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.
Zarlasht Halaimzai
Founder
Gabriella Brent
Interim CEO
Natalia Kyrkopoulou
Director of Operations
Zarlasht Halaimzai
Founder
Zarlasht is the Founder of Amna. A former refugee from Afghanistan, she has developed programmes that promote resilience in vulnerable populations in several countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Syria, the United Kingdom, and Greece.
Zarlasht has trained in Childhood and Adolescent Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Cambridge and is pursuing a master’s degree in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy from The University of Oxford. She is multilingual and was selected as a Kathryn Davis Peace Fellow to study Arabic at Middlebury College in 2016.
Zarlasht has written for several publications including the Guardian, Washington Post, The Independent, Huffington Post, and the New Statesman. Her work has been profiled by the Psychologist Magazine, NPR, Grazia, International Business Times, She Owns Success, and Ground breakers and was the recipient of the 2017 Future Shapers Award from Marie Claire Magazine.
She is a fellow of the Obama Foundation
Gabriella Brent
Interim CEO
Gabriella is the Interim CEO of Amna, bringing years of experience in programme design, community-led mental health initiatives, and systems change. Formerly serving as Director of Programmes, Gabriella has been deeply involved in shaping and scaling Amna’s innovative, trauma- and identity-informed approaches that centre the experiences and needs of communities affected by conflict, displacement, and systemic injustice.
*Her commitment to this work is deeply personal—rooted in her own family’s refugee history and a dedication to breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma*. With a background spanning mental health, criminal and family justice, and social advocacy, Gabriella has worked closely with communities to develop healing-centred programmes that disrupt oppression and foster resilience. From frontline work as a therapist and facilitator to leading large-scale initiatives, her approach remains rooted in care, co-learning, and collaboration.
As Interim CEO, Gabriella is committed to strengthening Amna’s mission, ensuring its work remains both compassionate and impactful. She believes in the power of collective action and continues to advocate for holistic, anti-oppressive models of care that honour lived experience and community wisdom. When not working, you can find Gabriella on the dancefloor!
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.”
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