Tabari Dossett

Tabari Dossett is a Founding Member of Dastaan Consulting. He has professional experience with humanitarian and development policy formulation and program implementation as well as facilitating trainings and workshops on diversity and inclusion and non-discrimination and unconscious bias.

Tabari has worked for over a decade with the U.S. Department of State, completing assignments in East Africa, South America, Washington D.C. and the Middle East.  He has primarily focused on humanitarian programming, overseeing funding for humanitarian responses in West and Central Africa as well as the Middle East supporting Syrian, Iraqi, Yemen, Sudanese and other refugee nationalities. 

He received his bachelor’s degree in International Relations with a minor in modern languages from Stanford University and his master’s degree in International Development from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Tabari has facilitated trainings and workshops for the U.S. Government, NGOs and other organizations, and provided guest lectures to conferences and courses around the world. Tabari is based in the Middle East.

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Mariam Bamizai

Senior Advisor for Food Security and Development

Mariam Bamizai is a Founding Member of Daastan Consulting. She is an expert in conflict mitigation and food security management with over 17 years experience working in the government sector as an international development and humanitarian program management professional.  She honed her skills working in the Middle East and Central Asia, with specialized experience in Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine.  She has dedicated much of her career to improving the lives of refugees and internally displaced persons affected by natural disasters and conflict.

Mariam has designed and led trainings on food security and beneficiary assessments. She holds a master’s in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from the George Mason University Carter School of Peace and Conflict and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from George Mason University. Mariam is a regular speaker at events and guest lectures at universities in the Washington, DC area. She speaks Dari and Pashto.

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Gary Barrett

Senior Advisor for Environmental and Humanitarian Issues

Gary Barrett is a Founding Member of Dastaan Consulting. With over 25 years of experience, he is an expert in disaster response, humanitarian logistics, corporate training development, conflict mitigation, military affairs, and natural resource management. He was the former Deputy Director and Senior Advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Gary has held senior positions in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).  Before working as a civilian for the U.S. government, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.  He is a current adjunct professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.  

Gary holds a master’s degree in Forestry from the Yale School of Environment and a bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Science from Morehouse College. He has an advanced diploma in Humanitarian Assistance from Fordham University and was a Senior Executive Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.  He is currently the president of the Yale School of Environment Alumni Board.

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Mouhamadou Diadiou

Portfolio: West and Central Africa

Mouhamadou Diadiou is a second year student at New York University Abu Dhabi majoring in economics with a concentration in business studies. Hailing from Senegal, he spent his teenage years in Singapore before moving to the United Arab Emirates. 

In this era of growing individualism and self-reliance, he has found in volunteering and social work a way to contribute to shaping a more just and equitable world. Thus, he participated and facilitated conferences and workshops on topics ranging from the importance of peace-building for refugees to the imperative of embracing diversity and inclusion in conflict zones. This has led him to a number of countries such as Thailand and Myanmar where he has been able to speak to victims of genocide and Rohingya refugees. This humbling experience made him want to learn more about humanitarian assistance, field work, especially data collection and analysis, and fostered his deep penchant for human contact and teamwork. 

SJ Park

Portfolio: Asia

SJ Park is a sophomore double majoring in Business and Political Science at New York University Abu Dhabi. She comes from a homogenous country, South Korea, but she always tried to immerse herself in diversity. After SJ attended a forum on diversity in 2015, she was first introduced to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and started to think about what she can contribute to achieving them. 

To tackle the goals, she organized forums on the SDGs, started youth forums on the refugee crisis, served as a representative for youth suffering from air pollution, interned at an up-cycling startup, developed a health app, and led projects to aid children facing poverty. 

Her pursuit of diversity and the betterment of the world led her to New Zealand, China, Ethiopia, Spain, South Africa, Canada, and finally the United Arab Emirates. SJ hopes to extend this list while putting effort into achieving the SDGs and the new goals that will soon follow.

Rana Al Froukh

Partnerships Coordinator

Rana is from Jordan and a graduate of the University of Jordan where she majored in French language and literature. She is passionate about learning languages, as she sees learning new languages as a way to explore different cultures around the world.

Rana has previously worked as an intern with the NGO Rased Jordan where she developed reports related to evaluating government performance.  Rana also worked on projects supporting women’s empowerment in local administrations.  The women’s empowerment project was implemented in cooperation with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).  Based on these and other experiences, Rana developed an interest in women’s rights and humanitarian assistance, and she hopes to continue to work on these issues to support additional vulnerable individuals in the future.