Congratulations to SPIA alumnus Ahmed Okasha for the great honor of being accepted to participate in the Humanitarian Leadership Program, part of the Harvard University Humanitarian Initiative (NNPHL.5)!
In 2018, Ahmed graduated from University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs with a Masters Degree in Public Administration (MPA) from the Department of Public Administration and Policy. He also earned a Graduate Certificate in Disaster Management from the Institute for Disaster Management, which is housed within UGA’s College of Public Health. Ahmed is also a 2016-2018 Fulbright Scholarship recipient. He has more than five years of professional experience in the humanitarian field working for various international organizations, including the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the International Rescue Committee. Ahmed currently works at Plan International Egypt as a project coordinator, managing a Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) funded project that aims at tackling root causes of irregular migration, and to support integrated communities in Alexandria, Egypt.
The Humanitarian Leadership Program (NNPHL.5) is organized by Concern Worldwide, in consortium with International Medical Corps (IMC) and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), with technical support from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. The program, funded by the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and launched in 2016, utilizes innovative pedagogies to combine a rigorous academic curriculum with practical experiential learning including mentorship and individual assignments. NNPHL is designed for exceptional humanitarian professionals working for non-governmental or community-based organizations in humanitarian settings.
Since the program began, NNPHL has received more than 3,000 applications and trained 99 humanitarian professionals from more than 40 countries. This is a highly competitive program to which it is very difficult to gain entrance. Ahmed was chosen for one of less than 30 positions out of more than 250 applicants. Being selected means he will participate in a six-month program aimed at providing a rigorous, innovative, blended learning leadership training experience for the next generation of humanitarian leaders. Ahmed starts the program this month with background reading and online e-learning modules, then in March 2019 he will go to Amman, Jordan for a five-day in-person leadership training course. Following the in-person intensive leadership training course he will return to his organization, Plan International Egypt, for continued distance learning. He will be assigned a coach and will work on an individualized project—the NNPHL Final Assignment—to finish out the program. Upon completion of the program, Ahmed will receive an NNPHL Certificate of Completion.
We want to congratulate Ahmed for being selected for this wonderful opportunity. He is sure to continue on to do many more great things with the experience this program will provide.
Further reading:
- Humanitarian Leadership Program: https://www.concernusa.org/project-profile/humanitarian-leadership/
- Concern World Wide: https://www.concernusa.org/
- International Medical Corps (IMC) https://internationalmedicalcorps.org/
- The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) https://hhi.harvard.edu/
- Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health https://www.jhsph.edu/
- Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) https://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are/organization/bureaus/bureau-democracy-conflict-and-humanitarian-assistance/office-us
