The Kofi Annan Scholarships

MSc Environmental Change and Management

Xenia is a dedicated ESG professional committed to driving positive change in the corporate world.

In her recent role at Evraz, a global steel and mining company, she contributed to the development of the sustainability strategy, including pathways to net zero. Prior to this, she gained valuable experience in the consulting industry and a national development institution.

Having studied economics and finance at the Financial University, Xenia is currently focused on enhancing her knowledge of environmental and climate science. Her ultimate goal is to transform companies operating in hard-to-abate industries towards conscious business. She firmly believes that environmental and social responsibility coupled with good governance in the business realm will pave the way for a more peaceful, equal, and sustainable world.

MSc Social Science of the Internet

Tsimafei Malakhouski studied Political Science at the European Humanities University in Vilnius, where he also served as the elected president of the Students’ Union.

Currently, he holds the role of a programme manager and political analyst at Honest People, a Belarusian civil society organisation operating in exile in Warsaw, Poland. Tsimafei’s work focuses on civic education and fostering democratic engagement among citizens who face mass repressions in the authoritarian regime in Belarus.

Tsimafei also coordinates the Honest University project, which actively involves over 2000 student activists in meaningful civic participation in Belarus while considering the security risks.

After completing his studies at the Oxford Internet Institute, Tsimafei intends to return to his work in Belarusian civil society, where he will continue contributing to the ongoing struggle for democracy and human rights in his home country.

Masters of Business Administration

Vladyslava is a Product Manager from Ukraine.

She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Chinese Literature from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and lived for two terms in China while attending exchange programmes at Peking University and Nankai University. During her time in China, she ventured into entrepreneurship and successfully established a company dedicated to assisting small and medium-sized Ukrainian enterprises in sourcing products from China.

The company provided help with services such as negotiations, logistics, market-fit research, product inspection, and sampling. After graduation, Vladyslava pursued the postgraduate programme called the Young India Fellowship in India and worked at a Bengaluru-based robotics startup that specialises in building autonomous cooking robots for households.

In India, Vladyslava also actively engaged herself in animal welfare initiatives, organising rescue and birth control efforts for stray dogs and cats in her community.

Following her time at Oxford, Vladyslava aspires to return to Ukraine and contribute towards the development of Ukraine’s post-war economy by building sustainable businesses.

MSc Environmental Change and Management

Smriti graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies and Public Policy from FLAME University, India. She loves being on the field, engaging with issues on the ground, and making this information accessible.

Smriti has worked in the Trans Himalayan region, Nicobar Islands, and on the Konkan Coast, where she studied human-bear, agriculture-macaque, and turtle-fisher interactions respectively.

At the Centre for Knowledge Alternatives, Smriti led the efforts of formulating and building India’s first district-level statistics and culture repository. She has previously interned at Centre for Policy Research, Dakshin Foundation, and Centre for Environment Education where she worked on different aspects of environmental legislation and grievance redressal mechanisms. Having worked across different geographies in India, Smriti strongly believes in documenting local ecological knowledge for bottoms-up policy actions.

At Oxford, Smriti looks forward to gaining the tools and knowledge to work on decentralised ecosystem governance and climate policy in India.

Master of Public Policy

Mohamed Salah Ahmed is a public policy practitioner with a BA in Community Development and an MA in Political Science and Public Administration. Prior to joining the Office of National Security, Mohamed worked in the humanitarian space in Somalia.

Currently, at the presidency he serves as the chief person for the sanctions regime, leading, coordinating, framing and implementing nationwide policies on WAM and the sanctions regime, ranging from efforts to lift the UNSC arms embargo on Somalia to disrupting the smuggling of illicit weapons. Under his realm, he succeeded in operationalising the National WAM strategy through a result-based action plan with a clear baseline and targets, which was aimed at restricting the acquisition of weapons for non-state actors.

Upon completing the MPP, he intends to continue contributing to the improvement of government institutions through effective and practical policy prescriptions for some of the pressing issues Somalia is facing.

Master of Public Policy

Mariana is a Mexican attorney specialising in human rights from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a fierce advocate for women’s rights. She currently works for the Mexican Federal Judiciary Council, striving to integrate a gender perspective into judicial decisions and combat gender violence.

Mariana has also contributed to public policies at the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes of Violence Against Women. In her spare time, she provides pro bono assistance to women affected by violence and hosts a podcast discussing social issues.

Mariana’s goal in Oxford is to gain a Master’s in Public Policy to enhance her ability to address complex challenges and contribute to eradicating violence against women through effective public policies in Mexico and Latin America.

Master of Public Policy

Fareed is a Humanitarian Professional from Syria. He studied medicine at Aleppo University, Syria, and International Relations at Hasan Kalyoncu University, Turkey. He works for the international organisation Global Communities as the Co-Lead of the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Area of Responsibility in northwest Syria.

He coordinates the humanitarian community’s response to GBV to provide lifesaving assistance to GBV survivors and at-risk women and girls, as well as training field responders and developing policies and guidelines to ensure that GBV is addressed in a contextualised and comprehensive manner.

At Oxford, he aspires to increase his technical expertise, professional network, and policy analysis skills in order to increase his global impact as a GBV specialist. Fareed plans to return to the Middle East’s humanitarian context to help design gender-sensitive policies in order to stop violence against women and girls and empower them in post-conflict and fragile settings.

BCL

Faizan has completed his B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) from Jindal Global Law School, India on multiple scholarships. He has been a Teaching Assistant for Jurisprudence at his law school, and for ‘Caste, Courts and the Constitution’ at National Law University, Delhi. At his law school’s Citizenship and Statelessness Clinic, he helped compile an extensive report on human rights norms applicable to India’s citizenship verification exercises.

Through his internships at High Courts and the Supreme Court, Faizan has assisted various lawyers and a High Court Judge on important constitutional and high-stake matters.

His academic interests lie in international law, human rights and anti-discrimination law. Faizan wishes to combine his experience in academia and clinical work to bridge the gaps between theory, lived experiences and legal interventions for marginalised communities in India, particularly Muslims and Dalits.

• Yitong Zhou (Magister Jruis)
• Melissa Felipe (MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management)
• Obaid Shah (MSc Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment)
• Annatu Neina Abdulai (Masters of Business Administration)
• Kimberley Kudwoli (MSc Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation)
• Samia Mehraj (Master of Public Policy)
• Meyrav Weiss (MSc Modern Middle Eastern Studies)

• Marcela Arias Moncada (Master of Public Policy)
• Tsionawit Gebre-Yohannes (Master of Public Policy)
• César Sanchez Casares (Master of Public Policy)
• Lucia Artavia Guzman (MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management)
• Ebenezer Dariye (MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management)
• Ishaan Sethi (MSc in Evidence-based Social Intervention & Policy Evaluation)
• Olivia Tienin (MSc in African Studies)

• Kessem Adiv (MSc Refugee and Forced Migration Studies)
• Alejandro Biondi Rodriguez (MSc Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation)
• Natalia Brigagão (Magister Juris)
• Sarani Jayawardena (MSc Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation)
• Mirza Saaib Bég (Master of Public Policy)