Shamsia is Program Manager with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) based in Nairobi. She is a peace builder, a graduate of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. She is currently a PhD student in Social Transformation specializing in security and sustainable peace. After her masters graduation, Shamsia launched her career as a peace practitioner in Sub-Saharan Africa where she began specialization in conflict analysis, developing community safety and people centered peacebuilding processes in Somalia. That led to her work as an independent consultant with Saferworld, a UK base international organization and she conducted conflict analysis and developed a community safety plan in Burao, Somaliland. She then consulted briefly with Life & Peace Institute (LPI), a Swedish based organization where she conducted conflict analysis for the organization in Tana River and Marsabit.
Shamsia later joined LPI in 2010 on full time employment as the Program and Policy Advisor, Kenya and Somalia. She was also the editor of the Horn of Africa Bulletin, an online journal that publishes conflict and peace issues covering the horn of Africa.
In 2013, Shamsia joined CRS directing a multi-country program involved in peacebuilding and prevention of religiously motivated violence in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Egypt, Nigeria, Niger and Egypt. Shamsia supported the formation of Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism, a movement formed to deal with radicalization and violence extremism through counter messaging and capacity building of religious leaders. In her capacity as a peace practitioner Shamsia is a member of the Kenya Conflict Sensitivity Consortium involved in conflict sensitive peacebuilding and development programing, Conflict Analysis group and she leads the Capacity Building Committee in the National Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. She has held this role since 2013 when she attended the Australian Leadership Award Fellowship.
Shamsia has also been a Global Advisory Council Member with Alliance for peacebuilding working with a team of peace builders worldwide to develop a guide for evaluation inter-religious peacebuilding. Her areas of expertise and interest include inter-religious action and peacebuilding, conflict transformation, conflict sensitivity development, capacity building and preventing/countering violent extremism. She has authored and co-authored several publications/articles in peacebuilding, inter-religious dialogue and action, and, conflict transformation.
