2004
Liza Buchbinder
M.S./M.D. student, UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program
Action Pour La Jeunesse D’Afrique (AJA) (Togo)
Before returning to school, Liza spent two years in the Peace Corps in Togo, where she volunteered as a Community Health and AIDS Prevention worker. This summer, Liza will return to Togo to address the issue of child labor and migration with the organization, Action Pour La Jeunesse D’Afrique (AJA). Liza hopes to explore the underlying forces driving the phenomenon of child migration by gaining a better understanding of the cultural and social factors that influence a parents’ decision to send their child away to work. She plans to meet with members of organizations dedicated to issues of child labor and migration and will interview families that have sent their children to work in other countries. Liza will also explore whether trafficking is a dimension to this migration.
Michael Burstein
J.D. student (1L student), School of Law
European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) (Budapest, Hungary)
Mike will work this summer with the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) to advocate for the equal treatment of the Roma. Mike will assist ERRC staff attorneys in preparing for litigation before national courts and the European Court of Human Rights. He will also be assisting in the preparation of testimony before the UN Committee Against Torture, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the UN Commission on Human Rights.
Elizabeth Havice
Ph.D. student, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Sin Fronteras (Mexico City, Mexico)
On the tenth anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Elizabeth will examine increased human dislocation and migration brought about by trade liberalization. Many migrants who leave their homes seeking the benefits of economic integration under NAFTA can potentially fall victim to several human rights violations. In conjunction with Sin Fronteras, a Mexico City-based NGO, Elizabeth will study the human perils of migration as well as recommend strategies for the human rights protection of migrants.
Stephanie Kim
Master’s student, College of Environmental Design Department of City and Regional Planning
Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI) (Vietnam)
Prior to returning to school, Stephanie worked with several non-profit organizations serving the Asian Pacific Islander communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and Hawaii. In combining her academic and grassroots-based interests in community and economic development, Stephanie will work this summer with the Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI) in Vietnam. As a transitioning society, Vietnam is undergoing economic, social and political change. Stephanie hopes to better understand how these rapid changes are affecting the rights and livelihood of ethnic minorities who inhabit mountainous and remote highland areas. She hopes to gain an understanding of how development is impacting the human rights of rural minorities and to work on an NGO level to improve these conditions.
Kristen McDonald
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
International Rivers Network (China)
Kristen will work this summer with International Rivers Network in China to study that country’s dam building policies. In particular, Kristen will be studying the proposal to build 13 dams on the Upper Salween River, a currently undamed river, in western China. This area, designated as a UNESCO world heritage site, is remote and undeveloped and home to members of China’s ethnic minorities. Kristen plans to research the potential social costs and benefits of Upper Salween development on local communities and the ability of local activists and scientists to gain access to information that would allow them to analyze the impact of the dam and to communicate with government officials.
Jigar Mehta
Master’s student, Graduate School of Journalism
American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) (Mauritania)
Jigar will work with The American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) and plans to address the issue of modern day slavery in the West African country of Mauritania where approximately 3% of the population, mostly Haratines, (otherwise known as “Black Moors”), still live in bondage. Through interviews in Mauritania and with Mauritanian immigrants in the U.S. and in France, Jigar plans to create a video oral history of former slaves, former slave owners, current slaves and abolitionists. Jigar intends to use the documentary as a way to place faces and voices on modern-day slavery in an effort to end slavery in Mauritania.
Michel Sam
M.S./M.D. student, UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program
Handicap International (Cambodia)
Prior to returning to school, Michel worked as an engineer in a prosthetics research laboratory where he helped to develop prosthetic devices for patients with disabilities, some of whom were survivors of land mine explosions. Based on this experience, Michel will work with Handicap International, an NGO in Cambodia that provides rehabilitation, education and vocational training to survivors of land mines to assist them to reintegrate into their communities.
Natoschia Scruggs
Ph.D. student, African Diaspora Studies program
International Rescue Committee (San Francisco, CA)
Although Natoschia is interested in the plight of global refugees, she has a particular interest in the challenges faced by Somali refugees in the United States. To learn firsthand about the experiences of refugees and their families when they resettle in the U.S., Natoschia will work with the International Rescue Committee in San Francisco where a majority of IRC’s current clients are African (Ethiopian, Somali and Liberian). Natoschia will examine what are some of the daily obstacles Somali refugees face, what psychological and social strategies do they employ to survive in new communities and how do these immigrants and refugees perceive and incorporate themselves into American society?
Anne Short
Master’s student, Energy and Resources Group
Environmental Science Institute—West Oakland Food Collaborative (Oakland, CA)
According to a recent food assessment by the U.C. Cooperative in Alameda County, West Oakland residents face a severe food insecurity due to lack of access to healthy and affordable foods. Anne will work with the West Oakland Food Project Collaborative, lead by the Environmental Science Institute, to develop a soil testing protocol as part of a campaign to increase the conversion of blighted properties into community gardens. She will also develop a community pamphlet outlining the guidelines for safe urban gardening practices and help lay the foundation for the establishment of a West Oakland community-based urban gardening center.
Simeon Tegel
Master’s student, Latin American Studies program
Amazon Watch (Peru)
Prior to coming to UC Berkeley, Simeon worked as a journalist covering environmental and human rights issues in Latin America. This summer, he will work with Amazon Watch in Peru where he will study the social and environmental repercussions of the Camisea gas project, a multi-billion dollar operation to extract natural gas in the remote Urumbamba Valley, in the south-eastern Peruvian Amazon. Simeon will assist Amazon Watch and the national Peruvian indigenous organization AIDESEP develop a media campaign around the Camisea project. Through contacts with these two NGO’s, he plans to interview members of indigenous communities in the Urumbamba Valley to document the social, cultural and environmental effects of the Camisea.
2003
David Adler, M.D.
M.P.H. student, School of Public Health
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies—Emergency Response Unit (Geneva, Switzerland, and Kigoma and Kazulu, Tanzania)
David will be conducting his summer fellowship with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He will be evaluating the Emergency Response Unit system that establishes a basic health system and a referral hospital during times of humanitarian crisis. In particular, David will be looking at the Emergency Response Unit that has been utilized among refugees from the Great Lakes crisis in Tanzania and will be addressing, among many issues, that system’s efficiency in reducing morbidity and mortality among refugees and its successful integration into sustainable public services.
Jennifer Casolo
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Geography
Foundation for Democracy in Guatemala and the Foundation Popol Nah Tun (Honduras)
Jennifer has spent many years working in both Honduras and El Salvador before deciding that her commitment to grassroots development work could be bolstered by a return to school. This summer, Jennifer has chosen to return to Northeastern Honduras and will continue her fellowship in Guatemala by working with two organizations: the Foundation for Democracy in Guatemala and the Foundation Popol Nah Tun in Honduras. With both organizations, Jennifer will be promoting citizen participation and local development as a means of guaranteeing basic human rights. In particular, she will be involved in developing leadership training, participatory research, advocacy support and technical assistance.
Johanna Crane
Ph.D. student, UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Program in Medical Anthropology
UC San Francisco and the Joint Clinical Research Center (San Francisco, CA, and Kampala, Uganda)
This summer, Johanna has a unique opportunity to work with a joint research team of members of both UC San Francisco and the Joint Clinical Research Center in Kampala, Uganda, to empirically study the question of adherence to antiretroviral medications by monitoring patients who are purchasing generic HIV medications through Kampala’s Joint Clinical Research Center. Johanna will join the research team to develop a qualitative study of the Ugandan patients’ experiences regarding antiretroviral therapy. It is Johanna’s hope that the research findings will challenge assumptions about the lack of adherence to antiretroviral medications in African countries such as Uganda and thus result in greater access to these medications.
Noura Saleh Erakat
J.D. student (1L), School of Law
Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Israel)
Adalah was founded in 1996 by a Jewish-Israeli and a Palestinian-Israeli dedicated to ensuring equality to all of Israel’s citizens. Members of the Adalah legal staff have appeared before the Israeli Supreme Court to petition for cultural, educational, religious, land/housing, social, economic and political rights as well as for the rights of prisoners and for Palestinian women. Noura will help draft legal memoranda for Adalah’s petitions and appeals to the Israeli courts. As a Palestinian who has lived in the Occupied Territories, Noura is eager to live in Israel and to work with Israelis in order to achieve a lasting peace that is based on the promotion of human rights.
Sister Phyllis Marilyn Hughes
Dr.P.H. candidate, School of Public Health
Mercy Corps International (Nairobi, Kenya, Rumbek, South Sudan, and Kampala, Uganda)
After spending many years in hospital administration, Sister Phyllis has decided to return to school and to turn her focus upon the policies and practices of international humanitarian organizations. She will spend her summer with Mercy Corps International where she will examine the institutional response of relief and development agencies, such as Mercy Corps, to the political and ethical criticism that has surrounded the delivery of emergency aid in situations of armed conflict. Some of this criticism stems from conflict that has arisen between the traditional humanitarian principles of impartiality/neutrality and human rights principles; the starkest example of this conflict is a situation where a relief agency, in order to maintain neutrality and access to victims, perceives it must remain quiet even in the presence of severe human rights abuses. Sister Phyllis will document how this conflict is being addressed by researching internal decision-making processes and changes in policy and programming activities.
Jean Pierre Karageye
Ph.D. candidate, Department of French
Human Rights National Commission (Rwanda)
Jean Pierre is a citizen of Rwanda and will be returning this summer in order to work with the Human Rights National Commission in Rwanda. He will continue to deepen his understanding of the Rwandan genocide by considering the use of religious language in the Rwandan genocide. He is interested in examining how religious language was used to encourage participation in the genocide and how religious convictions can also be used to foster a culture of human rights. He hopes that his research can contribute to the development of various ways to achieve social reconstruction.
Sang Lee
Ph.D. student, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Movimiento Socio Cultural de los Trabajadores Haitianos (MOSCTHA) (Dominican Republic)
Prior to enrolling in graduate school, Sang spent three years as a Peace Corps member working in the Dominican Republic. This summer, she has chosen to return to the Dominican Republic to work with Movimiento Socio Cultural de los Trabajadores Haitianos (the Socio-Cultural Movement of Haitian Workers – MOSCTHA). With MOSCTHA, she will investigate the struggles for livelihood by Haitian immigrants and Dominico-Haitians (Dominican-born Haitians) who largely work on the sugar plantations. Dominco-Haitians experience extreme forms of institutional discrimination and are routinely denied citizenship or residency.
Sarah Marxer
M.P.P. student, Goldman School of Public Policy
Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy—Economic and Social Human Rights Program (Oakland, CA)
Sarah spent many years as a youth advocate in community-based settings in San Francisco and in Boston. She has been a staunch advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth. Sarah will work this summer with Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland. Sarah will help build Food First’s Economic and Social Human Rights Program and help to develop a coalition of grassroots organizations of people harmed by neoliberal trade policies. The coalition will be forming this spring to participate in Congressional hearings and to develop an agenda for the U.S. working poor at the Fifth World Trade Organization Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003. The overall goal of Sarah’s summer fellowship will be to advocate for the recognition of economic human rights in the U.S. and to make connections between domestic struggles for economic justice and international efforts.
Kristin M. Reed
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Angola Instituto de Pesquisa Economica e Social (Luanda, Angola)
Kristen plans to visit oil-producing areas near Soyo and Ambriz in Northern Angola to investigate the protection of human rights within oil producing/processing regions. Kristen’s research will include an analysis of primary and secondary sources of information on residents of oil-producing regions including their collective and individual rights to personal security and physical integrity, survival and health, development, access to justice, freedom from violence, forced migration and forced labor in addition to their rights of access and control over land and natural resources.
Radha Webley
Undergraduate, Peace and Conflict Studies program
Internews Rwanda (Kigali, Rwanda)
Internews Rwanda is the local branch of an international independent media organization that has been producing documentaries on current international, national and local post-genocidal efforts and organizing showings of these documentaries across the country. By doing so, Internews Rwanda has opened up a dialogue with local communities to include them in the process of post-genocidal justice in Rwanda. While with Internews Rwanda, Radha will focus her fieldwork primarily on the administration of justice through local gacaca, and will evaluate gacaca’s effect on Rwandan communities and gacaca’s overall contribution to reconciliation at a local level.
2002
Yishai Boyarin
J.D. student (1L), School of Law
Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) (Israel)
Yishai will be working with Israeli human rights lawyers and advocates to expose incidents of torture and human rights violations perpetrated against Palestinians by the Israeli military. He will research and prepare petitions to the Israeli High Court to demonstrate that detention of Palestinian activists/suspects without a hearing, lack of access to legal representation, convictions resulting from lack of due process and torture of Palestinian detainees violate Israeli law.
Joe Bryan
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Geography
Indian Law Resource Center (Nicaragua)
In response to an important decision issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights focused on indigenous land rights in Nicaragua, Joe will work with the Indian Law Resource Center. Joe will assist the Mayagna community of Awas Tingni by providing technical and logistical support needed to carry out a mapping project intended to demarcate and legally guarantee their land rights and to allow them to develop a comprehensive framework for renegotiating their relationship to the Nicaraguan state.
Andrew Fuys
M.P.P. student, Goldman School of Public Policy
Yayasan Tanah Merdeka (Indonesia)
Andrew plans to work with Yayasan Tanah Merdeka (The Free Land Institute), a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Indonesia, to analyze public policy alternatives related to the involuntary resettlement of communities resulting from mass mining operations. He also plans to identify models that would create more effective opportunities for citizen-based groups to advocate for policy changes that could better protect the rights of communities facing resettlement.
Shilpi Gupta
Master’s student, Graduate School of Journalism
Fund for Peace (Kashmir)
Shilipi will travel to Kashmir, a region which has suffered prolonged ethnic strife since the partitioning of Pakistan and India in 1947. While working with the Fund for Peace, Shilipi plans to develop a video project that will document the status of women and orphaned children in Kashmir as an indicator of the link between the flow of arms and conflict-induced human rights violations. She plans to elicit a variety of interviews with local activists, women’s organizations, humanitarian and human rights NGOs, survivors of violence and with workers at orphanages and hospitals.
Elina Katz
M.A. student, International and Area Studies program
Studio of Gilless Peress (New York)
Last year, Elina received a master’s degree at the Graduate School of Journalism. Elina is the first recipient of the newly offered Human Rights and Photography fellowship that provides a student fellow the opportunity to work with internationally-acclaimed photographer Gilles Peress in his New York studio. Elina has received photojournalism awards for her work in Addis Ababa and along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Felicia Lester
M.S./M.D. student, UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program
UN Population Fund (UNPF) (Cambodia)
This summer, Felicia will work with the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) in Cambodia conducting a community-based study to address the issue of unsafe abortion as part of a larger effort to the improve the reproductive health of Cambodian women. Felicia plans to determine abortion rates, methods used to induce abortion, characteristics of women seeking abortion, reasons for seeking abortion, medical complications that arise as a result of induced abortion and the treatment of those complications. Her interest in this area of research grows out her previous work with the UNPF on a community-based distribution of contraceptives project.
Raquel Moreno-Peñaranda
Ph.D. student, Energy and Resources Group
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Brazil)
Since its founding in 1985, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST, Brazilian Landless Workers Movement) has successfully helped over 250,000 families expropriate idle or unproductive land in an effort to gain title. Raquel plans to work with MST to explore the environmental component of its struggle for land; specifically, how MST’s environmental position has evolved over time, the environmental goals established by MST and the specific action undertaken so far with respect to care for the environment. She will also study the conflicts between landless people and indigenous communities arising from shared property lines and the role of both federal and state policy as well as international funding institutions such as the World Bank.
Krisjon Rae Olson
Ph.D. student, Department of Anthropology
Center for Conflict Management, National University of Rwanda (Rwanda)
Krisjon is the recipient of the newly offered Human Rights and Justice in Rwanda fellowship. Through this fellowship, Krisjon will spend the summer working with the Center for Conflict Management (CCM) at the National University of Rwanda. She will be working in two main project areas. The first will be to conduct a literature review on restorative justice models with reference to structure, procedure, community involvement, goals, performance and results. On the second project, Krisjon will assist CCM in conducting a series of surveys with different sectors of civil society (women’s organizations, churches, teachers, philanthropies) to explore their perceptions of the administration of justice at the local, national and international levels.
Brinda Sarathy
Ph.D. student, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Jefferson Center (Oregon)
The goal of this project is to identify salient information regarding the migratory Latino/a workforce, largely Mexican immigrants, who are responsible for virtually all of the manual labor required to maintain and conserve our national forests. By living and working within this community, she will gather basic demographic information and help identify the human rights concerns of this little known community, ranging from a variety of labor abuses to the impact of a gendered division of labor and community. She hopes that her research will shed light on how community ties to natural resources and the significance of a migratory workforce affect the ways in which people conceive of and manage their environments.
Shannon Scott
J.D. student (1L), School of Law
Legal Aid of Cambodia—Juvenile Unit (Cambodia)
Shannon will be working this summer with Legal Aid of Cambodia’s (LAC’s) Juvenile Unit to implement the fundamental human rights enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In particular, Shannon will be helping to develop a children’s rights monitoring process that will include interviews with children in custody, investigations of complaints and meetings with law enforcement officials. These findings will be used in the design of a larger-scale ombudsman program to serve the needs of juveniles in the Cambodian legal system. Shannon may also work with LAC’s Land Law Unit which provides legal services to victims of land-grabbing, typically by the military or by multi-national corporations. She will assist the Land Unit in developing its title registration project and in refining its legal representation in land dispute cases.
Tony Shen
M.B.A. student, Haas School of Business
Arcata Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) (Humboldt County, CA)
Tony will be working with the Arcata Economic Development Corp. (AEDC) in rural Northern California which promotes business growth and development, particularly small businesses, in conjunction with sound environmental planning. AEDC programs include development of California’s hardwoods industry by local residents, operating an incubator for small, food-based manufacturers, and managing a micro-enterprise lending program to assist low-income entrepreneurs in launching businesses. Tony will be working with AEDC to create a best practices report for industry development and researching best practices for delivering services to businesses in rural and isolated communities.
2001
Lisa Butler + Ana Marie Xet-Mull
M.P.H. students, School of Public Health
California Department of Health (San Francisco, CA)
Lisa and Ana Maria will be addressing the rise of tuberculosis among immigrant communities in San Francisco. In particular, they will focus on identifying factors that encourage members of immigrant communities to seek and adhere to treatment. They will be collaborating with the California Department of Health.
Logan Hennessy
Ph.D. student, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Amerindian Peoples Association (Guyana)
This summer, Hennessy will be conducting research among the Amerindians, the indigenous people of Guyana, to evaluate their Indigenous Gayanan capacity to secure land rights and natural resources and effective community-building strategies.
Mark Hunter
Ph.D. student, Department of Geography
Gingindlovu AIDS and Health Awareness Group and University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Built Environment and Development Studies (South Africa)
He intends to return to the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa to study the spread of AIDS and its relationships to material inequities and socially constructed notions of masculinity and femininity. Hunter will conduct his research in conjunction with Gingindlovu AIDS and Health Awareness Group and with the University of Natal Faculty of Community & Development Disciplines.
Read Mark’s resulting book, Love in the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender, and Rights in South Africa (Indiana University Press, 2010).
Mary Beth Kaufman
J.D. student (1L), School of Law
Oilwatch and Center for Economic and Social Rights (Ecuadoran Amazon)
She will be working with OilWatch/Center for Economic and Social Rights in the Ecuadoran Amazon in an attempt to hold Texaco legally responsible for the release of toxic waste in this region. Hoffman intends to videotape interviews with community members, lawyers, nongovernmental organizations, Ecuadoran government officials and Texaco representatives to explore and publicize these issues.
Leena Pendharkar
Master’s student, Graduate School of Journalism
International Rivers Network (India)
Leena plans to travel to India under the auspices of International Rivers Network to document the struggle of local communities to maintain their farmlands and way of life in the face of the proposed Sardar Sarovar dam of the Narmada Valley Development Project. She will take with her a small digital camera and document not only the protests against the building of this dam but also how the proposed dam will affect individuals and communities. She hopes that her multi-media web site will contribute to the ongoing dialogue about the effects of the Narmada Valley dams on rural communities and help to reach a solution that embraces and recognizes their sustainable way of living.
Vasu Sunkara
Undergraduate, Development Studies program and Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
Comision Mexicana de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos (Mexico City, Mexico)
Sunkara is combining interests in his two majors to explore the lack of health care for indigenous children working in factory regions in Mexico. He will work in Mexico City with a project of the Comision Mexicana de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos, “Child Survival: A Human Rights Priority.” The goal of Sunkara’s project is to increase the awareness of routine governmental healthcare denials for indigenous children as being a leading human rights violation.
Tida Violante
M.P.H. student, School of Public Health
UNICEF—HIV/AIDS Program (Ethiopia)
The program has four priority areas: 1) youth prevention; 2) prevention of mother-to-child transmission; 3) caring and support for children affected and orphaned by HIV/AIDS; and, 4) advocacy/breaking the silence. Tida will assist in the evaluation and monitoring of each of the priority areas. She will also provide technical assistance to regional counterparts.
Diana Pei Wu
Ph.D. student, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Borneo Project (Ringgin Forest Reserve, Borneo)
Wu will be working with the Borneo Project on the island of Borneo to help empower the local communities to defend their indigenous land rights and to protect their land from environmental degradation. Specifically, she will help map and train volunteers on GIS-based mapping techniques. She will also be investigating reforestation projects in the Ringgin Forest Reserve.
Daniela Yanai
J.D. student (1L), School of Law
Alternative Information Center—Worker’s Rights and Globalization Watch Project (Israel)
Yanai will be working in Israel this summer with the Worker’s Rights and Globalization Watch Project of the Alternative Information Center to document the plight of Palestinian workers and research the interactions between globalization and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. She intends to analyze the role globalization has played in shaping Israeli regulation of the Palestinian economy and to examine the impact of international development on the human rights violations that characterize the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
2000
Damir Arnaut
J.D. student, School of Law
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Geneva, Switzerland)
Arnaut plans to work in both Bosnia and in Geneva examining a relatively new area of focus for the UNHCR, the provision of legal services in the area of property rights. Arnaut’s expertise and language fluency will make him an important contributor to this project.
Tracey Brieger
M.S. student, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Save Narmada Movement (Narmada River Valley, India)
Brieger plans to work with the indigenous communities whose livelihoods are severely affected by the environmental damage caused by massive dam projects.
Susanne Coie
M.P.P. student, Goldman School of Public Policy
Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Secondary School (Oventic, Chiapas, Mexico)
Susanne will work to develop an educational curriculum that aims to meet the needs of local communities and to preserve indigenous culture.
Cynthia Cox
Master’s student, Graduate School of Journalism
Human Rights Watch and Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley (Central Asia)
Cox is this year’s Human Rights Watch/Human Rights Center Summer Fellow. Cox will be working in the volatile area of Central Asia to develop documentation of human rights abuses.
Kevin Dixon
Master’s student, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies
JATAM, the Mining Advocacy Network (Indonesia)
Dixon will help to establish a system of advocacy both at the JATAM Secretariat and in cooperation with regional partners to address issues of environmental degradation and human rights violations.
David Gross
Master’s student, Graduate School of Journalism
Hammer Forum e.V. (Prizen, Kosovo)
David will be will be documenting life in post-war Kosovo using photography, audio-recordings and the written word to capture the effect of war on ordinary people, their families and their environment.
Matthew Iverson
Undergraduate, Interdisciplinary Studies Field program
Project Concern International (Lusaka, Zambia)
Iverson plans to develop a participatory action research model with street children in Lusaka whose family members have perished due to AIDS.
Karen Levy
Ph.D. student, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
International Rivers Network (Guatamala)
Levy will be working to develop the Reparations Campaign that seeks to redress the wrongs suffered by communities displaced by large-scale dam construction. In particular, she will study the effects of the Chixoy Dam that resulted in the massacre of Maya-Achi Indians in the community of Rio Negro.
Amina Luqman
M.P.P. student, Goldman School of Public Policy
Uganda Land Alliance (Uganda)
Amina will assist the organization in developing advocacy techniques, lobbying and workshops to strengthen women’s land rights.
Jennifer Reisch
J.D. student, School of Law
Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales—Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Program (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Jennifer will work with the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Program to defend immigrants’ rights to education, legal representation, health care, housing and employment.
Anna Schmidt
Ph.D. student, Department of Political Science
Human Rights Watch (Tanzania)
Anna will spend her summer fellowship with Human Rights Watch in Tanzania investigating the treatment of refugees within a host country. Tanzania is host to one of the largest refugee programs in Africa and has experienced a dramatic shift in its policies towards those who seek refuge within its boarders.