Meet our Coordination Team!
Our Coordination Team is made up by young activists, experts, and professionals who are passionate about migration issues. Together, they coordinate and run the operations of the Migration Working Group to make sure we are engaging communities of young people in the design, implementation, monitoring, and follow up & review of policies at all levels related to migration, including in the Global Compact for Migration and Global Forum on Migration and Development.
Marta Verani
Global Focal Point
Marta is a Global Focal Points for the Migration Working Group. She took this role after her mandate as Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) Focal Point, in which she led and Chaired the Youth Forum Chair at the GFMD in Quito 2020. Outside of UNMGCY, she is currently the Country Director for Ecuador at Soluciones Comunitarias, an NGO working in Latin America to support communities find their way out of poverty. Her previous experience includes supporting the 2030 Agenda at UN DESA and at UNODC Bolivia. She holds an MSc from the London School of Economics in Development Management and Anthropology and a BA from the University of Sussex.
Camila Batista
GFMD Focal Point and Youth Forum Lead
Camila Batista is the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) Focal Point and Youth Forum Chair for 2020. She participated in the GFMD Youth Forum where she led the round table on Labour and Migration, led the delegation to the business mechanism, and spoke at the Opening of the GCM Event. Outside of MGCY, she is a young social entrepreneur from Brazil, currently Deputy Director of Migraflix. She was a member and young representative at the Global Forum of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), youth delegate in the V Young Americas Forum in the framework of the VIII Summit of the Americas and speaker at the World Youth Forum/ Egypt 2019. She holds a BA in Law with a focus on human rights.
Roxanne Tajbakhsh
Global Focal Point
Foundation for Environmental Stewardship
Roxanne has been a Global Focal Point for the Migration Working Group of the UN Major Group for Children and Youth since 2018. She has led the Working Group since its inception, including engagement in the negotiations for the Global Compact on Migration, the first Migration Youth Forum in Marrakech in conjunction with the adoption of the GCM, and with the GFMD since 2019. Outside of MGCY Roxanne is a medical doctor based in the UK with a special interest in emergency and disaster medicine.
Bosa Sebele
Africa Focal Point
Bosa is a revolutionary intellectual young woman, law scholar, activist and writer. She served as the Chairperson of the SRHR Africa Trust Youth Hub, where they did advocacy work around Child Marriages and Age of Consent laws. Bosa currently serves on the SAT Country Advisory Committee and she is also the Country Coordinator for the Southern Africa Youth Forum. The Highlights of her career are when she had the opportunity to address the SADC Parliamentary Forum alongside the African Union Goodwill Ambassador on Ending Child Marriage.
Emmanuel Clifford Gyetuah
Africa Focal Point
Emmanuel is a Youth Development Advocate with a special interest in Youth Civic Participation, Migration and the SDGs. He currently serves as the International Programmes Coordinator at Youth Advocates Ghana with key responsibility as the focal person for the SDGs and leads the organization's efforts to the 2030 Youth Alliance, African Youth SDGs Summit and other related SDGs initiatives. Through Youth Avdocates Ghana, he worked with IOM Ghana to mobilize youth voices in the lead up to Ghana’s participation in the 2019 Voluntary National Review. He was selected as the Africa Youth Representative to the second Migration Youth Forum and the XII Summit of the GFMD.
Ronald Magomo
Africa Focal Point
Ronald is the Regional Advocacy and Communications Manager of the Southern Africa Youth Forum and the Youth Lead Ambassador Peer Advisor for Youth Lead. He also represents Zimbabwe in the Network of African Youths for Development as the Zimbabwe Focal Point. Ronald is a young game changer who is passionate about development, with the aim of seeing a society without inequalities. Ronald remains keen to see the meaningful participation of Youth in economic, political and social spheres not only in the SADC Region but Globally. Ronald also supports efforts to see positive youth development through the SAYoF-SADC’s Youth Development Model.
Mónica Trigos
North America Focal Point and Shaping Narratives Lead
Mónica Trigos is a first year Mexican MPA student in Columbia University. She has worked in the public and private sector in topics such as: immigration, security, sustainable development, corruption, education, etc. In 2013 she co-created Sin Palabras, a multicultural artist collective dedicated to giving theater and art workshops to immigrants and refugees as a psychosocial, integration and empowerment process. In 2016 she became a Youth Associate of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. In 2017 she became a volunteer in MY World Mexico, a national initiative supported by the UN SDG Action Campaign.
Neeraja Sundar
Asia and Pacific Focal Point
Neeraja is an aspiring Development Economist who is presently working with an international financial inclusion consultancy called Microsave. Neeraja has previously worked with the Government of Andhra Pradesh, India, and academic institutions as a researcher. Her work involves analysing government benefits and subsidies and providing recommendations to the government on bettering deployment. She has an academic background of MSc. Development Economics and Finance at SOAS University of London and a bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University of London.
Ahmad Farzam Karimi
North America Focal Point
Ahmad is the North American Focal Point for UNMGCY. He is also a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Youth Advisory Council, and has served as a delegate for the United Nations Association in Canada. He has spent his career thus far founding and developing programs for the integration of refugees and new migrants across southern Ontario and extending to the rest of Canada. . He currently serves as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve in the Army and is studying at McMaster University to complete the Bachelor of Health Sciences Honours Program with a specialization in Child Health.
Neha Prakash
Asia and Pacific Focal Point
Neha moved to Australia as a migrant to pursue my Masters in International Relations, where her research focused on migration policy, human rights and human security. She now work in Australia as a Policy and Projects Officer at the National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA), Canberra. Here, she advocate for the rights of people with a disability, especially those from migrant and refugee backgrounds. Prior to this, Nehaa has drafted detailed reports that focussed on Migrants and Refugees' Access to Justice in the Australian Judicial system, and assisted as a Research assistant at the Australian National University. She has also helped resettle recently arrived migrants and refugees as a part of the Settlement Engagement and Transition Support Program (SETS) in the Australian Capital Territory, and facilitated integration in the society.
Hayat Akbari
Asia and Pacific Focal Point
Hayat is a human right advocate. He is now completing a Bachelor in International Law and International Relations and is Youth Advocate for young people and Asylum Seeker and Refugee rights and access to education and employment in the Asia Pacific regions. Hayat has a strong belief in the power of people, especially young people, to change the world. Hayat is the chair of Asia Pacific Refugee Right Network APRRN's Youth working group. Throughout his engagement with APRRN's Youth working group where we work together to make sure refugee and asylum seeker youth are involved in high-level policy and programming discussion, and we want refugee youth voices to be heard.
Elana Wong
Asia and Pacific Focal Point
Born and raised in Malaysia and Singapore, Elana attended the United World College of Southeast Asia. She went on to study a BA Liberal Arts at King’s College London, where she majored in postcolonial literature and development geography, then pursued an MSc Sociology and Global Change at the University of Edinburgh, focusing on the fields of displacement, development, migration, race and conflict. Whilst she was there, she co-founded COLOURS of Edinburgh, a project working to provide a platform for refugees/asylum seekers to share their stories through art and digital media. She now serves on the board, and is currently based in London working as a consultant, as well as serving as a youth representative in the YPO Impact Networks, facilitating impact amongst the YPO community as well as increasing youth representation and engagement.
Ricardo Chica
South America Focal Point
Ricardo graduated as a lawyer from the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and has a Diploma in Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú. He is currently the Legal Coordinator of the Citizen Organization Diálogo Diverso and is an LGBTIQ + activist and Founding President of the first Interuniversity Network of Sex-Generic Diversities of Ecuador. At the end of 2019, I was selected to be part of the Youth Forum that was organized in Ecuador. After the Youth Forum, Ricardo participated within the Global Forum on Migration and Development 2020 as a delegate of the UN MGCY Migration working group where he presented his work in the defense of human rights as the sole representative of civil society in the governmental-led roundtable on Facilitating Economic and Social Inclusion.
Fiore Stella Bran-Aragón
South American Focal Point
Nicaraguan Immigrant, feminist and human rights activist. Master´s Candidate in Latin American Studies with an emphasis on Anthropology and Human Rights at the University of New Mexico, United States. She has a Graduate Diploma in International Migration Studies from El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico. Since 2016 she has worked as a research and project assistant in economic inclusion and education initiatives for migrants in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico and the United States, and has published articles in American and Nicaraguan journals. She is interested in applying ethnographic research and international law studies to the analysis of integration policies for Nicaraguan rural migrants in Costa Rica.
Gracia Silva
South America Focal Point
Gracia is a culture, migration and human rights researcher and activist. Master's Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Cincinnati. After a few years working on projects related to mental health and indigenous medicine, she became interested on the psycho-social impact of forced migration. She has worked in non-profits in Costa Rica and the United States accompanying, translating and assisting migrant population. Gracia developed her MA in Anthropology thesis on Social Trauma and Solidarity networks among Nicaraguan refugees in Costa Rica. She has attended and presented in conferences and forums on culture, migration and human rights in Central America and the United States. Her main interest is to use ethnographic research to enrich the comprehension and management of cultural diversity and international migration.
Rubén Canales
South America Focal Point
Ruben is a student, activist and passionate about migration processes in Latinamerica with special focus in Centralamerica's South-North and South-South migration. He is currently studying his major on International Relations and Integration at the Federal University for Latinamerican Integration in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. He has develop leading positions in the Scout Movement, Empoderando Juventudes, Children Rights Local Council (PANI) and has been a member of Jóvenes Iberoaméricanos, Migration and Refuge National Team of Escoteiros do Brasil, among others. He is Co-fouder of Red de Apoyo al Migrante Nicaraguense, a youth-led initiative in response of the political crisis in Nicaragua, giving orientation and humanitarian responses for young migrants and exiles in Costa Rica.
Laila Soudi
Middle East and North Africa Focal Point
Laila Soudi is the Founder and Lead of Sana Relief, a program at Stanford University School of Medicine focused on health research and implementation in the MENA region. Laila served as a global mental health researcher in the Psychiatry Department at Stanford University School of Medicine, where she worked to better understand the mental health of Syrian child refugees exposed to trauma and torture. Born and raised in MENA, Laila has been working extensively with displaced individuals across the Middle East and Europe. Laila has published about the refugee crisis in different media and has spoken about the neglected role of mental health in humanitarian aid. She holds an undergraduate degree in neuroscience/psychology from UC Berkeley and a graduate degree in global health from UC San Francisco.
Jasmin Lillian Diab
Middle East and North Africa Focal Point
American University of Beirut, Notre Dame University-Louaize and Centre d’Études Diplomatiques et Stratégiques
Jasmin is a Canadian-Lebanese researcher, author, manager and consultant in the areas of Conflict, Migration, Refugee and Gender Studies. She is a Research Associate at the AUB Global Health Institute at the American University of Beirut, and the former Research and Project Manager at the Lebanese Research Center for Migration and Diaspora Studies at Notre Dame University-Louaize. She is a founding member of the 'Migration and International Law in Africa, Middle East and Turkey International Network', a Teaching Fellow in Human Rights at The Human Projects and a Course Instructor and Developer in Gender and Migration at the Fatima Al-Fihri Open University. Jasmin is completing a PhD in International Relations and Diplomacy at the Centre d'Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques in France.
Eleonora Testi
Europe Focal Point
Eleonora is a human rights layer. She started a a tutorship programme addressed to detained university students with the University of Bologne. She graduated in 2017 with a thesis on victim-offender criminal mediation. Eleonora also worked on monitoring the implementation of human rights and antidiscrimination. Her interest in migrations led her to apply to participate to the Civil Service Programme of the Italian government, consequently spending the past year working at the Norwegian Refugee Council’s office in Quito as a legal consultant on migration issues.
Daniel Milhomens
Europe Focal Point
Daniel is a Brazilian, migrant and LGBTTQIA+ activist currently based in Geneva. He holds a Bachelor's degree in International Relations. Curretly, Daniel works as a a researcher, practitioner, and activist of institutions, human rights and humanitarianism governance, and the experience of migration & displacement. His main area interests are in Latin America and MENA migration. He is fluent in Portuguese, English, French, and Castellano laguages.
Camilla Ioli
Europe Focal Point
Camilla is a Law graduate from the University of Bologna and a postgraduate in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies from the University of Oxford. She has researched asylum policies at the Australian National University before starting to work at different stages of asylum procedures in Italy. She got involved into migration through dance, being part of a group of dancers from different parts of the world. She has provided legal aid to prisoners and has been involved in Amnesty International campaigns.
Vladislav Kaim
Europe Focal Point
Born in Moldova, Vladislav completed his bachelor’s degree in International Economics at Moscow State University and is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Economics at Lund University in Sweden. He co-founded SDG International Youth Forum in Russia, and he was also nominated Young European Ambassador by EU Neighbors East. From April 2019 Vladislav has joined UN MGCY, and has been an active member of the Working Group on SDG 8 and Migration. He was part of Youth Working Group by the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth on the UN Youth Climate Summit in September 2019. In April 2020 he also joined the Bottom-lining Team (BLT) of YOUNGO.
Thierno Abdoul Bah
Africa Focal Point
A graduate in international law in Conakry, Thierno Abdoul is the National Director for Guinea of the Global Youth Network based in Ghana and also the COUNTRY / GUINEA rapporteur of the network for government scientific advice based in New Zealand. Through his commitment to the SDGs, he is a member of the African Civil Society Regional Engagement Mechanism through which he participates in the organization of Sessions of the African Regional Forum on Sustainable Development and in the African Union agenda 2030 as part of the preparation of the HLPF. He also leads the UN75 youth initiative for Guinea and West Africa.
Maria José Cisneros
Migration and Health Focal Point
Maria José is a Public and Global Health advocate. She is a medical doctor currently working as medical resident at a public hospital in Ecuador and a Junior Researcher for the Universidad Internacional del Ecuador. Maria Jose has experience working with vulnerable population, indigenous population, LGBTQ+ and women, focusing on climate change, non-communicable diseases, sexual health and reproductive rights. Previously, she was the Former Regional Director for The Americas and Program Director for the Non-communicable Diseases and Healthy Lifestyles program for the International Federation of Medical Student’s Organizations. She is also served as Youth Researcher for the UNESCO CSE and the Digital Space Consultancy.
Alejandro Briones
Labour Migration Focal Point
Alejandro is a researcher and associate professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito. He holds a MSc. in Public Policy from University College London, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Political Science from Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. Currently, he is also the Head of Innovation at TinkuLab. Since 2014, Alejandro has been working on the design and implementation of projects for sustainable development, advising on political, economic, and public administration matters to organizations, governments, non-governmental institutions, and leading consulting firms in America and Europe. He represented UNMGCY during the XII GFMD in Quito in 2020.
Johnny Pereira
Venezuelan Diaspora Focal Point
Johnny has been Focal Point of Protection to Migrant Childhood in the C.E.B.A.F. Peru for Plan International as part of the humanitarian response of international cooperation to Venezuelan migration 2018-19. In the same line, he was part of the technical team for Warmi Huasi Association, which executes a immigration integration project for children and adolescents from Venezuela in Lima – Peru, and he participated in the coordination spaces of the Canada - Migraciones Perú - UNICEF cooperation program. Most recently, he participated in Youth Forum 2020 with the Global Forum on Migration and Development in Ecuador. Currently, Johnny has obtained the Fulbright Venezuelan Diaspora Program Scholarship in Peru and he will carry out an MA in Public Policy focus on international cooperation and migration.
Pablo Gómez-Escolar
Human Rights and Protection of Migrants Focal Point
Pablo holds a Bachelor's degree in Law from the University of Valencia and a European Master's Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation from the Global Campus of Human Rights. He has experience in policy advocacy, campaigning and research, both with NGOs and IGOs. So far, he has focused particularly on the fields of migration and asylum, peacebuilding and children's rights, having worked on those issues in the European and Latin American contexts. Currently, Pablo is specializing in Management of Development Cooperation Projects and is collaborating with the International Detention Coalition on a research on the impacts of Covid-19 on migrants and refugees.
Chiara Scissa
Human Rights and Protection of Migrants Focal Point
Chiara Scissa holds a Master with honours in International Cooperation and Protection of Human Rights from the University of Bologna. She collaborated with the Global Campus of Human Rights (Venice) and the University Milano-Bicocca in the field of human rights, asylum and immigration detention, and vulnerability at sea. Currently, she is involved in the development of research projects on sustainable development, refugee and forced migration issues in collaboration with the University of Bologna. Recently, she has joined UNMGCY as Human Rights and Protection of Migrants Focal Point.
Daniela Salazar Herrera
Labour Migration Focal Point
Daniella is the thematic focal point for the labour migration/changing employment landscape stream for this year. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Human Rights from Trinity College (Hartford, CT, USA) and is undertaking an MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge. Previously, Daniella has worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in poverty reduction, strengthening rural community organisations, climate change and poverty nexus, and social protection projects, focused on the fisheries sector. Her experience with migration lies particularly on rural-to-urban migration and climate migration.
Ranim Asfahani
Education and Migration Focal Point
Ranim holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in Psychological Counselling and a master’s degree from the University of Edinburgh in Childhood Studies. Ranim has six years of experience in children-related positions, and she was a volunteer to support children's rights in Damascus. In 2016, Ranim was selected by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations to participate in the Global Youth Forum in Azerbaijan as a leader working in children and young people’s sector in Syria. Currently, Ranim is a mentor in a mentoring program with King’s College London, and she has also joined an organization working with migrants families in the UK.
Anjuli Moll
Human Trafficking and Child Detention Focal Point
Anjuli is currently studying the Erasmus Mundus Masters in Migration and Intercultural Relations, also studied International Relation in Bachelors and achieved a First Class Honours. She is currently interning at CCARTH UK which focuses on Human trafficking. She has experience working and studying in Germany, Norway, France, Italy, UK, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Uganda. Having been born in Bangalore, then moving later to Delhi, like her own background she has been raised in both the UK and India which sparked her interest in International Development in particular migration. Anjuli has a clear focus on human trafficking and she is writing her master’s thesis on the reintegration programmes of trafficking victims in Ethiopia.
Alonso De Ita
Social and Economic Integration Focal Point
Alonso is a research fellow of the BUAP-CA-2030 migration project of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. As a collaborative work he has mapped Mexico’s State Offices of Migrant Assistance, State Migration Law and Specialized Prosecutors. He has also made a public policy proposal on a “National Migration System” presented at the 2019 Migration Congress of the National Human Rights Comission of Mexico. Alonso also collaborated with the“Instituto Poblano de Asistencia al Migrante” as migration governance analyst. He is also working on a social economy project as a part of “Todos Somos Uno” a youth-led civil society organization.
Fernando Damazio
SOGIESC Focal Point
Sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics thematic focal point position is held by Fernando. He is a participant in Malmö, Sweden of the international project Not Alone in Europe, coordinated by RFSL Ungdom and funded by the Council of Europe. In Brazil, he coordinated projects of labour market integration of vulnerable immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers at IMDH. For the last four years, Fernando has worked in different NGOs and International Organizations. Currently, he is pursuing an MSc in International Development and Management at Lund University, Sweden. He is a scholar of the Swedish Institute Scholarship for Global Professionals (SISGP) and a member of the SI Network for Future Global Leaders.
Kyle Heitmann
Climate Change Focal Point
Kyle Heitmann is a human rights lawyer most recently based in Cologne, Germany. He is specialized in international environmental and international migration law. His J.D. is from Santa Clara University in California, and he subsequently earned an LL.M. from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He has lived and worked in Costa Rica and contributed substantially to a brief filed before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission regarding a development project in rural Belize. He worked with Latin-American migrants in Phoenix and San Francisco, and relatedly, he co-authored a policy memorandum examining the legal means by which the State of California could protect its DACA-recipient residents’ work authorization.
Alexandra Muntean
Youth Community Engagement
As a young migrant herself, Alexandra advocates for the rights of young migrants in her community. Through her work with UNICEF Youth, she fights to put a stop to discrimination through campaigns to combat xenophobia. Alexandra has also acted as a spokesperson for the rights of young migrants at the GFMD in Ecuador, in Morocco in the negotiations for the Global Compact on Migration and at various Youth Forums around the world. She is also a member of the Association for Liberty and Gender Equality and board member of the Youth Press in her region. She has a BA in Social Sciences from the University of Stuttgart and currently doing her master’s in Communication Management.
Manuela Ramos
Campaign and Communication
Manuela is a youth communicator passionate about the intersection of migration and local participation. She has been working locally and internationally, delivering communications for advocacy initiative in cooperation with Non-for-profit organisations in Greece, Denmark, Serbia and Peru. Through her work at the UN SDG Action Campaign, she gained experience in transforming local action into global impact. She was also part of the communication and coordination team of the SDG Global Festival of Action 2019. Aiming to become a voice for migration issues, Manuela is currently studying a Master's in International Development and Communication at Roskilde University, Denmark.