Omezzine Khelifa
Inspiring youth to become peaceful and creative change leaders in Tunisia and throughout Africa.
Omezzine Khelifa is the founder and CEO of Mobdiun – Creative Youth, a social impact organization that empowers youth to lead change and help build a peaceful democracy in Tunisia. Mobdiun works with young people in marginalized communities targeted by violent extremists and provides them with opportunities to build skills and gain access to resources and networks to foster their creativity as peaceful builders of Tunisian society. Through a community-based, youth development-centered approach, Omezzine and a group of sociologists collect and analyze data from youth living in areas traditionally targeted for recruitment by extremist groups. The data collected serves as a basis for a series of conversations with youth and the outcomes of these discussions are used to initiate a dialogue with multiple stakeholders, including government, the private sector, and civil society organizations to inform policy to counter radicalization. Trained as an engineer, Omezzine was living and working in Paris prior to the Tunisian revolution and returned to Tunisia to support the country during this period of transition. She ran for political office and later served as a senior advisor in the Ministry of Finance before founding Mobdiun. She received her master’s degree in engineering from the École nationale supérieure d'informatique et de mathématiques appliquées de Grenoble in France.
Biography current as of 2018-2019 program year