News

Ahmed Sajidan Jarjis Rafsan ’27 has been shortlisted for the 2026 Zayed Sustainability Prize in the Health category for his work scaling community-rooted health care and rehabilitation programs through the Shirin Sajmila International Foundation (SSIF) across South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The nonprofit organization has already reached more than 700,000 people with projects spanning disability care, maternal health, and climate resilience. 

At 13 years old, Ahmed Sajidan (Saji) Jarjis Rafsan ‘27 opened a makeshift school in the backyard of his family’s home in Chittagong, Bangladesh. What began as a handful of children gathering to learn has grown into the Shirin Sajmilla International Foundation (SSIF), an international nonprofit now serving more than 700,000 people across the Global South. 

Today, Rafsan — a junior at St. Olaf College majoring in economics and political science — is balancing classes in Northfield with leading a nonprofit that runs prosthetic clinics, maternal-health initiatives, and climate-resilience. This includes Project Padhakhep, building South Asia’s first integrated mobility and maternal-health equity platform; Aranaya Kala, a blockchain-based heritage textile initiative empowering Indigenous women; and refugee rehabilitation programs in Egypt supporting Sudanese and Syrian families. That work recently earned him and SSIF international recognition: the organization shortlisted in the Health category of the 2026 Zayed Sustainability Prize, a $1 million award honoring innovative, scalable solutions to global challenges. Winners will be announced in January, to coincide with Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. 

While Rafsan has always been passionate about public service, that drive was deepened after a personal loss. His mother, Shirin A. Chowdhury — a business professor and three-time cancer survivor — and sister, Sajmila Jishmam Uzma, died as the result of a car accident when he was still a teenager. He has since renamed the initiative in their memory. 

“What began as a memorial turned into a movement for dignity, peace, and humanity,” Rafsan says. “What I have learned through that experience and over the years is that healing isn’t just medical — it’s very social, economic, and emotional.”

In the past decade, SSIF has grown into a thousand-person network of staff, partners, and volunteers. The work ranges from fitting children with prosthetics and providing free surgeries, to supporting youth-led protest movements with legal and mental health aid, to developing economic opportunities for women in Bangladesh’s indigenous textile industry. 

One of SSIF’s defining principles is cultural sensitivity and local ownership.

“We never parachute into communities — we build with them, so it’s a cooperation,” he says. “We employ people from the local area — local doctors, artists, and educators — who know the local dialects and can act as a bridge between us and the community we are trying to build a partnership with. They determine what sort of challenges they are facing, and prescribe the ways we can help.”

In rural Bangladesh, for example, women health workers lead maternal-care efforts so patients feel comfortable seeking treatment. 

This approach has produced measurable results. In recent years, SSIF supported 15,000 pregnant women through digital diagnostics, provided 3,400 prosthetics and 200 free surgeries, and distributed emergency relief and medicinal aid among 30,000 people mostly women and children during the floods.They have been able to lower maternal mortality rates through telehealth and mobile health programs, and coordinated flood relief with WHO, local government, and military partners.

Beyond this, SSIF has reached more than 10,000 women and children who are stateless refugees across Asia and Africa through trauma-informed care and medical aid. The organization has mobilized over 80 mental-health professionals in Nepal to support more than 1,600 youth during the 2025 protests, deployed 1,000+ volunteers in Bangladesh’s revolution and treat 700 injured protesters and fund the re-integration of disabled children into schools through scholarships, and led the Reform Bangladesh Initiative post-movement, engaging 100,000 youth in a nationwide cultural renaissance. 

“Sustainability to me means transferring ownership,” Rafsan says. “By the time we leave, the system should run without us.”

Balancing an international nonprofit with a full course load at St. Olaf could be overwhelming, but Rafsan has found a rhythm: launch new projects in person during winter and summer breaks, then let local teams carry forward the day-to-day work while he oversees policy and data remotely. Professors and peers have supported his research efforts and occasionally volunteer with the foundation as well. 

The organization’s impact is also inspiring a new generation of changemakers. Suhail Bilal ’28 interned with SSIF last summer, helping expand its mental health initiative to conflict-affected youth in Kashmir. 

“SSIF didn’t just give me a platform, it gave me a purpose,” Bilal says. “In Kashmir, I witnessed how mental scars can outlive wars and how SSIF’s model of care turned empathy into real recovery. It changed how I see service, and how I see myself.”

“I think the culture of St. Olaf emphasizes service with reflection,” Rafsan says. “Here the culture is to listen to people and not be the loudest voice in the room, and I think that focus on empathy actually reshaped how I lead my initiative — I want to ensure we are finding innovative solutions to problems that are presented to us, instead of prescribing a fix that may not be wanted, or is of less importance to the community it is meant to serve.”

Rafsan’s work is now being recognized by the broader international community. In late September, he was notified that SSIF was shortlisted as a finalist for the Zayed Sustainability Prize. Established by the United Arab Emirates, the Zayed Sustainability Prize is one of the world’s leading honors for sustainability and humanitarian work. Categories span Health, Food, Energy, Water, Climate Action, and Global Health Schools. Since its launch, the prize has recognized more than 100 winners whose projects have collectively improved hundreds of millions of lives. 

For Rafsan, being named a finalist is both an honor and a validation of SSIF’s grassroots approach. 

“It’s an acknowledgement that innovation from the Global South can stand beside global giants,” he says. “We are not a charity. We are building systems of sustainability and equity that actually resonate globally. This sort of recognition just pushes the team further; to work more, create more, and hopefully get the results.”

If SSIF were to win, Rafsan plans to expand prosthetic and rehabilitation centers into sub-Saharan Africa, scale up maternal health telehealth across South Asia, and launch a “global mobility innovation lab” where universities and startups can pilot assistive technologies in real-world field sites. But even without the prize, Rafsan is determined to keep building. 

“I was a teenager when I began this journey. I didn’t know anything about the administrative part, but if I had given thought to the complexities and decided I need more time and experience, I probably never would have started a nonprofit in the first place,” he says. “So I think it’s good to stay focused on the people, the impact, and not get caught up in the unknown. I’m always trying to make new mistakes. The goal isn’t really to build an empire, it is to build an example of how anyone in this world can actually step up and make a lasting change.”

As for his long-term vision?

“I want to make SSIF obsolete, so that the systems we create can stand on their own — it is sustainable in nature and practice,” Rafsan says. “My dream is to see not just Bangladesh, but a whole Global South, where disability, displacement, or gender can no longer determine destiny.”