Our Team

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.

Zarlasht Halaimzai

Founder

Zarlasht is the Founder and former CEO 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

Director of Programmes

Gabriella is Amna’s Director of Programmes and a counsellor and psychotherapist.

Gabriella oversees Amna’s international direct delivery, training and capacity-strengthening programmes. Her specialism is adopting a liberation psychology approach, taking therapy out of the therapy room to develop, test and advocate for more holistic 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. Outside, and inside of work, Gabriella loves to dance!

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.”

Hajra Daly

Partnerships Manager

Hajra is the Partnership Manager at Amna where her role is to engage with new partners to promote Amna’s values based, trauma and identity informed approach for refugee communities in new countries of operations.

She was formerly the lead for Forced Migration at Comic Relief. In her role as the Portfolio Manager, Hajra designed and developed funding programmes including ‘Across Borders’, a programme to support people on the move as they made their migration journey from Middle East, North Africa into Europe.

Prior to that, Hajra has managed diverse portfolios on a range of issues including Violence Against Women and Girls, Child Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking and Vulnerable Young People. She is currently a volunteer interpreter for LGBTI people seeking asylum in the UK.

“I am excited to join Amna at a critical stage when it is launching its new 5-year strategy. I love collaborative working and am looking forward to being a central part of Amna’s expansion and building a network of partners in new countries and communities.”

Vassiliki Arabatzi

Trainings Manager

Iliana Dimoni

Finance Manager

Iliana is Amna’s Finance Manager and is responsible for ensuring Amna’s financial system supports and develops alongside its growing programmes and activities. She is passionate about guaranteeing that Amna can keep creating impact and supporting those in need.

Working at Amna for Iliana is similar to studying: she is constantly learning, having fun in a supportive environment and aiming to be her best every day!

Prior to joining Amna, Iliana has worked in the charity sector in London for eight years. She studied Finance and Accounting and has an MSc in Management of Creative Industries. She loves theatre, is a proud feminist and a mum.

Stella Malliari

Finance Officer

Stella is Amna’s Finance Officer.

She studied Management at the University of Macedonia and she lives in Thessaloniki .

She is excited about being a part of a team that shares a common goal of alleviating suffering and promoting human dignity.
Having worked in the humanitarian sector for the last 7 years she has witnessed the power of collective efforts and the positive outcomes that result from dedicated individuals working together.

Out of the office Stella loves dancing and her dream is to travel around the world!

Devika Kapoor

Trainer and Facilitator

Ben Du Preez

Trainer and Facilitator

Ben is one of Amna’s Trainer and Coordinators, providing capacity-building and wellbeing support to other humanitarian and grassroots organisations working with refugees.

Before working with Amna, Ben spent fifteen years developing survivor advocacy projects, supporting survivors of torture, trafficking, detention and statelessness to speak-out for the changes they wanted to the political systems that shaped their daily realities.

Alongside his work at Amna, Ben is training as an Integrative Counsellor and Psychotherapist. He is also a great lover of sardines, all-things-audio and steam-rooms.

‘I am passionate about working with communities to come together to practice shared healing and grow their collective power in solidarity with eachother. For me, this is completely dependent on spaces built on trust, relationality and play – principles that are all actively celebrated at Amna.’

Cristal Palacios Yumar

Trainer and Facilitator

As an Amna Trainer, Cristal supports organisations working with refugees to develop trauma-informed approaches to their own work.

Cristal is a clinical psychologist and peacebuilder from Venezuela. Before joining Amna, she worked for over 20 years developing & implementing art-based psychosocial support and mental health initiatives for populations affected by conflict and violence in Latin America and the US, while simultaneously developing her practice as a psychotherapist and researcher. More recently, she founded Psicodiáspora, the network of Venezuelan mental health professionals in the diaspora.

When she’s not facilitating healing spaces, you can also find her working on her PhD, swimming, caring for her tropical plants, or dancing!

Ilayda Cihan

Trainer and Facilitator

Ilayda is an Occupational Therapist specializing in Sensory Integration Therapy for children with special needs. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she pursued a master’s in Early Childhood Research at the University of Leipzig, focusing on her thesis titled “Children’s Third-party Interventions in Norm Transgressions within the Context of Discriminative Behavior: Immigrant and Non-immigrant Descent Children in Germany.” During her undergraduate years, her involvement in co-founding an NGO aimed at tackling discrimination and polarization in her home country shaped her proactive approach to understanding broader societal issues. Inspired by these civil society and academic involvements, she joined Amna to shoulder responsibilities in supporting displaced communities.

Nasma Shwahde

Trainer and Facilitator

Nasma is a group facilitator with professional experience of training teams of social workers in the Arab Palestinian community in the field of mental health first aid, trauma and resilience. She has also worked with marginalized groups where she empowers others to pursue their authentic selves and achieve personal growth through the narrative approach.

Nasma was also a lecturer in the Department of Counseling and Human Development – University of Haifa where she provided mentorship and guidance to support students in developing their own therapeutic styles and approaches.

She has created and delivered presentations as a speech-language pathologist. She has treated children with ASD and helped them find their voice and to express themselves effectively implementing different approaches for better communication skills.

Hejer Dhahbi

Monitoring & Evaluation Lead

Hejer is Amna’s M&E Lead. She has eight years of experience in project management and M&E in the MENA region.

Before joining Amna, she was responsible for the implementation and evaluation of projects in relief, health, capacity building, and economic empowerment for programs in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey.

Hejer joined Amna because she believes that psychological support is a fundamental need for every trauma-affected community, and she wants to be part of the healing process that empowers vulnerable groups to reach a better future.

She has a BSC in Engineering, and prior to entering the humanitarian sector, she worked in the aeronautical and automotive industries as a project manager.

Besides English, she is fluent in Arabic and French and aspires to learn more languages as she enjoys knowing different cultures and the way they see the world.

Wajihah Zaman

Programmes and Partnerships Officer

Wajihah is a Programmes and Partnerships Officer at Amna. She works across the teams in supporting Partnerships and Programmes when working with partner hubs around the world.

She joined Amna because of its values and the compassionate, empathetic care it provides to refugee communities.

Prior to joining Amna, Wajihah worked as a Fundraising and Social Media Officer. She also taught English to Afghan refugees which motivated her to support refugee communities.

She speaks Pashto in addition to English and has a Masters in Human Rights.

Alexandra Mylrea Lowndes

Operations Officer

Alexandra is Amna’s Operations Officer. She works on HR administration, recruitment, office management and provides general support to the Operations team and the SLT.

Prior to joining Amna, she worked at the Mexican Embassy to the UK in London, and lived in Chile where she worked at the UN and in the Refugee and Resettlement department of the Government. She also has experience working in a variety of NGOs and teaching English. She has a degree in International Relations and Spanish from Sussex University and speaks Spanish and English.

Randa Abumudallala

Executive Assistant & Board Liaison

Randa is Amna Executive Assistant and Board Liaison. She has extensive working experience in developmental and humanitarian organizations in the Opt. More than 12 years of experience in managing programs and projects in the sector of livelihood, gender and emergency. Prior to Amna, Randa worked as a Livelihood in Emergency Technical Advisor, program officer and programs coordinator.

Randa role is will provide high-level administrative support to the CEO and Amna’s Board of Directors. In addition to working on and managing special projects including research, data analysis, preparation for public speaking, writing and research.  Randa has MBA from Palestine, and got her new Master degree in “Inequalities and Social Science” from the University of Leeds. In her dissertation she deeply investigated the challenges faced by refugee women to access the labour market in the UK.

Growing up in her country as a refugee in the Gaza Strip in Palestine, under Israeli occupation, she witnessed the period of the internal Palestinian division and five wars on Gaza. Randa left Palestine two years ago and lived through the stressful experience of displacement. All of this contributed in building her resilience and determination to continue work providing valuable assistance for all vulnerable groups over the world especially refugee women.

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.

Abdulkarim Ekzayez

Trustee

Abdulkarim is a medical doctor and an epidemiologist from Syria. In 2013, Abdulkarim was training to be a neurosurgeon when his residency was interrupted by the war. He then worked in field hospitals in Aleppo and Idlib before joining Save The Children, where he led the health response in North West Syria until 2017. He is currently pursuing a PhD in health systems in war settings at King’s College London, in addition to his work as a research associate with the Conflict and Health Research Group at the same university. He is also an Associate fellow at Chatham House and serves on the board of two other organisations, Shafak, and Eyes to the Future.

Afsana Safa

Trustee

Afsana is a London-based General Practitioner (Family Physician) with first-hand experience of the European refugee crisis. Amna first met Afsana in 2016, when she travelled to Greece with the Syrian American Medical Society to set up and run medical clinics in refugee camps in the north of the country. She has also volunteered in Bangladesh with Rohingya refugees. Afsana’s other NHS roles include Clinical Cancer lead for North West London and Governing Body board member for Central London CCG.