Karina Chupina Biography

Karina Chupina, PhD (cand.), is an expert in social inclusion with the focus on cross-sectoral capacity building in disability and youth inclusion in Europe and Eurasia. As a person with profound hearing loss, Karina has been a passionate disability inclusion advocate and trainer for more than 20 years. She served as the President of International Federation of Hard of Hearing Young People (IFHOHYP) in 2004-2014, and was an active member of the EDF Youth Committee in 2008-2013. With expertise rooted in managing local and international youth and disability CSOs, Ms. Chupina has worked as an independent consultant in conceptualizing and implementing disability-inclusive programmes with the consideration of intersections with gender and youth dimensions.

Ms. Chupina has provided advisory and technical assistance on the UN CRPD implementation, EU disability policies, inclusive formal and non-formal education, and disability-inclusive participation. Ms. Chupina is a Senior Trainer of the Council of Europe Pool of Trainers where she has worked on participation of youth from a variety of backgrounds, access to social rights, multiple discrimination, disability rights and civil society sector development. Her experience in these fields includes working with the European Commission, UNDP, UNICEF, UN DESA, World Bank, Disability Rights Fund and CBM Global Disability Inclusion, as well as authoring series of rights-based reports, training manuals, policy briefs and papers in English and Russian, in capacity of a writer and a researcher.

Ms. Chupina holds MA degrees in International Journalism, International Relations & Management, and Sociology. Originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, she now lives in Germany, where she defended her Ph.D. in Disability Studies and Rehabilitation Sciences at Humboldt University in Berlin. She is the coordinator of the Her Abilities Award at Light for the World.