Following the huge successes from our previous three career sessions on research and development, entrepreneurship and creative arts with speakers ranging from research scholars, law firm founder, and former actress, we are organising our 4th career session on international development and humanitarian assistance.
The virtual session will be on Zoom on Monday 27th June at 2pm (British Summer Time) and we have invited a range of speakers from different professional and geographical backgrounds:
Abigail Maristela from the International Organization for Migration at Washington DC Office, United Nations Migration Agency
Chinwe Oguamanam, Humanitarian Hub Manager at Global Diaspora Confederation; and
Jane Qin, PhD candidate at Department of Land Economy at University of Cambridge and former intern at UNDP Turkey
The session will be particularly helpful for students, graduates and postgraduates from all backgrounds who are looking to start a career in international development and humanitarian assistance. There will be a Q&A session.
Abigail Maristela, Project Coordinator at International Organization for Migration (IOM), UN Migration Agency
Abigail is an undergraduate in the US studying Psychology and Sociology, Abigail studied abroad in South Africa on a service learning semester where she worked at the Cape Town Refugee Centre. After graduating from undergrad, Abigail worked at Legal Aid of North Carolina's Battered Immigrant Project (a nonprofit Law Center) where she assisted attorneys in specific nonimmigrant legal applications. This work was done as a part of a year of service with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. From there, Abigail noticed that she wanted to make changes on a large scale to fix or create systems and studied Macro Social Work at Boston College with a Global Focus and certification on migrants and refugees. While here, she was a consultant for the African Bridge Network and an editor of my program's Immigrant Integration Lab. As a part of my studies, she had two field placements: one as a Community Outreach Specialist at a Domestic Violence Organization in Massachusetts and a second at the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) in Brussels, Belgium. While at ICMC she worked on a variety of projects from building a pathway to integrate survivors of trafficking in the European Union to a Migration and Development project in West Africa with a focus on regional migration, labor migration and protection, and maximizing diaspora contributions. I am now with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) coordinating two projects on diaspora engagement in humanitarian assistance and have created a Framework to streamline engagement between diaspora and humanitarian actors for more effective humanitarian assistance to affected communities.
Chinwe Oguamanam, Humanitarian Hub Manager at Global Diaspora Confederation (GDC)
Chinwe is an international development professional and programme management specialist with more than 10 year’s experience working in the non-profit sector in Nigeria and Scotland. Over the years, Chinwe has worked with different international organisation engaging with non-profits, private sector and the government. All these were geared towards improving the quality of life for the target groups and mitigating poverty. She is currently the project manager for the GDC Diaspora Engagement in Humanitarian Assistance project focused on engaging and providing a humanitarian hub to support Diaspora Organisations globally through a platform that unites these organisations for learning, skill share, networking, and development. Chinwe holds a master’s degree in Development Management and is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI).
Jane Qin, PhD candidate at the Department of Land Economy at Cambridge and former intern at UNDP
Jane shifted from financial law to environmental law, her current research focuses on the evolution of environmental law from a comparative perspective. Before coming to the UK, Jane worked for the Supreme Court of China and the United Nations Development Programme in Turkey, She has interned at UNDP for 9 months, worked for SDGs through sustainable business practices. Business Call to Action is the main office she worked with. She also worked for Client Earth and Latham Watkins in London in addition to her short intern experiences in law firms and international corporations. in March 2022, WHO delivered an online lecture series with partners from CEENRG, CSAP and CISDL aimed at inspiring the current and future leaders to help and find sustainable ways to support open, inclusive globalization. She participated in the event online, as a member of CEENRG, asked how international cooperation mechanisms can be strengthened, identified the need for stronger international health instruments such as global treaty.