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Co-funded Chevening Scholarship accelerates a social entrepreneur’s impact
Amanda Sadalla began her Chevening journey lying on a friend’s sofa, talking about the future. ‘For me, it was an exercise in dreaming’ she says. Amanda's dream is now improving the lives of thousands. We find out more.
With a Master of Public Policy (MPP) at the University of Oxford’s St. Catherine’s College, co-funded by the Lemann Foundation, Amanda co-founded Serenas, a non-profit organisation reshaping attitudes towards gender-based violence (GBV) around the country.
Intense study, amazing connections
Amanda had visited the UK as a teenager and, as an LGBTQ+ person, felt she could belong there. Plus, at the time she became interested in studying abroad, the UK was passing strong GBV prevention laws. Her research into courses revealed that UK universities taught a behavioural approach to public policy, what Amanda described as ‘the art of understanding how to influence people’s decisions on policy based on psychology.’
With her degree co-funded by the Lemann Foundation, Amanda now benefits from access to two influential networks.
‘The best asset you can have [as a social entrepreneur] is the ability to create good and profound connections.’
Amanda says her confidence grew as she learned how to connect with other high-achieving individuals with very different perspectives and experiences. She honed her networking, communication, and negotiation capabilities, skills she uses regularly as a founder and CEO.
She built strong relationships within her Chevening cohort, including Anelize Lenzi Ruas de Almeida, another scholar co-funded by Lemann. Anelize now serves as Attorney General for the National Treasury in Brazil and as a board member for Serenas.
‘I count my Chevening and Lemann connections among my closest friends and colleagues.’
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‘When I came back, I didn’t have money to start a non-profit, but I had . . . amazing connections and people willing to help. That’s what Chevening does. It makes you feel part of a group, a community that says: let’s help each other.’
She credits those connections with helping make Serenas a reality. She put a call out on her Chevening WhatsApp groups, gathered board members from her networks, and contacted professors for advice.
‘Doing the MPP opened my mind on how I had the potential to have more impact. [Chevening] completely changed my mindset, showing me that what I used to do by myself could actually become public policy. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing now.’
Serenas, named for Amanda’s great-grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, was established in 2021. It offers education programs to help first responders deal sensitively and humanely with victims of GBV and supports local governments with outreach programmes and capacity-building for GBV prevention.
Serenas has since operated in five Brazilian states and has directly impacted more than 60,000 people. Amanda is currently partnering with the Mariana Filizola, a fellow Chevening alumna, the UK Embassy and the Secretariat for Social Communication of the Presidency Brazil, to launch the first nationwide course on internet-based GBV prevention in Brazil.
In addition to delivering the education programmes Serenas offers, Amanda is proud that she’s been able to build a women-run organisation that is developing confident, skilled female leaders. She continues to take the Serenas message – supporting the rights of women and girls to live free of violence – beyond Brazil. Before Serenas, she worked at organisations such as UNICEF and the MALALA Fund.
In 2023, she was part of the Official Brazilian Committee at the Commission on the Status of Women in the United Nations. In 2024, she was awarded the UK Alumni Prize for Social Impact in Brazil.
‘I can’t imagine my life without [Chevening]’.
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