Fund Team
Get to know the Global Statelessness Fund team.
Fund Manager
The Fund Manager oversees the work of the Global Statelessness Fund. They work with the Steering Group of the Fund to develop and facilitate participatory grantmaking and governance structures in a way that challenges traditional models of funding and facilitates impacted-person leadership. The Fund Manager coordinates the grantmaking process, ensures tailored follow-up with grantees by the Fund team, and supports the development and implementation of the accompaniment and peer learning program. The Fund Manager ensures the operational success of the Fund, with oversight of the Fund’s budget and financial management processes, policies and procedures (including safeguarding and risk management), monitoring, evaluation & learning, and supervision of the Fund team.
Sabine Larribeau is the Fund Manager. She has worked with refugees and stateless people for 20 years in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Southwest Asia and North Africa. In various roles, Sabine has worked extensively alongside displaced people to coordinate with, develop capacity, and resource organizations and initiatives led by impacted people. Working alongside leaders with lived experience of displacement, Sabine has conducted assessments and evaluations, implemented legal and psychosocial programming, and facilitated training that advances the rights of refugee and stateless communities. Currently based in Thailand, Sabine sits on the Steering Committee of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, where she chairs the Legal Aid & Advocacy Working Group.
Program Officer
The Program Officer provides administrative and operational capacity to facilitate the governance of the Fund, participatory grantmaking processes and coordination with grantees, and related Fund programming. The Program Officer supports the operations and programming of the Fund, including by implementing detailed and organised grant management and organisational systems, through developing needed policies, procedures and tools, and by implementing monitoring, evaluation & learning activities. They design and implement the communications of the Fund, implementing an effective communications strategy for the Fund that amplifies the work of grantees and raises awareness of statelessness within the philanthropic community.
Elif Yararbaş is the Program Officer at the Global Statelessness Fund. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Boğaziçi University and an LLM in International Migration and Refugee Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights. Her work has been in projects addressing refugee inclusion, legal research and advocacy, and discrimination and hate speech in the media. She played an integral role in developing a technology-driven legal empowerment platform for refugees, stateless people, and their legal advocates. Elif is from and based in Istanbul, Turkey.
Accompaniment Program Officer
The Accompaniment Program Officer is a core member of the Accompaniment Team of the Fund and holds a caseload of approximately 15 grantee partners, serving as their accompaniment “buddy” to strengthen organizational and leadership development through one-to-one support, guidance, and solidarity. The Accompaniment Program Officer contributes to the implementation and improvement of all accompaniment program components, including the learning program and specialised support partnerships. They also support the implementation of the MEL framework, including data collection and internal documentation processes.
Dhalia Alayassa is the Accompaniment Program officer at the Global Statelessness Fund. Her background is in Human Rights and International Law with an MA in Politics, Development and the Global South from Goldsmiths University of London. Her research focuses on surveillance and forms of invisible colonial violence. Previously, Dhalia has worked with Palestinian refugees across Palestine and Lebanon, campaigning for their political and human rights, in addition to working in policy, public diplomacy, and advocacy aimed at advancing the Palestinian cause internationally. Dhalia has initiated youth capacity-building projects and others featuring Palestinian women.
Technical Advisor
The Technical Advisor provides technical assistance and guidance to the Fund team, in areas of participatory grantmaking, lived experience leadership, community engagement and the statelessness ecosystem. The Technical Advisor provides one-to-one mentoring support for the Fund Manager, holding regular meetings with the Fund Manager to support in the development of their capacity, and to provide insight into opportunities and challenges in implementing the Fund. They also provide review and feedback to Fund policies, procedures, tools and strategy.
Hafsar Tameesuddin is a Technical Advisor for the Global Statelessness Fund. Hafsar is a social worker, human rights defender and Rohingya activist. They advocate for the rights of refugees, LGBTQI+ communities, statelessness, gender equality, prevention and response to sexual and gender based violence, and ending child marriages. Hafsar has more than a decade of experience working with refugee communities, INGOs, and NGOs. They are an advisory member of the Global Movement of Statelessness and served as an interim Advisory member of the UNHCR Advisory Group. Hafsar’s expertise, informed by their lived experience, includes understanding the ground realities of challenges faced by refugees, stateless, and LGBTQ+ communities. They are a passionate advocate for shifting power to lead towards systemic change.
The Global Statelessness Fund is an initiative co-created by stateless people, civil society organizations, and donors. We believe that the most effective responses to statelessness are those led by people with lived experience. The Fund seeks to strengthen the individual and collective action of stateless people and their partners through participatory, flexible, and transformative grantmaking.
We are seeking to build new relationships with those in the philanthropic sector. If you are interested in partnering with the Global Statelessness Fund, please get in touch with us at [email protected].