SAYP alumni workshop

The Swedish Institute Academy for Young Professionals (SAYP)

The Swedish Institute Academy for Young Professionals (SAYP) helps develop a new generation of leaders - through mutual learning and networking. Young policymakers, public servants and civil society actors develop their capacities to meet the requirements of a modern governance and apply a human rights lens in their work.

Since 2017, RWI has been contributing to one of the SAYP programmes - on “Perspectives on Multi-level Governance, Decentralisation & Human Rights”, in cooperation with the Lund University Commissioned Education and the Lund University School of Economics and Management. “Our participants learn how public administration can protect human rights at multiple levels by applying a Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA)”, says Zuzana Zalanova, Director of RWI’s Europe Office, who is in charge of the human rights part of the programme. “Despite their young age, many of the participants already contribute to key reform processes in their countries – be it in the government, politics, academia, or civil society” continues Zalanova. Through its two modules, the programme engages young professionals from the Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership and Baltic Sea regions.

The programme is also supporting individual participants to identify a human rights challenge in their environment and try to address it. “We work with participants to apply tools, principles, as well as their skills and knowledge, to tackle some of the key human rights issues around them”, adds David Eile, Senior Programme Officer, engaged in the SAYP programme. Even if some of them don’t work with human rights directly, they can learn how their work can be impactful when looking at issues through a human rights lens.

APPLY FOR SAYP!

 

Voices of Participants

Bridges between Sweden, the Balkans and the Eastern Partnership region 

This year’s participants came from four countries: Armenia, Georgia, Albania and Kosovo. The programme thus enabled sharing unique experience across various contexts and backgrounds. This included various Swedish actors promoting human rights.  

Mirsad Vitia- Kosovo

Andrea Mazelliu- Albania

Erblina Selmanaj- Kosovo

Siranush Grigoryan-Armenia

 

The Team Behind SAYP

 The SAYP programme is coordinated by Lund University Commissioned Education (LUCE), with two distinct modules provided by RWI and Lund University School of Economics and Management (LUSEM). This collaboration helps integrate human rights principles into modern approaches to public administration. 

Ola Mattisson- LUSEM

Zuzana Zalanova and David Eile – Raoul Wallenberg Institute

Andreas Bryngelson and Alexandra Hertz- LUCE

Get In Touch

Zuzana Zalanova

Zuzana Zalanova

Operations and Regional Director - Europe

Phone: +46 46 222 12 57
E-mail: zuzana.zalanova@rwi.lu.se

Ms. Zalanova has been promoting human rights, good governance, and civic engagement in various capacities in Europe and Central Asia.

Since joining RWI in 2018, she has led RWI programme in Belarus (until 2020), initiated and expanded RWI programme in Armenia, and broadened regional engagement with initiatives in Uzbekistan and the Western Balkans. Her expanding portfolio includes four projects in Ukraine, supported by sub-regional engagement in Poland and Moldova.

In 2023, Ms. Zalanova also assumed the role of Acting Executive Director of the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC), an international nongovernmental consortium established in 2002 to help coordinate and support the efforts of legal professionals to rebuild justice institutions in conflict and post-conflict countries. Through its member organisations and individuals, ILAC is comprised of more than 3 million legal professionals worldwide, including judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and court administrators.

Ms. Zalanova teaches regularly international development, human rights, and project management at three faculties of the Lund University in Sweden.

Before joining RWI, Ms. Zalanova worked for the United Nations in Ukraine, leading the UN Volunteers programme with a focus on civic and youth engagement. She previously coordinated rule of law programmes of the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO) in Mongolia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, supported regional human rights and justice initiatives of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Europe and Central Asia, and managed the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, a platform of civil society actors from the EU and Russia.

Ms. Zalanova holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, a master’s degree in Security Studies, and a joint (bachelor’s and master’s) degree in International Relations with a specialisation in Non-Profit Management from her studies in the Czech Republic (Charles University, University of Economics) and the United Kingdom (University of Reading).

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Team

David Eile

David Eile

Senior Programme Officer

Phone: +46 46 222 12 58
E-mail: david.eile@rwi.lu.se

David Eile currently works as a Senior Programme Officer responsible for various projects under RWI’s Europe Office, focusing on different forms of academic cooperation in Europe and Cuba. Since joining RWI in 2006, David worked with various human rights programmes in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. David has an MA in Anthropology from Lund University and is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Uppsala.

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Ola Mattisson-LUCEM
Ola Mattisson-LUCEM
Alexandra Hertz-LUCE
Alexandra Hertz-LUCE
Andreas Bryngelson-LUCE
Andreas Bryngelson-LUCE
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