Ms. Eda Cok Ozturk works on her duties as Project Coordinator of Child Programme since November 2014 in Turkish Red Crescent. She is managing and implementing project activities and staff at Child & Youth Friendly Spaces. She leads the project which reached over 600 thousand children via 33 activity points.

Previously to this role, Ms. Ozturk worked as Volunteer Coordination Manager to The Educational Volunteers Foundation (TEGV), where she managed the implementation of volunteer and project activities in TEGV’s nationwide network of education parks, learning centres and firefly mobile learning units supported by volunteers who have received mentorship training. She monitored and evaluated the work programme and prepared monthly management reports progress reports and financial reports.

Ms. Ozturk has also worked as Project Coordinator for The Human Resource Development Foundation, managing the project activities, supervising and monitoring the tasks, managing the communication with stakeholders, developing strategies, managing quarterly interim progress reports, semi-annual/annual financial reports and establishing and operating a management information system. She has also worked on success stories of beneficiaries to create positive project image through media.

Before working for The Human Resource Development Foundation, Ms. Ozturk worked as Social Worker for International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), and played an important role as a social worker to identify most vulnerable groups and assessment of individual needs of asylum seekers and refugees. During her 3 years of work, she counselled asylum seekers and refugees (on legal, durable solutions, financial issues etc.), conducted outreach activities such as house visits to individuals, visits to institutions that provide services to asylum seekers and refugees and delivered UNHCR correspondence to asylum seekers and refugees and collecting correspondence addressed to UNHCR by persons of concern.

Ms. Ozturk has also worked in Ilgim Education for Developmental Disabled and Rehabilitation Centre and Eylul Education for Developmental Disabled and Rehabilitation Centre as Social Worker, and during her career in these centres around 2 years, she was responsible for assessment of individual needs of disabled children, conducting needs assessment and supporting the families, preparing periodical reports, implementing outreach activities, liaising with hospitals and governmental institutions.

Mrs. Kübra Divleli assumed her duties as Head of Restoring Family Links (RFL) Department at Turkish Red Crescent (TRC) Society as of May 2019 where she is leading the expansion of RFL services of the TRC and a wide range of collaboration within the movement (sister NSs and ICRC) in line with RFL Strategies.

Prior to this assignment, she worked as a caseworker between 2017 and 2018 in Gaziantep for 10 months. Then, she was assigned as RFL Officer in Head Quarter of the Turkish Red Crescent, where she led the implementation of Family Reunification, Tracing and Red Cross Message (Family Message) with 16 Community Centers, branches in Turkey, other partner National Societies and International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in all around the World. She has leveraged capacity for RFL activities contacting with relevant governmental and humanitarian institutions and contributed to the standardization of the methodology, documentation of RFL services at both HQ and field level.

Before starting to work at TRC, she participated various internships; volunteering; short-term projects regarding the children, refugees, students in Turkey and received a grant for her own international youth exchange project on cultural exchange, xenophobia and racism from EU with her teammates during her undergraduate, and played an important role as a young activist.

She obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Math in French at University of Galatasaray in 2017. Now, she is a master student in the Sociology Department of Ankara University and an undergraduate student in the same field at Anadolu University.

Ms. Beyza Taner assumed her duties as Project Manager to the Turkish Red Crescent as of 1 January of 2022.

Before this assignment, she worked as a Management Support and Reporting Officer in İstanbul field between April 2018 and December 2019. Then she was assigned as the protection officer in Head Quarter to the Turkish Red Crescent, where she led the implementation of the Conditional Cash Transfer for Education-Child Protection Component for the 16 Community Centers operations. She has also contributed to the standardization of the methodology and documentation of protection within Community Centers.

Before joining TRC, she worked as an Education Officer in a local NGO between August 2014 and June 2015. Moreover, she has participated in volunteering, and short-term projects regarding the refugees in Turkey during her undergraduate. She has attended trainings on Protection, GBV, Child Protection, Conflict Resolution, Community Engagement, and Accountability.

She obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Political Science in 2014. She is currently a master's student in the International Relations Department of Istanbul Sehir University.

Ms. Lora Voynova is currently coordinating the community engagement and accountability unit of Refugee-migrant service of the Bulgarian Red Cross. She is also a project manager of an integration AMIF-funded project, implemented jointly with two Sofia Municipality districts. She has been working as a coordinator of the UNHCR-funded project since September 2019.

Prior to that, she worked for the UNHCR Bulgaria office, starting September 2017, where she began as a Snr Programme assistant and then joined the Protection Unit as a Snr Protection assistant with focus on child protection.

Ms. Voynova began her career in the refugee-migrant field as an integration social worker in BRC, where she managed a pilot integration programme for refugees in Bulgaria.

Before joining the Bulgarian Red Cross, Lora Voynova graduated from King’s Collage London, where she obtained MA in Geopolitics, territory and security. Her master thesis explored the securitisation the asylum policy of the EU, case study of Bulgaria.

Lora speaks English, French, Italian and Russian.

Teohana joined the Bulgarian Red Cross in November 2021 as a Supervisor Social Work and Monitoring at the Refugee-Migrant Service. She coordinates and supervises the daily activities of social workers who provide assistance to asylum seekers and refugees.

Before joining the BRC, she worked as a legal expert at the International Cooperation Directorate of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Bulgaria. She was responsible for handling dossiers on human rights issues, including in the areas of migration, border management, minorities and gender equality.

She holds a Bachelor`s degree in Cultural Studies from Sofia University and a Master`s degree in Law from New Bulgarian University. Currently she is pursuing a Master`s degree in Human Rights Law at the University of London. 

Amra Piric, psyhologist in Red Cross of Tuzla Canton since 2008. Field officer in Restoring family links programme in Tuzla Canton and Member of Red Cross Tuzla Canton psychosocial support team for families who are in identification process of missing persons. PSP for staff and volunteers who works on migrations (on level of National society,in coopertion with ICRC B&H). Providing PSP for staff, volunteers and POCs in Tuzla canton area. Maintaining and developing psychosocial support programme in local branches of Red cross in the Tuzla canton area. Educating and supervising volunteers involved in project as well as vulnerable groups.

Almi Jagodic , doctor of medicine, has been actively participating in the activities of the Red Cross (on the level of the federation, county and municipality/city) since 2001. He has worked as a first aid instructor and  since 2020, he has been a part of the mobile team of the Red Cross of the Tuzla canton providing assistance to migrants.

Mensur Hadzibeganovic , doctor of medicine, has been actively participating in the activities of the Red Cross (on the level of the federation, county and municipality/city) for more than two decades. He has written several first aid books, and has worked as a first aid instructor.  Since 2020, He has been a part of the mobile team of the Red Cross of the Tuzla canton providing assistance to migrants.

Abdurahman Aljić , since 2019, is the leader of the Red Cross Tuzla canton’s  Mobile Team. Engagement within the Mobile Team of the Central Committee of the Tuzla Canton Consider Providing first aid services for migrants / refugees in transition through TC, mobile leadership and coordination of work. In the last ten years Abdurrahman has been very active in youth programs  and since 2020 is the President of Youth in Red Cross FBiH .

Fiona Roberts started in her current post as Safe and Inclusive Advisor for the British Red Cross in July 2020.

Prior to this she was a consultant specialised in protection, gender and inclusion and humanitarian action. In this capacity, she carried out assignments with organisations such as UN Women, Oxfam Mexico, Oxfam Great Britain, Oxfam Novib and the International Organisation for Migration. These have included working on the development of the IASC Gender for Humanitarian Action manual and related training materials, facilitating trainings for teams in UN Women headquarters, regional teams (West Africa, Arab States and East and Southern Africa) as well as country specific trainings including Libya and Vanuatu. She worked with UNWomen in Bangladesh to adapt the trainings to the Rohingya crisis context and to six different technical sectors. She also carried out gender analyses for Oxfam for the drought and conflict in Somaliland and for the Sulawesi tsunami response in Indonesia. During 2017- 18 she managed the earthquake response in Mexico in 2017-18 for Oxfam Mexico.

Prior to being a consultant, she worked for 5 years for Oxfam as the Regional Humanitarian Capacity Building Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean. In this post she coordinated the humanitarian capacity building plans in the region (in Haiti, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia), including contingency planning processes and led on the capacity building and preparedness activities relating to gender and protection. She also worked on gender and protection during various emergencies in the region as they occurred.  During this period, she was also seconded as the Response Manager for the Ebola Crisis in Port Loko, Sierra Leone and the Programme Manager for the Early Response to Coffee Rust in Central America.

Before joining Oxfam, she worked as the Programme Coordinator for an Anti-trafficking Programme in Mexico for CEIDAS, and as Project Officer for the Africa Educational Trust on education programming in South Sudan.

She has a Masters in Population and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Geography from the University of Sheffield.

Ms. Doaa Youssef assumed her duties as in the British Red Cross in November 2020.

Doaa works as an SGBV specialist for the MENA region with the British Red Cross, where she supports the expansion of mainstreaming and integrating GBV into the different programs in BRC for the MENA region including cash programs, Wash, and preparing for GBV interventions through providing support, guidance, and training to the different focal points and teams in the different targeted national societies.

Before joining the British Red Cross, Doaa worked in Lebanon as a Senior GBV Officer with International Medical Corps and played an important role as a resource person for the development of tools, training, and supervision for GBV programs. In this role, Doaa supported caseworkers across Lebanon. She was responsible for reviewing and developing tools and trainings, building the capacity of the team, participate in editing and building PSS curriculums for youth, men, and women, in addition to working directly with the MEAL team on editing the different reporting tools, building baseline surveys, evaluation of the programs, and in delivering donor reports.

Doaa has also worked with Intersos as a GBV, CP, PWSN caseworker, and senior caseworker under the LSRP. Her main tasks were to identify, and case manages the different cases, provide feedback to donors and referring agencies, doing BIDs and BIAs and later being the focal point on these, delivering awareness sessions, and focussed PSS activities.

Doaa holds a BA in Social work from the Lebanese American University, and she participated in different trainings helping in her career development as protection mainstreaming, GBVIE, and mainstreaming GBV into health services. She also helped to deliver trainings on GBVIMS to different agencies and the agencies she worked with.

Miss Giulia Bonacalza assumed her duties as Anti-Trafficking Advisor (International) with the British Red Cross as of May 2021. In this role, Giulia oversees the international work to prevent and respond to trafficking at the British Red Cross, where she is responsible for providing expert technical, operational and capacity building support to the British Red Cross’ International Directorate and the wider Red Cross Red Crescent Movement.

Prior to this assignment, Giulia covered the position of Anti-Trafficking Officer (International) for over two years, where she was responsible for supporting National Societies and the IFRC in strengthening their response to trafficking and their capability to implement prevention activities, identify, respond and support survivors of trafficking, specifically in migration contexts. In this role Giulia led on a capacity building project in the Americas, where she acted as technical lead for the region. She developed regional tools to support colleagues from Latin America and the Caribbean in implementing a safe response to trafficking in their own context.

Before joining the Red Cross, Giulia worked as an Anti-Trafficking Advocate in various settings, the most recent ones being prisons and detention centres, where she supported foreign nationals and migrant populations in accessing essential services. Giulia was primarily responsible for identification of potential survivors and advocacy to statutory services for their immediate and safe release. Whilst working within prison settings, Giulia also set up and managed mentoring programmes, with the aim of establishing befriending relationships between volunteers and foreign national women affected by the criminal justice system.

During this period, she also served as a Trafficking Consultant, where she conducted a research on trafficking trends to, from and within Italy, which included an analysis of current policies and legislation and identification of opportunities for advocacy within the policy landscape.

Giulia holds a master’s degree in Planning and Managing Social Interventions in Contexts of Social Disadvantage obtained from the University of Bologna, Italy, in 2013. For her dissertation, she spent a few months in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where she wrote her thesis on the conditions of Burmese migrant families living in construction sites in Chiang Mai.

Miss Zainab Ali El Faki assumed her duties as Anti-trafficking officer (International) with the British Red Cross as of June 2021.

Prior to this assignment Zainab worked as CP/GBV specialist in Libya where she led the protection programs and the case management teams of CESVI in Western Libya (Tripoli, Zuwara, Misrata, Serraj) specialising in GBV and CP. She leveraged the organisation’s strategic knowledge and technical capacity to improve response and impact by significantly contributing to the workplan of the CP CM taskforce and actively contributing to the HNO/HRP process. Zainab also represented the organisation in the Libya INGO forum.

Before joining the Libya mission, Zainab worked in Yemen as a Protection officer with INTERSOS and played an important role in supporting the protection response in southern Yemen as part of the organisation that co-led the sub-national protection cluster. In addition to her role leading a substantive protection program that included multiple donors and projects and included activities such as, long-term MPCA, case management, voluntary return, camp management and accommodation for UASC. She developed INTERSOS’ protection strategy to transition into more sustainable and solution-oriented programs with a strong partnership approach that include meeting humanitarian needs and building resilience.

Zainab has also worked with UNHCR, and during her time in Greece, she managed protection activities in the Reception and Identification Centre on Samos Island including border protection monitoring and CBI activities. A primary function of her role was to facilitate a consultative and participatory process with government counterparts, partners and persons of concern. 

Zainab’s prior experience includes policy work and strategic litigation focused on the rights of refugees and migrants in Europe. She was part of the team (Safe passage) in the UK that in January 2016 won a landmark legal ruling at the Royal Courts of Justice, which opened up a legal route to family reunification for children and vulnerable adults in Calais. As Project Coordinator, Zainab built the capacity of state and national organizations in the UK, France, and Greece with regards to the Dublin regulation and Dubs Amendment.

After completing her degree in International politics at City University London, Zainab began volunteering with Safe passage and worked alongside the Home office and British Red Cross to register and transfer UAM in the Calais refugee camp to the UK. 

Mrs Sanja Ratkusic assumed her duties with the British Red Cross as Restoring Family Links National Caseworker in 2021. In this role, Sanja oversees the IFT caseload, providing expert technical, operational support and quality assurance to the British Red Cross’ RFL staff and volunteers, as well as engaging in a range of collaborative projects within the Movement in line with RFL Strategies.

Alongside this role, she carries the role of the Service Coordinator with British Red Cross RFL Service since 2017, coordinating casework and management of the team of volunteers to deliver high quality person- centred casework in the North East of England. Continuously contributing to the development and expansion of British Red Cross RFL services in line with RFL Strategies. She contributes to the number of working groups relating to RFL, Antiracism and working with Unaccompanied and Separated Children.

In February 2020, Sanja joined BRC’s Restoring Family Links Delegate register, established to deliver needs assessments and assist and support the capacity building of sister National Societies.

As a result, in Early 2021, Sanja was deployed as IFRC Protection Gender and Inclusion (PGI) delegate to assist the Red Cross National Society of Bosnia and Herzegovina in a context of migration and protection. During this deployment, she worked closely and collaboratively with IFRC ERO Budapest, ICRC ERO Belgrade and Red Cross Society of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Assessing the need and compiling educational/training resources to better enable Mobile Teams in the field assisting migrants, people on the move and local population affected. Protection relating resources in local language were successfully produced.

In March 2020, Sanja participated in a rapid needs and capacity assessment evaluating the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on RFL in the United Kingdom, she actively took part in casework procedures working groups assisting BRC in adapting to new ways of working in response to Covid-19 pandemic and most recently joined a team of volunteers administering Covid-19 vaccines.

Before joining British Red Cross between 2003 – 2017 Sanja held the position of Project Coordinator at The Comfrey Project, providing service and support to refugees and people seeking asylum in England. She coordinated project activities, supervised, and monitored the tasks, managed the communication with stakeholders, developed strategies, quarterly interim progress reports, annual financial reports as well as reviewed all the policies while working closely with the Board of Trustees. Sanja has worked on success stories of participants of the project to create positive project image through media and to influence wider community on issues relating Migration and displacement.

Prior to establishing herself in the United Kingdom, Sanja has studied Pharmacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in addition to speaking local languages, has a good understanding of the current situation within the context of the regional History.

Ms Isabel Kingsford assumed her duties as International Family Tracing National Caseworker at the British Red Cross (BRC) as of March 2021. In this role, Isabel oversees the IFT caseload, providing expert technical, operational support and quality assurance to the British Red Cross' IFT staff and volunteers, as well as engaging in a range of collaborative projects within the Movement in line with RFL Strategies.

Prior to this assignment, Isabel joined the BRC in July 2019 as IFT Coordinator in the Manchester branch. Isabel coordinated the IFT service, managing volunteers to deliver high quality, person-centred casework.

In February 2020, Isabel joined BRC's Restoring Family Links (RFL) Delegate register, established to deliver needs assessments and capacity building for sister National Societies. Isabel participated in a rapid needs assessment in March 2020, evaluating the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on RFL. More recently, Isabel conducted an RFL needs assessment for new Afghan arrivals in the UK. Isabel has focused on Supporting Families of the Missing, acting as the operational focal point for the DNA pilot in collaboration with UK Missing Persons Unit (UKMPU), INTERPOL and the Greek Authorities, and the UK contact for the Catania Project.

Before joining the BRC, Isabel participated in various internships, volunteering roles and short-term projects supporting vulnerable populations, including refugees and asylum seekers in the UK and abroad. Namely, in February 2019 Isabel joined SB Overseas in Lebanon as a volunteer teacher at the Ouzai Centre for Syrian refugees and asylum seekers. Later in April 2019, Isabel became the Volunteer and Project Coordinator Assistant for Refugee4Refugees in Lesvos, Greece. Here she managed volunteers and assisted with project coordination across Moria, Olive Grove and Kara Tepe camps, developing cross-agency partnerships to respond to beneficiary needs.

Isabel holds a Bachelor's Degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Exeter where she focused on forensics and the impacts of climate change on global populations.