills in journalism and put together her own radio segment. Also, Lucy will support the editorial process for a daily radio program, and potentially host live programs.