Hamid is a researcher, child rights activist, and civil society practitioner currently focusing on disability studies, ableism, and neurodiversity. He advocates for the social model of disability to address institutional and discursive roots of inequality and exclusion experienced by individuals with disabilities. Currently, Hamid is working on two research projects; an AFSEE-funded project exploring collaboration and connection between disability and inequality campaigns and an independent project examining the challenges of inclusive education for disabled children.
Previously, Hamid has worked as a facilitator and trainer on child rights workshops for teachers, volunteers, and staff members of civil society organisations. He has also served as a policy analyst, consultant, and researcher in NGOs and the public sector, providing them with rights-based policy recommendations on spatial violence, refugee populations, and provisions for child rights protection. His previous research experiences include civil society organisations typology, the right to education (the 4As scheme), and inequality, focusing on marginalised groups such as disabled children, refugee children, and working children.
During his undergraduate studies in 2005, Hamid started his activism as a volunteer with service-providing NGOs for Afghan asylum seeker children in Tehran. He later served as the manager of a children’s community centre and a literacy and basic education project for refugee children in an NGO. He has also been a member of the board of directors, coordinating councils and advisory boards in different formal and informal Iranian civil society groups and organisations. He has also contributed to debates within the Iranian civil society highlighting child rights violations by the Iranian state, social justice, and civil society mobilisation through public speeches and translations, as well as writing reviews, articles, and commentaries on media and activist platforms.
Hamid holds a Master of Science in Human Rights Practice and Policy from the University of Gothenburg and a Master of Science in Inequalities and Social Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
I believe change is born through a process in which participation, the root of the problem, and inclusion are at the heart of, and by which relations between local issues, and structural and historical injustice, if not directly tackled, are acknowledged and understood.Hamidreza Vasheghanifarahani