Sapphire Alexander is a strident feminist and youth advocate, who is passionate about promoting gender and climate justice in and through education. She is the creator of  Caribbean Feminist, a digital advocacy platform for Caribbean and diaspora  youth and she is also pursuing a bachelors in computer science  at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill.

Amalia is the Programme Associate who supports UNGEI’s administrative work.  With a background in administrative support and operations, Amalia has worked in UNICEF, UNDP and UNFPA.  Amalia holds a BA in French literature and culture.

Zeynep is a development and humanitarian professional with more than 15 years of experience in EU pre-accession, protracted crisis and conflict contexts. Passionate for gender equality, women’s rights and empowerment of women and girls, she has managed programmes and projects in the fields of social policy, employment, anti-discrimination, inclusive education, vocational education and training, refugee response, women, peace and security, ending violence against women and girls and civil society capacity development. Zeynep has also steered and involved in policy dialogue, coalition building and UN Coordination on these fields. Prior to joining UNGEI, Zeynep worked at the European Union, UN Women Turkey and Ukraine Country Offices at with civil society organizations. At UNGEI Zeynep leads the Gender Transformative Education programmes and contributes to advocacy, knowledge management, resource mobilization, networking and partnership building. Zeynep holds a degree on political science and international relations from Bosphorus University and a postgraduate degree on EU policy making from LSE.

Laura brings with her over 13 years of experience in gender-focused roles across UN agencies, covering regions including the East Asia and Pacific and East and Southern Africa in both development and humanitarian contexts. Laura is passionate about gender equality, women’s rights and empowerment, empowering adolescents to be change makers, making space for girls at the table, and creating peaceful, safe, and quality learning environments for all- starting in the home. She has experience supporting gender transformative approaches across sectors, from education, health, nutrition, protection, and humanitarian. Outside of her work in international development, Laura is also a former teacher, curriculum researcher, and parenting coach.

At UNGEI, Laura is leading the portfolio to end school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) including leadership for the Global Working Group to End SRGBV. Laura has a master's degree in conflict resolution from George Mason University and a bachelor's degree in political science and human rights from the University of Washington.

Sanjita is UNGEI’s Programme Associate supporting the Gender at the Centre Initiative (GCI). Prior to joining UNGEI, Sanjita served as Administrative Assistant in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Geneva, Switzerland and was providing the administrative, grant, finance, procurement, travel, and partner management support for various projects. Before joining the UNEP, she worked with the UN Women Nepal Country Office and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) during the devastating 2015 Nepal earthquake with a similar role. Prior to joining the UN family, she worked in the private sector in Human Resources Management and Administration.

Sanjita holds a Master's degree in Business Administration with a specialization in Human Resource Management from Ace Institute of Management affiliated to Pokhara University in Nepal. In her free time, she enjoys travelling, listening to music and singing.

Antara has been the head of the UNGEI Secretariat since 2021.
 
Prior to this role, Antara led the gender portfolio for UNICEF India, UNICEF’s largest non-humanitarian office where she led programmes on addressing harmful gender norms in education and health systems. Previously she served as the Deputy Representative for UN Women in Bangladesh. Before joining the UN, Antara worked in the private sector as a management consultant.
 
Antara started her career as a teacher in a municipal school in Pune, India that served children of sex-workers. Antara holds a M.A. in International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. in English Literate and Developmental Psychology from Amherst College. She tweets at @antaraganguli.

Shuo brings a wealth of expertise in social media, graphic design, and digital management to UNGEI. Passionate about gender equality, Shuo was a key player at the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth (now the UN Youth Office), where she developed communications and campaigns to engage young people and amplify youth voices on critical issues such as girls' education and gender equality. With a diverse background that includes a master's degree in architecture from Nanjing University, Shuo has also contributed her skills to UNU-FLORES in Germany and UN-Habitat in Kenya.

Natasha (she/her) is an intersectional feminist. As the Lead of Youth Movements and Feminist Leadership at UNGEI, Natasha works to shift the power dynamics for young feminists and feminist civil society organizations to meaningfully partner in all processes in progressing gender equality in and through education. Natasha has deep experience in feminist movement growing, campaigning and policy advocacy for gender transformative education. She has worked with and advised civil-society, UN agencies, governments and youth organizations on feminist intergenerational partnerships.

As the lead of Chalk Back, a global young feminist led nonprofit, Natasha coordinates a group of activists globally in campaigning against gender-based violence. Natasha holds a Master's in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership from Carleton University and a Bachelor's degree in International Development and Gender Studies from the University of Ottawa.

Alinafe Malonje is a Malawian writer, storyteller, and Pan-African feminist, passionate about using creativity for the sake of women’s rights. She is the co-founder of Wona Collective, a youth and women-led arts collective that uses art and media to document the stories of African women and marginalized groups. Since 2019, Wona has been using diverse forms of media to immortalise the stories of women. Through Wona Collective, Alinafe has garnered experience in communications, design, media production, event planning, and convening. She uses these skills to provide creative solutions for organizations working in feminist and women’s rights spaces. Creating safe intersectional feminist spaces is her specialty.

Alima Boukary Marcos graduated from the School of Education at the University of California (Sacramento), USA, in Educational Administration and Policy Studies. She then strengthened her capacities in the field of equity, humanitarian, gender and project management at the International Institute for Educational Planning (Paris), at the World Bank Institute (Washington) and at the School of Education at Harvard, (USA). She has 27 years of professional experience in the field of education, including 16 years at UNICEF.

She has worked in the context of development and humanitarian work, notably on major challenges in teaching/learning, sector analyzes and plans, education policies and strategies, gender and transformational leadership, education in situation. emergency, reform of school programs and educational innovations.

She served as Chief education at UNICEF Mauritania and, before that, she was education Manager at UNICEF- DRC. Alima also worked as an education specialist in Benin, then in support in Haiti. Before taking up her position at UNICEF, she worked for more than ten years with USAID on projects supporting education reform as well as at Plan International. She was the UNGEI focal point in Benin and a member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). She is very committed to actions in favor of girls' education and women leadership.

Alima loves reading and cooking. She is married and mother of three grown children, two girls and a boy.

Nepali is a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Consultant for Gender Transformative Education with UNGEI. He has worked as a development professional for more than 25 years on programme management, monitoring and evaluation, research, knowledge management and gender statistics both in Nepal and abroad particularly in Asia and the Pacific and Africa.

He has served as a Multi Country Evaluation Specialist with UNICEF Cambodia (including Malaysia and Myanmar), as an Education Specialist with UNICEF Nepal and as an M&E Specialist with UNICEF Ghana. He has also served as an M&E Team Lead with UNFPA Nepal, as a Sr. Technical Advisor (Strategic Information and Research) with USAID funded Health for Life project, Knowledge Management Consultant for the USAID’s Reading for All Program: Disability Inclusive Education for Nepali Children, M&E Specialist with the Office of Millennium Challenge Nepal, M&E Advisor with AusAID funded health and HIV project in Papua New Guinea, Gender and Statistics Specialist with UNDP Liberia, Regional Programme Coordinator – Tsunami Response and Partnership with Save the Children Sweden, Programme Manager and Sr. Research and Evaluation Officer with Save the Children Japan.

Napali holds a PhD in Demography and a Master in Population Studies (MPS) from the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
 

Jen leads our Communications and Advocacy work at UNGEI, helping to amplify the stories of the communities we serve and use our platforms to advocate for girls’ education and gender equality in and through education. Prior to joining UNGEI, Jen worked with social impact agency Purpose to lead campaigns for the United Nations Verified initiative, aiming to combat mis- and disinformation around the COVID-19 pandemic. She is passionate about girls’ rights and gender equality and spent three years in Malawi and Tanzania running youth media programmes that focused on education outcomes and SRHR. With a background in theatre, she loves exploring creative ways to share stories and energise audiences.

As a Community Development Officer, Abdoul travels through countries to assist communities at a grassroots level. In particular, refugees, internally displaced persons and indigenous populations. Focusing on community resilience, women empowerment and more recently on youth employability and assistance through self-employment in the Timbuktu region.

Motivated that a better world is possible by focusing on children's education, Abdoul joined Unicef as a consultant in charge of the permanent secretariat of the education dialogue group of technical financial partners before joining the UNGEI team through the Priority Gender Equality Alliance.

Eline leads the Gender at the Center Initiative (GCI), a multi-stakeholder initiative to promote gender equality in and through education in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining UNGEI, Eline worked as an education and gender specialist in West and Central Africa. She served as Regional Education Coordinator for Save The Children. In that role she co-led the Regional Gender and Inclusion in Education Working Group (GENIE), a partnership of education stakeholders to promote gender equality in education. She has also worked in the DRC with Médecins sans Frontières, as National Training Coordinator. Before working in international cooperation, Eline was an academic researcher. She holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Antwerp and conducted ethnographic research on multilingualism and social identity among youth in Senegal. Eline lives and works in Dakar (Senegal) and loves writing and singing.