Venera Urbaeva

Venera is a professional with over 10 years of experience in the field of child protection, child rights promotion and human rights in policing in developing countries. She has a graduate degree in international human rights and bachelors in international relations. Prior to starting her Rotary Peace Fellowship, Venera has been working for UNICEF for 8 years coordinating and running programs for children affected by adversities such as family and school violence, family separation and institutionalization, juvenile delinquency and armed conflict. Her work focused on supporting the wellbeing and resilience of children and adolescents through development of child-centered, age appropriate and gender sensitive services. Venera is passionate about improving the lives of children and adolescents through research, evidence-based programming, policy-making and advocacy.

Venera is thrilled to be a Rotary Peace Fellow. Her experience with Rotary began during her leadership experience and service opportunity at local Rotaract Club. During those three years, she co-led charity projects to fundraise for nursing homes and taught human rights and English classes at orphanages and rural schools to promote social justice. This has exposed Venera to the mission of Rotary of bringing peace and social justice through philanthropy and service.

Through her master’s studies in Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health at UNC’s School of Global Public Health, Venera hopes to increase her expertise on prevention of childhood adversities and health promotion by applying a life course approach and analysis of the impact of social determinants on child and adolescent health. She hopes to continue to promote the wellbeing and development of all children in all settings to support them to become fully-fledged citizens of the world ready to make meaningful contribution to global peace.