Last year LEPRA Health in Action recruited two new Programme Officers to help manage their overseas programmes in Africa and Asia.

Programmes Officer for Asia

Raja Ahmad has been working for LEPRA Health in Action since mid-April 2008 as their Programmes Officer for the Asia Region.

His academic background and professional experience are in international development.  Over the past seven years he has worked with international relief and development organisations such as Oxfam, Tearfund and Islamic Relief Worldwide in Pakistan, Sudan, Malawi and Sri Lanka. He has gained two masters degrees. One in economics and the other in project management and planning specifically related to health projects at the Bradford Centre for International Development.

He is currently working within the Asia Team, which has responsibility for India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Raja is excited at the prospect of working with persons with disabilities due to leprosy.

Raja is highly motivated to work for those who need assistance most and feels passionate about working for LEPRA Health in Action.

Raja Ahmad
E-mail: raja@leprahealthinaction.org

 

Programmes Officer for Africa

At the end of July 2008 Fiona took up the role of Africa Programmes Officer for LEPRA Health in Action. Her main focus is to support their programme in Mozambique and make it as cost-efficient and effective as possible, as well as providing monitoring and evaluation support and reporting to donors. Fiona keeps up-to-date with current issues so as to be in a position to propose new areas in which LEPRA could provide assistance. At the current time, she is also trying to develop and expand LEPRA’s work in Malawi, where LEPRA has been active since the nineteen-sixties.

Fiona Cook
Photo ©
LEPRA Health in Action

As well as working with the Programmes Team Fiona also gets involved with LEPRA’s fundraising and communications activities and has recently enjoyed participating in LEPRA’s strategy review.

After graduating with a degree in law from Bristol University, Fiona worked as Vice-President for Welfare of the Students’ Union, representing and advocating on behalf of vulnerable students. She then returned to France, where she had spent a year whilst studying for her degree, to teach English law at the University of Bordeaux for two years. Whilst in Bordeaux she began volunteering at a drop-in centre for asylum seekers and immigrants. Her volunteering experience provided the inspiration to obtain more experience in rights and development issues. She did an internship for a medical non-governmental organisation in Burkina Faso as also in Paris for the French Human Rights League. Having completed a master’s degree in international humanitarian law and human rights, Fiona worked with the United Nations Refugee Agency in Nairobi for six months. She had been working as a fundraising officer for two small UK-based non-governmental organisations that support vulnerable children in Africa, Asia and South America, including those on the street, before the opportunity at LEPRA came up. 

Fiona says: “I am passionate about our work and commitment to helping the most vulnerable and stigmatized to access quality health services.” She loves Africa and her main aspiration is to help expand LEPRA’s work on that continent.

Fiona Cook
E-mail: fionac@leprahealthinaction.org  

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