Yumna Martin
Yumna is an experienced independent consultant, working as a programme and partnerships manager, DEI practitioner, media producer and curriculum specialist.
She has over 17 years’ experience in the non-profit and socio-economic development space having worked and lived both in South Africa, the United Kingdom and currently in Japan. Having more recently worked for institutions such as SWEAT, UNAIDS, Tekano, We Are On Purpose, Mama Cash, Anglo American, Petra Diamonds, Rutgers International, and IOM. She is currently the board chair of Radio Workshop, an organisation that trains youth across Africa to make radio and podcasts.
Her work experience ranges from having developed institutional specific DEI strategies, curriculum and training, to managing projects in the renewable and natural resources sector through capacitating and improving client’s methods of working with communities surrounding mines. Yumna has also overseen economic development programmes for the European Union (EU) across agriculture, trade and small medium enterprise development, as well as maintaining partnerships across the public, private and civil society sectors.
Previously she worked as a consultant on the establishment of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa and as the programme director of the Children’s Radio Foundation (currently known as Radio Workshop). As programme director at CRF she managed country-based youth development projects and funding partnerships with United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Open Society Foundation for South Africa and the National Department of Basic Education. Yumna trained youth and adults in community radio as well as researched and produced a series of training manuals for the Young Reporters Network Initiative with UNICEF in Ethiopia, South Africa and Zambia, and produced a DIY youth radio production manual published by UNESCO. Other work experience includes Richard’s House Children’s Hospice (UK), Christian Aid (UK) and 8 ink Media/Media 24.
Yumna received a master’s degree in Critical Diversity Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, for which she was awarded best dissertation in School of Social Sciences, and an honours degree in Media, Theory and Practice from the University of Cape Town. Further qualifications or expertise include training in diversity and inclusion facilitation, podcast and radio drama production, and a Level I Yoga Teacher Training.
Yumna is passionate about the integration and meeting points of economic, environmental and social justice, and the ways in which new and traditional methodologies can contribute to authentic participatory change.