Elçin Demirel has been the Chief Executive Officer of RET Germany since 2025. Previously she has served as Chief Operations Officer and Technical Program Development, and prior that as Country Director in Türkiye. She possesses knowledge in key areas of management, from setting and implementing strategies to marketing and fundraising in Türkiye.

Prior to joining the ranks of RET in 2015, she spent a decade in the field in the south-eastern part of Türkiye as a Regional Development Specialist and Program Coordinator for Tigris Development Agency. She conducted research aimed at accelerating the economic, social and cultural development of the region, as well as preparation of regional development and sector-based plans. She also prepared current social situation analysis and grant programmes to support/fund local authorities, SMEs and NGOs according to the priorities of the sectors and the region. She was also responsible for the local institutions’ capacity building and pre-pared EU/HRDP Operations and projects on behalf of the Agency and stakeholders.

Since 2015, Elçin has been actively working with vulnerable groups (Syrian and Iraqi refugees, disadvantaged host community) and implementing programs for women empowerment, child protection, youth empowerment and skill training, and language education funded by UNICEF and UNHCR on behalf of RET.

From 2017–2019, she also worked as Regional Coordinator at Sequa gGmbH and was the member of managing a team of German-Turkish Partnership for Vocational Skills Development (TAMEB) Project supporting Turkish groups that require special policies besides the Syrians under temporary protection with Turkish language training programs, social integration modules, and vocational skills courses.

She has extensive experience in the area of protection, education and livelihood program management, development, monitoring and evaluation.

Elçin holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Public Administration from the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Türkiye

RET International, the sister organization of RET Germany e.V., was founded in 2000 by Mrs. Sadako Ogata (1927-2019) as she was ending her second term as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, (UNHCR). Mrs. Ogata’s vision for RET was to bridge a massive gap she had witnessed during her tenure as the head of the UN Refugee Agency, specifically in education for youth.

During crises, donor priorities were always for life-saving basic needs as food, water, shelter and child protection. Budgets rarely stretched far enough to reach the needs of young people. This had tragic consequences as crises tend to be evermore protracted, often lasting for years or even decades.

If adolescents and youth are not given any opportunities, they will become extremely vulnerable to illegal activities, gangs, underage labor, drug trafficking, sexual abuse, sex trafficking, violence and more. RET, therefore, provides them with the skills to confront these threats, develop their resilience to become self-reliant.

At inception, RET acted exclusively in refugee camps using education as a tool. However, as refugee migration patterns changed and new crises emerged, the paradigm shifted in different parts of the world and the methods we had developed specifically for refugee camps, proved to be adaptable to young people in fragile environments in general.

Today we still work in refugee camps, but the majority of our work is with urban, peri-urban and rural refugees, with host communities, with internally displaced populations, with adolescent soldiers, with victims of natural disasters and more.

Mrs. Ogata was the President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency from 2003–2012, served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991 to 2000. Before her career at UNHCR, she was the Independent Expert of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights on the Human Rights Situation in Myanmar in 1990,  the Representative of Japan on the United Nations Commission for Human Rights (1982–1985), and the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations (1978–1979), having served as Minister there from 1976–1978.

“Education should be a promise, not a dream.”

Photo courtesy UN Women, November 2012