The Center is pleased to welcome three new fellows to our policy initiatives team and two new recipients of the UNICEF/Harvard School of Public Health G. Barrie Landry Fellowship. Below find a brief introduction to each.
Maneli Aghakhan
Maneli Aghakhan is a child protection specialist and head of the Child Protection Unit at UNICEF Iran. In recent years her work has focused on prevention of violence against children, justice for children, and partnership building with government, civil society, and academic institutions to address juvenile justice, child labor, alternative care for children without caregivers, and child protection in emergencies. She has worked in development and emergency contexts and has contributed to development of the āNational Standards for Child Protection in Emergenciesā in Iran (2010). Agakhan holds a doctorate in medical laboratory sciences.
Tanya Jones
Tanya Jones will be an FXB Fellow through Summer 2016. A doctoral candidate at UC Berkley, Tanya has been engaged in international health as a development practitioner, a scholar, and a philanthropist. As a portfolio manager at the Barr Foundation, she led the community health portfolio in East Africa, and was instrumental in developing innovative programs to improve public health. She has also worked with Pathfinder International, the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, and the Population Council in Ghana on issues of human rights and development. She holds advanced degrees in sociology and public policy from Princeton University and UC Berkley, and has extensive field experience in Ghana. While at Harvard FXB, Jones will be consulting on projects to improve maternal health and as well as her own research and writing about the institutionalization of national health policies aimed at increasing access to health care in rural Ghana.
Allan Maleche
Allan Maleche will be an FXB Fellow from September to December 2015. As a human rights lawyer and executive director of KELIN, a human rights organization that works to protect and promote human rights related to HIV in East Africa, Maleche has achieved notable successes in using the law to shape health policy in Kenya and to help Kenyans realize the right to health through education, litigation, and advocacy. Under Maleche’s leadership, KELIN recently brought a case challenging the forced and coerced sterilization of HIV+ pregnant women to the Kenyan High Court. While at Harvard FXB, Allan will be working with Alicia Ely Yamin, director of policy initiatives, on a case study of the impact of a Colombian Constitutional Court decision on that country’s health care system, as well on as a NORAD funded project, āOperationalizing the Right to Health in Health Service Delivery.ā
Ketevan Melikadze
Ketevan Melikadze is a social welfare officer at UNICEF Georgia. Her work mainly centers on supporting the government to develop systems and services to protect the most vulnerable children, namely, those with disabilities, child victims of violence, children under state care, and children living and working on the streets. Melikadze has worked as a policy analyst and consultant in education, health, and other social fields; managed an NGO working with children with disabilities; and lectured and tutored students and professionals in public policy and policy analysis.