Sheniz Tan is Asfar’s CEO and Director.
Sheniz is responsible for all of Asfar’s international programmes, strategy and overall organisational development.
Sheniz holds an MA in Reconciliation and Peacebuilding from the University of Winchester, has a BA (Hons) in Politics and History of the Middle East with Turkish from the University of Durham and is a Level 7 qualified Strategic Manager and current Chartered Fellow of the UK Chartered Management Institute.
Sheniz has worked in the International Development, Peacebuilding, Education, NGO & Charities, Youth, Welfare to Work, Political & Social Entrepreneurship sectors since 2007, for a variety of different organisations over the past 16 years, including: the British Youth Council; House of Commons; Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq; Liberal Democrats Party; yesMinister; Serco; Westminster Forum Projects; and LITC.
From 2015 to 2018, alongside her role at Asfar, Sheniz acted as a Project Development Consultant at Rinova, responsible for monitoring its EU portfolio (23+ large scale EU programmes) and project managed and supported a cross ranges of programmes including: Erasmus+; EU Justice; Interreg; Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programmes.
Since 2018, Sheniz has focused strictly on Asfar and its partnership network, developing a series of new dynamic learning, employment, skills and social entrepreneurship programmes, including RESOLVE, a reconciliation for development learning programme, the RESOLVE: Network and Social Entrepreneurship work.
Additionally, Sheniz is an Aim Texas World Bank consultant to the Republic of Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population acting as the Leader for International Experts Team for its’ flagship Employment Support Programme, providing specialist and strategic advice.
Publications, Lectures, Podcasts & Research
2018-2023
Strategic partnerships intellectual output contributions and wider international development delivery outcomes
Learning Abroad to do Better at Home on Gender Equality programme
Young Kreativ Social Enterprises
- IO1 – Methodological Guide and Toolkit – Social Kreative Enterprises for Youth Workers
- IO2 – Curriculum – Skills for Young Social Entrepreneurs – detailed programme and materials for Youth Workers.
- IO3 – E-Learning Platform.
Talking Peace, Exploring Conflict, University of Winchester.
- Developing and Connecting Young Peacebuilders, Dr. Lyck-Bowen in conversation with Sheniz Tan, January 2020.
Erasmus+ REVaLUE: Refugees Empowerment through VET in an inclusive Europe.
2010-2017
House of Lords’ International Relations Committee’ expert contributor – the Middle East: Time for New Realism report, 2017.
A profile of child marriage in the Caucasus, Asfar e-Journal, December 2017.
Erasmus+ European Partnership for Apprenticeships project.
- Research and Analysis of the State of Play – UK Country Report, 2017.
- Apprenticeship sector – Capacity Building Study Pack, 2018.
Erasmus+ Interculturality Mobility
Erasmus+ Igma-Femina, 2017
- United Kingdom, National Report, page 41,
- Co-designed “Shortening distance to Education/Labour Market for migrant and refugee women through gender-senstivie counselling and local collaboration strategies” – Methodological Handbook.
Erasmus+ Euro-IVET: Enhancing the quality of initial vocational and education training for young people in urban and multicultural settings.
Caravans, Yörük and the Balkan Mountains article in the Asfar e-Journal, 2013.
Sheniz has published several articles on the Yörük, tribal communities in Anatolia, Turkey including for the British Association of Turkish Area Studies (from Middlesbrough to the Yayla), and a lectures, including for the Turkish-Anglo Society (16th February 2010 lecture).