IVCO 2022 Speaker Spotlight Series – See You in Senegal
With only 2 weeks away from IVCO 2022, our Spotlight Series continues to present you with a lineup of international speakers whom you can meet at this year’s conference in Senegal. Today, we are proudly introducing the following five IVCO 2022 speakers, including:
- Rebecca Tiessen
- Alok Rath
- Devotha Mlay
- Matt Baillie Smith
- Rebecca Boon
Meet the other speakers
Rebecca Tiessen – the University of Ottawa
Rebecca Tiessen is a Professor in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. She has been engaged in scholarly and practical research on volunteering for development (V4D) for more than 20 years. She is the lead editor on two important collections on the role and impact of international volunteering from the perspective of Global South partners including Insights on International Volunteering: Perspectives from the Global South (2018) and Innovations in Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Understanding the Role of International Development Volunteers as Transnational Actors (2021) – see Voluntaris Journal.
Rebecca Tiessen will speak at ‘THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND VOLUNTEERING IN DEVELOPMENT’ session on Monday, 17 October, 2:00-3:00 PM
Alok Rath – Voluntary Service Overseas
Dr. Alok Rath is an international development professional with over twenty-seven years work experience in Asia, Africa and the UK. An avid practitioner in volunteering for development as a sustainable and effective development methodology, Dr. Alok has worked with international development organisations such as Save the Children, Action Aid and currently with VSO. Having started his career in a volunteering capacity, Dr. Alok champions volunteering in a blended form. In his current role, Dr. Rath leads research, evaluation, and knowledge generation in VSO’s programmes in health, education, and livelihoods, putting people at the centre of evidence and learning processes. He has been a ‘Lead Discussant’ on the role of volunteering in SDGs achievement at UN’s first HLPF on SDGs in 2016, a speaker at Africa Union’s youth engagement on SDGs in Kampala in 2017 and was a speaker at the UNV’s Volunteering Conclave in India in 2019. He has contributed papers on volunteering for IVCO 2017 and 2018. Dr. Rath is an M.A, M.Phil, and Ph.D. in Anthropology. He has authored/co-authored several research papers on different areas of social science and development in his career.
Alok Rath will speak at the ‘BEYOND NEW VOLUNTEER MODALITIES’ session, Tuesday, 18 October, 9:30-10:30 AM.
Devotha Mlay – Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative
Devotha oversees the strategic direction of Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative (GLAMI), is an NGO in northern Tanzania which mentors girls to stay in school, become leaders and take transformative action for themselves and in their communities. In the organisation, she also works to forge partnerships and promote stakeholder engagement across various sectors including at multiple levels of government, and ensures GLAMI’s curricula remain up-to-date and evidence-based.
Devotha’s work has given her an in-depth understanding of the challenges that young girls in Tanzania are facing, particularly those barriers which hinder their performance in school, and negatively impact retention rates, as well as transition rates between levels of education. She favours a rights-based approach to mentoring and education, and is passionate about supporting girls with the information, skills and opportunities they need to write their own futures.
Devotha has a Bachelor’s degree in Language Studies from the University of Dar es Salaam and is currently undertaking an MBA through ESAMI (East and Southern African Management Institute.)
Devotha Mlay will speak at THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND VOLUNTEERING IN DEVELOPMENT session on Monday, 17 October, 2:00-3:00 PM
Matt Baillie Smith – Refugee Youth Volunteering Uganda
Matt is an interdisciplinary global development academic, with particular interests in the relationships between civil society, citizenship and development. His work focuses on volunteering in humanitarian and development settings, young people as development actors and environmental citizenship. He is the Principal Investigator of Refugee Youth Volunteering Uganda (www.ryvu.org), an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project exploring volunteering by young displaced people in Uganda and its impacts on their skills and employability and experiences of inequality. He is also co-lead of Volunteering Together, a collaborative research project with VSO on the ways different volunteers work together in Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda; and leads work on young people and climate change for the UKRI/GCRF Living Deltas Hub (www.livingdeltas.org), an interdisciplinary research hub working to support more sustainable futures for deltas in South and South East Asia. Matt is Northumbria lead of the Capabilities and Academic Policy Engagement project (www.cape.ac.uk) and a Co-Investigator of InsightsNE (www.insightsnortheast.co.uk) which is exploring ways to connect academics and policymakers better. Matt previously worked for a development NGO and continues to work in partnership with a range of national and global development organisations. This work includes co-designing and delivering research projects, acting as a critical friend to organisations and working to help build research and data collection and analysis capacity within development organisations and the groups they engage with. At Northumbria, Matt is co-director of the Centre for International Development (www.northumbria.ac.uk/cid) and director of the Global Development Futures initiative.
Matt Baillie Smith will speak at the ‘VOLUNTEERING BY AND FOR MIGRANTS, REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS’ session on Tuesday, 18 October, 4:00-5:00 PM.
Rebecca Boon – Singapore International Foundation
Rebecca Boon is Head of Volunteer Cooperation at the Singapore International Foundation, a non-profit organisation, with a mission is focused on connecting Singaporeans with world communities for a better world.
In her role, Rebecca leads the team responsible for delivering Volunteer Cooperation programmes that contribute to positive and sustainable development in Asia, while fostering greater intercultural understanding. As part of the SIF’s management team, she plays an integral role in helping to steer the Foundation in fulfilling its mission of enhancing mutual understanding and strengthening ties in line with the SIF’s vision of “Making Friends for a Better World”. Prior to the SIF, Rebecca spent more than a decade in the humanitarian aid and development sector with UN and INGO agencies. During her time with the World Vision Asia Pacific Regional Office in Singapore and UNICEF Supply Division in Denmark, she enjoyed being in the thick of the action from coordinating and managing relief responses, designing relief programmes to building local capacity in disaster management. A firm believer in Disaster Risk Reduction, she developed preparedness plans to help communities better mitigate and respond to natural disasters in the Asia Pacific.
Rebecca Boon will speak at ‘THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON VOLUNTEERISM’ session on Tuesday, 18 October, 4:00-5:00 PM