Sonia Ben Ali

Co-Founder and CEO, Urban Refugees

Biography

Sonia Ben Ali is the Director and Founder of the non-profit URBAN REFUGEES, (www.urban-refugees.org) and a recent Ashoka Fellow. She holds a Master’s degree in Humanitarian Affairs from the French Institute of Political Sciences of Bordeaux, and started working with refugees and IDPs in 2007. DSonia started working with refugees and IDPs in 2007 in Bogota (Colombia) with a local NGO. She then worked on refugee protection programs in Casamance (Senegal), in a refugee camp of the Palestinian Territories and in Beirut (Lebanon) with both NGOs and UN agencies. Sonia holds a Master’s degree in Humanitarian Affairs from the French Institute of Political Sciences of Bordeaux. She is a Ted X speaker, a finalist of the Echoing Green Fellowship 2016, was awarded the prize of social innovator by Deloitte Australia and social entrepreneur of the year 2014 by ShoeString.

Regional Focus

Eastern and Southern Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia