Team

Genevieve Walsh first visited Pakistan in 2007 to explore some of the most remote regions of northern Pakistan, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and eventually Afghanistan. Formerly a girls’ high school teacher in southern Africa and South America, and accustomed to traveling and living in rugged mountain terrain, Genevieve was quickly drawn to what became her life’s work: increasing access to education for all girls, especially those living in the challenging, mountainous regions of northern Pakistan.

Genevieve spent four years conducting her doctoral research to better understand what led to Pakistan’s second highest out-of-school children rate in the world, and what could be done about it. She completed her Doctorate in Education, and founded a progressive international non-governmental organization (INGO) model that partners directly with local community leaders and local governments to establish high quality sustainable school systems. Genevieve and her local Balti team launched Iqra Fund in 2011 and have spent over a decade celebrating its successes. Iqra Fund has established 16 schools in northern Pakistan for the first generation of girls (and boys), with 100% enrollment for girls in each village.

Iqra Fund is now supporting its first university graduates returning to their home villages to start careers in village-based medicine and education. Genevieve continues to research the global and regional geopolitical, economic, and environmental outcomes from educating girls, and believes that Iqra Fund’s 5,000 students to-date are part of a generation that will change the future for Pakistan. Genevieve leads Iqra Fund from her home office in Nevada, with her two children and a Balti-inspired backyard farm with goats and chickens. She travels frequently to Pakistan to support the organization as they scale their reach in the months and years to come.

Ana Bjelogrlic Canning serves as Iqra Fund’s Chief Strategy Officer. In this role she oversees the development and implementation of Iqra Fund’s 2022-2025 strategic plan, with a specific focus on stewarding growth, deepening impact, and establishing and managing strategic partnerships with donors, programmatic partners and the Board of Directors.

She brings to the organization 18+ years of experience in project management and nonprofit fundraising, strategy and program design and implementation. Prior to joining Iqra Fund, she worked as a consultant and/or employee for organizations large and small including Save the Children, Malala Fund, VOW for Girls, and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. She is also the creator and CEO of the Jigsaw Collective DC – a referral-only community of independent contractors and freelance experts serving the nonprofit sector.

Ana has worked on a variety of issue areas throughout her career and is deeply passionate about global development and the empowerment of women and youth. She is driven and  inspired by people and organizations that bring bold ideas to life.

Ana studied English and Communications at the University of Maryland and International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington DC. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband and three young sons.

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Christopher “CJ” Carter was raised in the mountains of Montana but has been part of the Iqra Fund planning and digital storytelling team since 2018. Having served organizations including the United Nations University, the National Science Foundation, MEOPAR Canada, Commission on Environmental Cooperation, the Blackfeet Nation and Mica Group he has extensive experience in regional systems planning, project management and development communications. With partners he has produced award-winning documentary films, plans and research all focused on the future of healthy Tribal and headwaters regions. He has served United Nations working groups on disaster risk resilience and climate adaptation since 2014, and supported the establishment of a Loss and Damage mechanism in the Paris climate agreement across 7 years of climate negotiations.

Dedicated to improving kinship between muslim and western societies he has volunteered with rural development and environmental projects across Central and South Asia, and North Africa, since 2008 and studied classical and modern standard Arabic since 2011. As a planner he is dedicated to values-focused thinking and strength-based approaches while honoring cultural protocols. He is honored to join as a member of the Iqra team in Baltistan and the US, and to serve families and the future of this important mountain region.

Christopher holds a Masters of Science in regional planning from the University of British Columbia, professional licenses in urban and regional planning and integrated flood risk management, and an executive finance certificate from Oxford University.

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Ghulam Muhammad has been with Iqra Fund since 2012 and is responsible for cultivating and maintaining our relationships with stakeholders in the Baltistan area. This includes leading partnerships with local community organizations and with the Ministry of Education.

Having worked with various local and international groups, including the Baltistan Wildlife Conservation and Development Organization, Aga Khan Rural Support Program and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, GM has extensive experience in community mobilization and development. He has spent more than two decades working with community leaders to protect snow leopards, as well as promoting education for children.

GM holds a Master of Science in Sociology from AIOU, a Master of Political Science from Karakoram International University, has studied courses in Environment and Sustainable Development from the University of Oslo, and participated in a course for a ‘Young Muslim Leaders Program’ at Cambridge England in 2009, representing Pakistan. He also serves on the board of directors of the Gilgit-Baltistan Rural Support Program and Bushra Inspire Initiative.

As a native of Baltistan, he is well-suited to implement Iqra Fund's mission there.

Mr.Bashir Ahmed has recently re-joined Iqra Fund as Director of Programs. He hasrich experiences of working in the field of education in different capacities. Previouslyhe has worked as Regional Academic Coordinator at Ismaili Tariqah and ReligiousEducation Board for Pakistan ITREB’P and as Professional Development Teacher(PDT) at Professional Development Centre North (PDCN) Gilgit-Baltistan. He hasbeen a validated Trainer for British Council. He has also worked as MasterTrainer at Developments in Literacy DIL and Senior Teacher Educator at MountainInstitute for Educational Development (MIED). He has also worked as HeadTeacher and Teacher at Aga Khan Education Service Pakistan AKES’P.

EducationalBackground: He has done his Masterof Education M.Ed. from Aga Khan University Institute of EducationalDevelopment AKU-IED and also holds Masters of Science MSc Degree from KarakuramInternational University KIU Gilgit-Baltistan. Prior to this, he has pursued anAdvanced Diploma in Education, Educational Leadership and Management fromAKU-IED and Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) from Notre Dame Institute ofEducation NDIE. Above all, he has also attended many short and longprofessional development courses.

Experience in Education Sector: He has been developing short-term andlong-term program goals and develop strategies to achieve those goals. He hasalso privileged to develop partnership and linkages with Government agenciesand non-government organizations and community institutions. He has conducted/managedand lead more than 120 training programs and trained more than 3000 teachers ofprimary level, middle level and high level of private and government sector.

In addition, He has also conducted series oftraining programs for Community Based Education Societies CBES, VillageEducation Committees VECs, School Management Committees SMCs, Teachers, HeadTeachers, Teacher Educators, Learning Coordinators, Master trainers during hisemployment at Aga Khan Education Services Pakistan (AKESP), Mountain Institutefor Educational Development (MIED), Developments in Literacy (DIL), Aga KhanUniversity Professional Development North (AKU-PDCN), Iqra Fund Pakistan andITREB’P in four provinces of Pakistan. His emphasis has been to enroll maximumchildren especially girls in the school. Gender development in order to womenempowerment remained his favorite subject from the very beginning of my professionalcareer stepped in Aga Khan Education Services, Pakistan as a teacher.

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One of our first staff members, Pervez Sajjad joined Iqra Fund in 2011 as a volunteer, and became our director of operations in mid-2012, bringing a passion for girls education and community development, as well as experience in both public and nonprofit organizations.

Pervez serves the organization in a key leadership role, overseeing our Pakistan-based operations, finances, organizational development, strategic partnerships and in-country fundraising strategy.

He represents Iqra Fund at external meetings and leads the process of building, maintaining and strengthening relationships with stakeholders including the federal, provincial and district governments, private donors, NGOs and communities. He also assists the CEO and board in policy making and maintaining our international nonprofit status in Pakistan.

Prior to joining Iqra Fund, he worked at the Pakistan Red Crescent Society’s national headquarters as an IT management specialist, and at Netsolace, Ovex Technologies and Endpoint Technologies as a Technical Support Engineer. He has volunteered for local community and student-based organizations in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Pervez has a master's in Project Management from SZABIST University and a postgraduate degree in Computer Sciences and Management from Iqra University.

Kamal Uddin serves Iqra Fund as a Project Director. In this leadership role he oversees the Infrastructure andOperational Scale-Up of the Projects and Programs. He brings to the organization 20+years of experience in strategic planning, leadership management, organizational development, project management, programd evelopment, managing operations, human resource management, MEAL & outreach communication, networking, partnerships and resource mobilization. He has colossal knowledge of the project management nine knowledge areas (i.e., scope, time, quality, procurement, risk, communications, stakeholder management & project integration)and excellent hands-on experience ofproject life cycle (designing, planning, execution, monitoring/controlling and closeout).

Prior to joining Iqra Fundhe served as the CEO of the Mehnaz Fatima Foundation and Karakoram AreaDevelopment Organization (KADO), and also served Hashoo Foundation in the capacity of Program Manager, Value Chain Specialist and Coordinator FSL.

Being a social development practitioner, Kamal has served various development organizations in Pakistan with diverse communities in different social & economic environments.However, undergoing the various processes has helped him to become an outbox thinker, committed team player and result oriented individual.

Kamal has done double Masters in Business Administration& Project Management from PIMSAT Karachi and COMSATs Islamabad and also attended one year Leadership & Management Program from the LahoreUniversity Management Science (LUMS) & McGill University Canada.

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Saleem Abbas does finance, budgeting and administration for Iqra Fund’s Pakistan office. He holds a Masters of Business Administration from COMSATS University in Islamabad, and he previously worked with the Aga Khan Rural Support Program.

Saleem believes in mobilizing and working with local communities to help them realize the importance of girls' education, and how it benefits families as well as entire communities. He believes Iqra Fund is designed perfectly to achieve this goal.

Naila Atiqa has managed relationships with residents of our participating communities since 2014. Working with female students and Mother Support Groups, she facilitates capacity building sessions, assists scholarship students, helps motivate parents to send their children to school, and prepares case studies about our students and teachers.

Prior to joining Iqra Fund, she spent three years with another NGO in Skardu, Pakistan, establishing women’s organizations and setting up awareness sessions about health, hygiene and rural women’s education.

Naila has a Bachelor of Science from Karachi University, a Bachelor of Education from AIOU Karachi, and a Master of Science in Gender and Women’s Development from AIOU. She dreams of a day when no girl is be out of school because of poverty or lack of awareness.  

Nureen Fizza began her journey with Iqra Fund as a scholarship student in 2012. Inspired by her eldest sister who was the first girl from their village to be accepted into high school, Nureen passionately pursued her educational dreams to become a chemistry teacher in order to help future generations of girls just like her.

Since then, she has graduated with a Bachelor of Science and has become a field officer for Iqra Fund in the Hushe Valley. In her position, Nureen supervises the distribution of supplies, tracks teacher attendance data, maintains transparent accounting of all expenses, and follows up with scholarship students. In addition to her officer duties, Nureen has also been working as a volunteer teacher in Mashabrum Public School in Hushe for the last year.

Muhammad Shehzad joined Iqra Fund in April 2017. He works to improve educational quality through monitoring, evaluation, accountability and professional teacher development, and by convincing parents and communities to send their children, particularly daughters, to school.

He has similar professional experience at Y Care International, where he worked at the main office in London. He has also worked with a number of international NGOs including World Vision International, Handicap International and Aga Khan Rural Support Programs. Muhammed has a Bachelor of Science in Development Studies, a Bachelor of Education and a Master of Project Management.

During his time at Iqra Fund, he has become a master teacher trainer for the British Council, and has managed a USAID project under the Small Grants Ambassador Program.

Tariq Hassan is an economics graduate with nine years of experience in accounting, tax preparation, auditing and corporate affairs. He has worked in finance and business management in both the public and private sectors, and is a certified advisor for Quickbooks and Xero cloud accounting software.

Tariq Hassan joined Iqra Fund in 2017, with a passion to promote girls education.

Muhammad Hassan has been with Iqra Fund since 2017, and works as a field officer in the Basha and Basho valleys. He was principal of a primary school for two years and spent five years as a teacher in Skardu, Pakistan.

Hassan works to build relationships with communities, Ministry of Education officials, teachers and other stakeholders; works closely with the Village Education Committees in our partner communities; and facilitates data collection from our schools. He also supervises school supply distribution, teacher trainings and attendance, and ensures transparent accounting for all monthly expenses.

He holds a master’s in Botany from Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science And Technology Karachi, and believes in mobilizing and working with local communities to help them realize the importance of girls' education, and how it benefits families as well as entire communities.

Mehdi Ali joined Iqra Fund as a finance assistant in 2019. Working out of the office in Skardu, his responsibilities include maintaining the financial books, visiting schools and community areas to ensure accountability during supply distribution, preparing monthly financial reports, and supporting in-country staff to conduct annual audits.

Mehdi has a master’s in Business Administration from NUML Islamabad and two years of experience in the Water and Sanitation Extension Program at Skardu.

Amna Zafar has an academic background in social sciences and experience working in the development sector with national NGOs in Pakistan. She holds a Bachelor of Science with Honors in Social Sciences from SZABIST University.

Amna joined Iqra Fund in 2016, bringing a passion for eradicating the education crisis in Pakistan and for promoting women’s empowerment. She works closely with our country director and CEO to support our grant writing, communications and fundraising.