About Us
Our work began in a tent on the border of Greece and North Macedonia and is now growing globally. We deliver services that mitigate the impact of trauma and toxic stress. We focus on areas where we can make the most difference. Our play-based early childhood programme, Baytna supports whole family healing and our youth programme Dinami offers a safe space for young people. We also offer therapeutic support to men and women.
Now to scale our work, we’re partnering with community organisations around the world to offer trauma and identity informed psychosocial care to people affected by conflict and forced displacement. We invest in and train local organisations and connect them to a healing network that can support their practice
Our mission is to build community capacity for healing.
Our vision is refugees determining their futures, unbounded by the impacts of conflict and displacement.
Our Story
Amna began as Refugee Trauma Initiative (RTI).
In 2016 some 13,000 refugees were
stranded on the border of Greece and North Macedonia. It’s here that our work began. We set up a tent and started providing therapeutic group sessions for men, women and children who experienced violence, displacement and torture.
As refugees continued to arrive, we grew to meet the need of displaced communities in Greece. We worked in camps, community centres and provided individual support when it was necessary.
We worked with refugees and psychosocial experts to develop our current programming – light touch nonclinical community-based interventions that help make people who have experienced violence and forced displacement feel safe again.
The methodology of our programmes is evidence based and simple. We create safe and playful spaces where people can convene and heal as a community. Our aims is to provide care as early as possible to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma that can affect individual and communities for a long time.
After 6 years, we are providing this care through our healing network to refugees in nine countries across Europe and in Pakistan.
Since our inception in 2016, Amna has operated as Amna Charitable Fund, a restricted fund under the auspices of Prism the Gift Fund (Reg. charity number 1099682).
In 2023, the Charity Commission registered Amna as a charity in England and Wales as “Amna Healing Network”.
Our Board
Daniel Robinson
Chair of The Board
Cristina M. Finch
Vice Chair
Karim Bereksi
Treasurer
Daniel Robinson
Chair of The Board
Daniel is a barrister with a broad practice encompassing crime, road traffic and regulatory work. He is predominantly based in the Crown Courts, where he both prosecutes and defends.
Before coming to the Bar, Daniel worked for NGOs in the UK, Rwanda and Jamaica. His work encompassed genocide and war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights in which he retains a strong interest. Daniel spent seven months working for the Council for Human Rights based in Kingston, Jamaica, and has advised defendants on Death Row as to their prospects of appeal to the Privy Council. He is experienced in representing defendants with mental health issues, addiction problems and vulnerabilities.
Cristina M. Finch
Vice Chair
Cristina M. Finch currently serves as the head of the Gender and Security Division at DCAF – Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance. Cristina is a human rights lawyer and advocate with more than twenty five years of experience in advancing human rights in the areas of women’s and LGBTI rights, hate crimes, and discrimination. She is the former head of the Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Department at OSCE ODIHR and former managing director for the Identity and Discrimination Unit at Amnesty International USA, where she was at the forefront of successful efforts to expand human rights protections against sexual and gender-based violence.
Karim Bereksi
Treasurer
Karim is the board’s treasurer and an international development consultant. He advises clients including The World Bank, UN agencies and FCDO on a range of issues, working across a range of geographies; with a continued focus in fragile and (post)conflict states. With a strong background in audit and finance, Karim focusses on assignments designed to help donors reduce fiduciary risks through improved oversight and governance mechanisms.
Karim holds a BSC in Mathematics and Finance and is a Chartered Accountant.
Our Team
Amna’s core team is made of psychosocial care specialists, early childhood experts and humanitarians. Lived experience is represented in all aspects of our organisation – from our board to our facilitators.
Najwa Al Abdallah
CEO
Natalia Kyrkopoulou
Director of Operations
Gabriella Brent
Director of Programmes
Najwa Al Abdallah
CEO
Najwa is the CEO of Amna, and has held executive and non-executive positions.
She has 23 years of senior leadership experience in development and humanitarian organisations worldwide. She has overseen multiple aspects of these organisations, including strategy, finance, people and culture, operations, risk management, compliance, and fundraising.
Currently, Najwa serves as a board member of the International Rescue Committee UK, where she also holds the positions of Vice Chair of the Audit and Governance committee and member of the Safeguarding committee.
Additionally, she is a board member of Medical Aid for Palestinians, where she contributes as a member of the Finance and Operations Committee. Her recent role before joining Amna was Director of Corporate Services at Money Advise Trust in London, UK.
Growing up in a small village in Lebanon in poverty during the civil war built her resilience and determination to work in international development.
Natalia Kyrkopoulou
Director of Operations
As Director of Operations and co-founder of Amna Greece, Natalia is Amna’s chief representative for all dealings with Greek agencies, including local government and non-governmental organisations. She has several years of experience in the field, both at large international NGOs and local grassroots organisations, and is Amna’s leading advocate for developing sustainable programmes within Greece. Natalia also leads Amna’s capacity building arm, which provides consultancy and training to organisations to assist them in implementing practices of service delivery and staff care that are both trauma-informed and identity-informed. She speaks French, Greek and English.
“It is so important now to keep focused on the ongoing humanitarian situation here in Northern Greece. The challenges the refugees still face are enormous and complex. We’ve been focusing on the challenge of integration, and for that we need help from two sides: we need practitioners who can communicate with the refugees in their own language; and we need local people who understand the Greek social services system and who can advocate on behalf of the refugees here in Greece.”
Gabriella Brent
Director of Programmes
Gabriella is Amna’s Director of Programmes and a transpersonal counsellor and psychotherapist.
Gabriella oversees Amna’s international training and capacity-strengthening programmes and is part of Amna’s training team, training non-specialists in therapeutically informed healing practices. Her specialism is in taking therapy out of the therapy room to develop and advocate for more holistic, anti-oppressive healing approaches and systems of care for marginalised communities.
Before working with Amna, Gabriella worked across family law, criminal justice, mental health and drug treatment services piloting and scaling more humane, trauma-informed, systemic models of care.
Gabriella was drawn to work with communities experiencing toxic stress and trauma due to her own families refugee history and the impact of intergenerational trauma.
Outside, and inside of work Gabriella loves to dance!
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