Born in Split (Croatia), Maja Osmančević is a certified human rights educator and a double major BA student of Sociology and Russian language and literature, at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb. She has been vocal about human rights issues since she was in high school and that was also the time (Belgrade, 2016) when she was first introduced to refugees’ human rights.

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After having founded the Croatian student initiative Studenti za izbjeglice (Students for Refugees) in April 2018 and through cooperating with other activists and NGOs, she quickly got acquainted with the practice of criminalisation of migration and civil solidarity. That inspired her to organise an international symposium “Krimigracija” (“Crimmigration”) in November 2018 with her colleagues from the Sociology Students’ Club Discrepancy, since she deeply believes in the role of social sciences in maintaining and fighting for a world of greater justice and equal chances.

 

Maja doesn’t believe in single-issue struggles and she is a great proponent of intersectionality. That is the motivation behind her diverse engagement, since she is also a member of the PR team of the Okolišni filmski festival (Environmental film festival) of the activist group of Zelena Akcija/ Friends of the Earth Croatia, and a member of the Welcome Initiative.

 

She expresses great joy to be a part of the IWB team, as she wishes to continue her career down the path of migration studies.

 

In her free time she loves searching for new music and learning new languages. Apart from her native Croatian, she is fluent in English and Russian, and has base-level knowledge of Italian.

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