Scholars

Aboud J. Al Ifranji has five years of experience in the nonprofit sector and three years of experience in the UNRWA education sector. A.J. earned a Bachelor’s of Teaching English Language from Al Azhar University in Gaza, Palestine. While working as an English teacher in different UNRWA schools, he helped improve his students’ academic achievement in English in prep schools. While working as a Project Coordinator in Japanese Campaign for the Children of Palestine, he helped improve the quality of education in local government schools across different areas in Gaza, Palestine. Through these experiences, he developed strong project coordination, planning, monitoring, implementation, reporting, and evaluation skills. A.J. also honed his abilities to work with computerized and office programs, use cameras for video recording and editing, and facilitate different types of trainings, workshops, and meetings, especially for teachers and school staff members. A.J. is also deeply skilled in translating oral and written English to Arabic, researching, working under pressure, multitasking, and leading teams. Throughout his career, A.J. has developed a wide variety of communication skills, along with best practices in data collection, validation, summary, and analysis. A.J. enjoys focusing on topics of education development, cultural variety, sports, animation, movies, and music, and has a strong passion for self development and youth empowerment.

Current Organization: Project Coordinator at Campaign for the Children of Palestine (CCP Japan)

Abubakar Kagermanov has six years of experience in the nonprofit sector and two years of work in university. Abubakar graduated from Grozny State Oil Technical University in Russia. During his second year of studies, he realized his goal of working to solve social problems in the local community. He couldn’t leave the university, as his parents were paying tuition fees and they had their own expectations. But it didn’t stop him from volunteering at local NGOs and creating his own social projects focused around conflict management, peacebuilding, communication, and human rights. After graduating from university, he started to work as an Assistant Director of the local NGO “Youth the Future.” In 2017 Abubakar received a scholarship for his Master of Arts on Theory and Technology of Social Work at Chechen State University.To this day, he is continuing his research on the topic: Socialization of Children with Disabilities in the Chechen Republic. He also created a project on socialization of children with disabilities and is still engaged in the project as a volunteer. For the last five years, the project helped more than 220 children and involved more than 150 volunteers. Since 2013, Abubakar participated in different long term programs and has won grants to support his local activities and projects. For the last two years, he has worked at the Chechen State University. Thanks to this job, he was able to attract young people’s attention to certain social problems, create new workshops, and facilitate sessions for the students to improve their soft skills and find creative solutions for complex social issues.

Current Organization: CEO at Ardom.lab

Anna Reutova was born in Seversk, Russia. She graduated from Tomsk State University with a Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Economics. While still a student, Anna was offered a position at the University’s Department of International Financial Reporting Standards. In this position, her main focus area is bringing Russian financial reporting into compliance with the international financial reporting standards of the government sector and thus making the university’s financial reporting transparent and accessible to its partners worldwide. Anna’s other significant focus area is working with international funds like Oxford Fund and European Commission funds, large international volunteering projects, international research projects, and grants. She oversees financial management of each project from budgeting and submitting an application to preparing a final financial report once a project is complete. Anna spends a lot of time consulting university employees about the intricacies of financial reporting, accounting, and tax accounting. In her spare time, Anna serves as a member of a nonprofit organization Association of Lawyers of Russia (Tomsk branch) where she is involved in several social projects aimed at providing free legal advice to underserved communities. Through her extensive work experience and continuous involvement with the nonprofit sector and socially important issues, Anna developed great expertise in financial management and strong project management skills. Anna is most interested in education and healthcare, where she is sure her skills will be most useful and for which there is a lot of room for growth in Russia.

Current Organization: Analyst at Tomsk State University

Areen Dweekat is a Palestinian lawyer. She started her job as a public interest lawyer in 2015 at the National Institution for Human Rights in Palestine. In 2019, she received the Open Society Foundation Scholarship to earn her Master’s degree in law from Syracuse University in New York and she graduated in 2020. During her job, she focuses on marginalized groups’ rights, including women, persons with disabilities, refugees, and persons in prisons and detention centers.

Current Organization: Researcher at The Independent Commission for Human Rights

Brian Makani earned a Master of Science in Safety, Health and Environmental Management and a degree with honors in Geography and Environmental Studies at Midlands State University in Zimbabwe. Brian has served as an Environmental Officer for the Environmental Management Agency-Zimbabwe for seven years and is currently based at the Provincial Office in Masvingo City. His responsibilities include environmental education, publicity, planning and monitoring, and environmental law implementation. Brian is also tasked with developing sustainable waste management strategies, implementing Coping with Drought and Climate Change Projects, writing environmental reports and newspaper articles for publication, and formulating and implementing sustainable waste management practices and projects. His areas of particular interest in the nonprofit sector include environmental conservation, sanitation, and education.

Current Organization: Environmental Officer at Environmental Management Agency

Chibuonu Obiageli Ezennabike is a public health professional with nine years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Chibuonu earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Microbiology from Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Uli in the Anambra State of Nigeria. While working as the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer with Caritas Nigeria on the 4GATES Project, a CDC-funded HIV/AIDS program, she helped improve the PMTCT program monitoring and evaluation by designing reporting tools, building capacity of facility staff, and ensuring data quality in Eastern Nigeria. She also championed the monitoring and evaluation activities of the Pediatric and Adolescent Program and FLAGSHIP Program in Delta State and ensured consistent availability of data for tracking project progress. Previously, Chibuonu worked with a community-based organization to plan and implement community outreach events and a health fair and to promote health education. In this role, she was also responsible for research and monitoring and evaluation of Nigeria’s Epilepsy Care Advancement Program. Chibuonu volunteered as a data entry clerk for Realizing Interdisciplinary System of Excellence Global Health Initiative U.S, (RISE GHI) in Nigeria. Chibuonu enjoys focusing on adolescence, gender, and maternal and child health and has a strong passion for research. She is very optimistic that efficient and effective use of data in research and public health interventions will ensure sustainability and improvement of health systems in Africa.

Current Organization: Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at Caritas Nigeria

Ei Ei Aung has nearly eight years of progressive experience as a public health specialist and international health researcher. With a scholarship funded by the Japanese government, Dr. Aung earned her PhD in health promotion with a dentistry background from Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan. Dr. Aung has academic and professional experience in analytical strategies for research on the burdens of diseases and clinical trials research. She worked as a Policy Researcher at the International Health Policy Program Foundation under the Thailand Ministry of Public Health and wrote a successful grant proposal for the ASEAN-CHINA Cooperative Fund. She demonstrates a solid track record of peer-reviewed publications and also contributed to capacity building training on the national burden of diseases in research methodology. She was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship for young foreign researchers in Tokyo and successfully received a research grant from the Futokukai Foundation in Japan.

Current Organization: Doctor at Coalition for Global Health Innovation

Geoffrey Omondi Otieno has over six years of experience working in the nonprofit sector. Geoffrey earned a Bachelor of Science in Population Health from Kenyatta University and a Certificate in Civic Leadership from the YALI Regional Leadership Center, East Africa. He is a Co-founder of the Begin Life Safely Community-Based Organization, which educates expectant mothers in rural parts of western Kenya on safe practices for motherhood. Geoffrey currently serves as a Youth Advisory Board Member at Youth Combating Neglected Tropical Diseases and recently worked with the Aga Khan Development Network as a Country Monitoring and Evaluation Officer. Geoffrey previously worked with Abt Associates Inc. as a Monitoring and Evaluation Assistant, where he was mainly responsible for data collection and verification, training of community mobilizers, and report writing. He also previously worked with Education Effect Africa as a WASH Training Consultant for four years, during which he was responsible for developing WASH training curricula, training school health committees on the prevention of WASH diseases, and monitoring the implementation of the school sanitation plans. Geoffrey is highly skilled in development of data collection tools and quality checklists and data collection and analysis. Geoffrey also has deep experience in proposal development, research preparation, data quality assessment, training of data collectors, and coordination of data collection exercises.

Current Organization: Public Health Professional at Youth Combating Neglected Tropical Diseases