Maëlys supports ICRD as a Program Assistant by employing her language skills in French, Spanish, and Arabic as well as her research experience. She supports three programs. One is funded by USAID in Chad and Cameroon and focuses on researching civic values in informal education to foster resilience to violence in youths. Other programs focus on capacity-building efforts to support the in-community rehabilitation and reintegration (R&R) of Maldivian women and children returning from Syria and Iraq, and most recently, she is also engaged in a program in Mali, focused on gender dynamics and violent extremism. More specifically, it seeks to build the capacity of Malian women to prevent and counter violent extremism across the country through community-based projects.

She supports proposal writing in francophone Africa, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and other areas as needed on subjects of violence prevention, communal resilience, and marginalized population leadership and capacity building. Having completed her Master’s in the last year at King’s College London, her research experience spanned the subjects of peace agreements in deeply divided societies, the theories of state failure and state building, and a specialization in the role of international law in peace and security. She graduated with Merit last August.

Maëlys is always seeking to connect to new people and organizations with the goal of building bridges in the greater peacebuilding network!