Maya Batres
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
Washington D.C., USA

Maya is a rising 3L at the University of Minnesota Law School. She is interested primarily in Latin American development and human rights. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Minnesota in 2011, and after graduating she spent a year working at a cultural learning center in Guatemala, where she is a dual-citizen. She then served as an AmeriCorps literacy volunteer. During law school Maya has clerked for Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services in the Refugee Immigrant and Migrant Services Division in addition to the Ramsey County Attorney's Office Department of Human Services. She has also worked as a research assistant in the Department of African American Studies.

Maya will complete her Human Rights Fellowship at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in Washington D.C. this summer. CIEL works to strengthen and use international law and institutions to protect the environment, promote human health, and ensure a just and sustainable society.

 

Nick Bednar
The Advocates for Human Rights - Refugee and Immigrant Program & International Justice Program
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Nick Bednar recently finished his first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History from the University of Minnesota in 2012. During his undergraduate career, he studied in Cork, Ireland at University College Cork and earned a Certificate in Political Issues in Ireland Today. Nick served as treasurer of the Asylum Law Project during his first-year of law school and subsequently travelled to Berkeley, California to assist in the preparation of asylum declarations.

Nick’s Human Rights Fellowship will support his work this summer at the Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Advocates for Human Rights is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights. Nick will work with the Refugee and Immigrant Program assisting low-income persons seeking asylum in the United States. He will also work with the International Justice Program on drafting submissions to the United Nations on issues related to the rights of non-citizens in the United States.

 

Minne Bosma
South Asia Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (SAILS)
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Minne Bosma graduated from the Master of Laws (LL.M) Program at the University of Minnesota Law School with a human rights concentration. He interned previously at University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Center and the Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis. Minne received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in tax law from Tilburg University in 2013 and 2014, respectively. He participated in the International EUCOTAX Wintercourse 2012-2013 project and wrote his Master’s thesis is this context.

Minne studied abroad at Kyushu University in Japan during his undergraduate where he concentrated on international economic and business law. Minne will use his Human Rights Fellowship to work with the South Asia Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He will focus on human rights education. More specifically, he will develop a human rights curriculum and teach on topics of human rights to recently graduated, and current law school students.

 

Suzan Boulad
Independent Syrian Judiciary Council
Gaziantep, Turkey

Suzan will be entering her second year as a law student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She received her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Mills College. After graduating, she blogged for Mideast Youth and worked with the Syrian American Council and other organizations supporting the Syrian revolution and raising money for humanitarian relief.

Suzan will use her Fellowship working with the Independent Syrian Judiciary Council in Gaziantep, Turkey. The Council is a grassroots group of judges who provide basic legal services to Syrians in areas that no longer have government services, as well as document human rights abuses from both government forces and rebels. She will be working to connect this group and other grassroots Syrian legal organizations with international support, as well as assisting in human rights documentation.

 

Ashlyn Clark
Transitional Justice Institute
Belfast, Northern Ireland

Ashlyn is a first year law student at the University of Minnesota. She graduated in 2013 from Carnegie Mellon University where she majored in History and Creative Writing. During her undergraduate studies, Ashlyn interned with anti-human trafficking NGOs in Washington, DC, and helped lobby for the Trafficking Victims Protections Reauthorization Act. Ashlyn is using her Human Rights Fellowship to work with the Transitional Justice Institute in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Institute is a leading center in the developing field of transitional justice, examining how the law and legal institutions assist in the move from conflict to peace. Ashlyn will be working with the Institute’s summer program focused on gender, sexual violence, and conflict issues.

 

Kathya Cibelle Dawe
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
The Hague, Netherlands

Kathya Cibelle Dawe is a lawyer and anthropologist originally from Brazil and now based in Minnesota. The Human Rights Center hosted her as a 2010-11 Humphrey Fulbright Fellow at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she focused her professional development and studies on justice and prison systems, the rights of incarcerated persons, and women’s and children’s rights. Since she has moved to the Twin Cities, Kathya has developed a series of documentaries for local television focusing on human rights, both locally in Minnesota and internationally, as well as international education and the Humphrey Fellowship Program.

Kathya recently started her Human Rights Fellowship with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She is working at Trial Chamber I, on the Ratko Mladic case; Mladic is accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. She provides legal support to the Judges at the Mladic trial by performing legal research and preparing memoranda; helping to draft Decisions, Oders and parts of Judgements; assisting with the management of documentary evidence; writing reports of court proceedings and summaries of witnesses’ testimony; and participating in analyses and discussions with the Chambers legal staff and the three Judges assigned to this case.

 

Paula Cuellar
The Advocates for Human Rights - International Justice Program
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Paula earned a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) Degree from the Central American University José Simeón Cañas. She also earned a master �?s degree in Human Rights and Education for Peace from the University of El Salvador and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) Degree in International Human Rights Law from Notre Dame, graduating magna cum laude. She earned a Postgraduate Diploma in Human Rights and Democratization Processes from the University of Chile. This past year she was accepted to the University of Minnesota Graduate Program in History.

Professionally, since 2005, she has worked full-time at the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador as a judicial clerk. In 2011, Paula was appointed as the Head of the International Unit of the Supreme Court of Justice. Furthermore, she worked at the Central American University José Simeón Cañas as an academic at a postgraduate and graduate level and, since 2006, she worked as a researcher for the law department. Paula has been involved in activism on transitional justice issues, working with the International Tribunal for the Application of Restorative Justice in El Salvador, the International Center for Transitional Justice and has collaborated with restorative justice initiatives in her country to create awareness about the necessity of addressing past human rights violations. During this past year, she worked as a research assistant for Professor Douglass Cassel at Notre Dame University.

 

Tim Culver
University of Minnesota Law School (Prof. Chris Roberts)
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Tim Culver is a rising second-year J.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota Law School. He received a B.A. in Philosophy from Princeton University in 2007, with a focus on Moral Philosophy and Philosophy of Mind. After graduating, Tim worked for a leading educational services provider, serving as Director of Operations in Northern California, before establishing a sole-proprietorship to offer accessible tutoring, operational advising, and admissions consulting to under-resourced individuals. He has fundraised, organized, and volunteered across four continents and in more than twenty countries, focusing his efforts on a range of human rights issues, such as food rights, war crimes, educational access, and employee treatment in the agricultural industry.

This summer, Tim will serve his Human Rights Fellowship with Professor Chris Roberts at the University of Minnesota Law School. He will assist in producing the final manuscript for Professor Roberts’ forthcoming book, The Contentious History of the International Bill of Human Rights, as well as Law Review articles associated with its content. Specifically, Tim will conduct literature reviews, edit forthcoming publications, perform data searches in academic journals and law reviews, and consolidate, synthesize, and present research findings in person and through written summaries.

 

Griffin Ferry
The Advocates for Human Rights - Women’s Rights Program
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Griffin Ferry is a first year law student at the University of Minnesota. He graduated from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. This summer, Griffin will be interning for the Women’s Rights Program at the Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Women’s Human Rights program applies international human rights standards to advocate for women’s rights in Minnesota, the United States, and around the world. Griffin will primarily be working on legal research and monitoring current developments in women’s human rights.

 

Susan Hallquist
Volunteer Lawyers Network (VLN)
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Susan Hallquist is a 2013 graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. After graduating summa cum laude from Saint Catherine University in 2009, where she majored in English literature, Susan completed an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship during her 2L year. During this time she worked on sustainable development issues with a particular geographic focus on Senegal.

This summer, Susan will be working at Volunteer Lawyers Network (VLN) located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Established in 1966, VLN is a non-profit that provides free civil legal services to low-income persons through volunteer attorneys. Susan will work directly with VLM clients providing brief legal services and legal advice at the Legal Access Point Clinic in Hennepin County. She will also provide follow-up services and research for some of VLN’s clients. Another one of her major roles is coordinating a free pilot legal advice clinic for the Asian community in the Twin Cities in collaboration with some of the diversity/affinity bar associations.

 

Emily Harrison
American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital
Washington D.C., USA

Emily Harrison is a rising second year student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Wisconsin -- Madison in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science (Honors) and History. As a senior, Emily wrote an honors Political Science thesis analyzing how the exchange of ideas in higher education has been frustrated by unconstitutional information technology policies, as well as by the lack of academic freedom protection for faculty in cases of open records requests subpoenaing e-mail records.

Last summer, Emily interned for Pennsylvania State Senator Andrew Dinniman and assisted with legislative and constituent casework. She analyzed drafts of legislation related to topics including higher education, security and civil liberties, environmental cap and trade programs, and the pharmaceutical industry. As a Human Rights Fellow, Emily will pursue a fellowship at the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital during the summer of 2014. The ACLU is involved in a variety of human rights and civil liberties issues such as criminal justice and the due process of law, freedom of speech, immigrants’ rights, LGBT rights and gender equality, national security, privacy, racial justice, voting rights, and student and youth rights. She will conduct legal and factual research, contact current and potential clients, draft memoranda and pleadings, and prepare testimonies regarding proposed legislation before the Council of the District of Columbia. Working for the ACLU this summer will allow Emily the ability to further her goal of pursuing a legal career relating to civil liberties, human rights, and constitutional law.

 

Eikoku Ikeno
University of Minnesota Law School - Center for New Americans - Detainee Rights Clinic
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Eikoku Ikeno is a third year law student at the University of Minnesota Law School. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. This summer, he will use his Human Rights Fellowship award to work with the Detainee Rights Clinic of the University of Minnesota Law School's Center for New Americans. The Center for new Americans, founded in 2013 through a generous grant from the Robina Foundation, was established with the mission of serving the often overlooked and perpetually underserved population of immigrants living in Minnesota. In particular, the mission of the Detainee Rights Clinic, one of the three clinical programs created under the Center for New Americans, is to provide direct representation for those immigrants being held in detention under ICE custody.

Over the summer, Eikoku intends to not only provide direct representation to immigrants in detention, but to also work with the Detainee Rights Clinic in developing and establishing the guidelines and protocols needed to help the Clinic operate effectively in the future.

 

Kristin Johnson
Gender Justice
Saint Paul, Minnesota

Kristin Johnson is a second-year student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science, summa cum laude, from Middle Tennessee State University in 2008. Prior to that, Kristin spent many years working for the United States Postal Service in the Nashville, Tennessee, area and volunteering her free time with various service organizations such as the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, and Meals on Wheels.

Kristin’s Human Rights Fellowship will be with Gender Justice, a legal aid organization in St. Paul, Minnesota, focusing on issues of gender inequality and legal actions manifested of such issues. These include civil actions based on sexual assault, pay disparity, wrongful termination, and many other situations commonly accompanying gender and intersectional biases. Over the summer, Kristin will endeavor to provide valuable research and legal assistance to founding and staff attorneys as they fight to right gender-based wrongs.

 

Adam Kohnstamm
Office of International Affairs, Department of Justice
Rome, Italy

Adam Kohnstamm is a native of Saint Paul, Minnesota. He completed his second year of law school at the University of Minnesota. Adam earned his undergraduate degree in History with a minor in Political Science at Union College New York. Prior to law school, Adam worked for 5 years on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. as a policy adviser for two United States Senators including Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.

This summer, Adam will intern with the Department of Justice Office of International Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, Italy, which coordinates with the Italian Department of Justice in criminal investigations and prosecutions involving the extradition or other legal rendition of international fugitives. Adam is particularly excited to help with legal research and writing in support of attorneys prosecuting cases of corruption, human trafficking, hate crimes, and violence against women.

 

Soren Lagaard
Office of the General Counsel, United States Department of Education
Washington, D.C.
Southern Poverty Law Center
Montgomery, Alabama

Soren Lagaard, a native of Cambridge, Minnesota, completed his second year of law school at the University of Minnesota. Passionate about juvenile justice issues, Soren was a middle school English teacher in New Orleans for three years before coming to law school. He received his undergraduate degree from Boston College, studying abroad in Cairo, Egypt and Sana’a, Yemen.

This summer, Soren is excited and honored to intern at both the United States Department of Education and the Southern Poverty Law Center. At both, he will have the opportunity to work on a range of issues related to educational opportunity and juvenile justice.

 

Ariel Litke
International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW)
Minneapolis, MN, and Geneva, Switzerland

Ariel Litke recently completed an M.A. (research track) in Human Rights at the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) at Sciences Po in Paris, France. In the fall, he will start a Master’s in Economic Law, also at Sciences Po, in preparation for taking the Bar Exam. In 2012, he graduated at the top of his class at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where he majored in International Relations, and was awarded the prize for best Bachelor’s Thesis (Law). Over the years, Ariel has volunteered with the Geneva Red Cross, teaching French to political refugees, and with UNICEF France. He also organizes weekly sports and cultural outings for youth from the Paris suburbs with the Secours Populaire.

This summer, Ariel will be work with Dr. Marsha Freeman, Director of International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW), which is affiliated with the Human Rights Center. He will assist Dr. Freeman in a number of research projects, including one focused on the development of so-called Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) and their resistance to family law reform. He will also accompany Dr. Freeman to the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women meetings in Geneva in July 2014, assisting Dr. Freeman in advocacy and research. He is looking forward to learning the “who’s-who” and inner workings of UN politics.

 

Danielle Meinhardt
Sierra Club Environmental Law Program
San Francisco, California

Danielle completed a bachelor's degree in geography at the University of Missouri -- Columbia and later re-located to Minnesota to earn a master's degree in geography. She spent time on the Île de la Gonâve in Haiti, where she volunteered at a rural health clinic and helped high school students in their English courses. As an intern at Women on Waves, a Dutch reproductive rights organization, she compiled data on abortion policy and women’s health and helped the organization launch an Internet campaign. These and other experiences solidified Danielle's commitment to working for the public interest. After teaching community college for several years Danielle returned to the University of Minnesota to pursue a law degree and a PhD in geography through the Joint Degree Program in Law, Science & Technology.

The 2014 Human Rights Fellowship will support Danielle's work as a legal intern at the Sierra Club Environmental Law Program in San Francisco, California. The Sierra Club works to protect the environment and public health, and is particularly focused on reducing the threats that climate change poses to people and the ecosystems upon which they rely.

 

Nathaniel Moore
International Human Rights Clinic
Geneva, Switzerland

Nathaniel Moore will graduate from the University of Minnesota Law School in May of 2014 with certificates in Energy and Environmental Law, International Law, and Human Rights Law. Prior to Law School, Nathaniel worked at a wine vineyard in the drift-less area of Wisconsin, contributed to the work of an international environmental think-tank, and taught English in the West Bank. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and focused on international relations.

Nathaniel’s Human Rights Fellowship work included traveling to Geneva, Switzerland to participate in the U.N. Human Rights Committee’s review of the United States. There, he successfully lobbied the U.N. Human Rights Committee to question the U.S. Delegation on their commitment to fulfilling their obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. During the review, the Committee questioned the delegation with references from the Report drafted by Nathaniel and his colleagues. Following the review, the Committee adopted language in their “Concluding Observations” that mirrored sample “Concluding Observations” created by Nathaniel and his colleagues.

 

Jacob Rhein
Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice
Washington, D.C., USA

Jacob Rhein is a second-year student at the University of Minnesota Law School and an editor of the Minnesota Law Review. He previously attended the University of St. Thomas, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and his Master of Arts in Catholic studies. This summer, Jacob will be an intern in the Criminal Section of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. He will assist government attorneys with legal research and writing to support the prosecution of violent crimes against federal civil rights.

 

Sarah Super
Tenaganita
Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Sarah Super is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota completing a Masters of Education in Human Resource Development. While earning her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and American Studies from the University of Minnesota, Sarah became a yoga instructor. Since then, her study of intercultural learning and her passion for yoga have propelled her to work with many ages, bodies, and abilities with the intention of serving the marginalized and facilitating wellness and peace within.

Sarah will complete her Human Rights Fellowship with Tenaganita, an NGO that promotes the rights of women in Malaysia. There, she will offer trauma-sensitive yoga to victims of human trafficking and train mental health professionals in this adjunctive healing therapy. Sarah intends to extend trauma-sensitive yoga from the clinical world into the human rights community as a tool to heal victims of human rights abuses as well as protect advocates from secondary trauma in their daily work.

 

Leah Tabbert
Gender Justice
Saint Paul, Minnesota

Prior to completing her first year at the University of Minnesota Law School, Leah graduated summa cum laude from St. Norbert College with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Philosophy. While an undergraduate, she was active in LGBT advocacy, serving as co-president of St. Norbert College’s Rainbow Alliance. Leah also had the privilege of interning with the Office of the Public Defender of Green Bay, WI. She would like to practice public interest or employment law in the future.

Leah will complete her Human Rights Fellowship at Gender Justice in St. Paul, MN, during which she looks forward to connecting with the community and furthering LGBT and women’s human rights. Gender Justice is a non-profit legal organization that seeks to reduce the effects of sex, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination. Gender Justice applies a three-part approach to this goal by engaging in impact litigation, policy advocacy, and community education.

 

Max Zimmerman
International Center for Transitional Justice
New York, New York

Max Zimmerman just completed his first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. He received his B.A. in international affairs from the George Washington University, and his M.A. in international affairs from the New School in New York City. Previously, Max worked with International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch.

During the summer of 2014, Max’s Human Rights Fellowship will enable him to work with the International Center for Transitional Justice. Max will support the organization’s efforts to assist in promoting justice, accountability, and peace to countries that have seen mass human rights violations in the recent past. His work in the New York office will support projects in Lebanon, Colombia, and Uganda, as well as other places.

 

Oualid Abid
Musulman-es Progressites de France (MPF)
Paris, France

Oualid received his Bachelor’s Degree in Public Law from Université Hassan II, in Casablanca, Morocco, and attended the University of Padova, Italy, to study political science. He is currently a law student at the University of Minnesota and has worked with various human rights organizations in the U.S. He is particularly interested in LGBT rights.

Oualid will use his Human Rights Fellowship award to work with the Musulman-es Progressistes de France (MPF). Through his research and advocacy with Les Musulman-es Progressistes de France, Oualid hopes to extend the voices of these courageous activists to the international community, and in particular, to the LGBT Muslims in Arab nations who suffer abuses of their human rights so routinely.

 

Rachel Blackhurst
Malawi Human Rights Resource Centre
Lilongwe, Malawi

Rachel Blackhurst is a second-year law student pursuing a human rights concentration at the University of Minnesota. Rachel earned her B.A. in Foreign Service and Political Science from Alma College in 2010. During her undergraduate studies, Rachel interned twice for the U.S. State Department, spending a semester supporting U.S. activities in the Security Council at United Nations headquarters in New York. After graduating, Rachel volunteered as a community development coordinator in a resettlement camp for internally displaced persons in rural Kenya. As a first-year law student, Rachel traveled to Tucson, Arizona, with the Asylum Law Project to assist in the preparation of visa petitions for victims of domestic violence. Rachel is currently a student practitioner in the Human Rights Litigation and International Advocacy Clinic.

Rachel is using her Human Rights Fellowship to work as an Assistant Program Officer for the Malawi Human Rights Resource Centre (MHRRC) in Lilongwe, Malawi. The MHRRC engages in advocacy and lobbying on several human rights themes, including gender-based violence, HIV and AIDS, the use of force by law enforcement, and civil and political rights. The MHRRC functions as a capacity-building organization for civil society in Malawi, providing training, research, coordination, and documentation services to grassroots organizations.

 

Katie Choi
Citizens’ Alliance for North Korea Human Rights (NKHR)
Seoul, South Korea

Katie Choi just completed her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. She graduated cum laude from the University of California-Los Angeles, where she majored in Sociology. Prior to law school, she interned at Public Counsel’s Pro Per Guardianship Clinic in Los Angeles, California, where she provided assistance to low-income families in filing applications for probate guardianship. She has been working at the Children’s Law Center of Minnesota as a law clerk, where she assists staff and volunteer attorneys in their representation of children by conducting legal research and preparing interim case reviews and case summaries.

This summer, Katie’s Human Rights Fellowship will support her internship with the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR) in Seoul, South Korea. NKHR is a non-profit human rights organization focused on improving the situation of human rights in North Korea and providing assistance for North Korean refugees, with a focus on youth and children. The organization assists North Korean youths in adjusting to life and education in South Korea, as well as advocates for the rights of stateless children born to North Korean mothers and Chinese fathers. Katie will work on a variety of NKHR’s initiatives and projects, including organizing a grassroots campaign and planning NKHR’s annual charity concert in support of North Korean youths living in South Korea.

 

Bin Dai
Asia Catalyst
New York City, New York

Bin Dai is a second year law student at the University of Minnesota. She graduated from Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

This summer, Bin Dai will intern for Asia Catalyst in New York City. Asia Catalyst is a nonprofit organization that provides trainings in organizational management, documentation, and advocacy to grassroots groups in Asia working on health rights. Bin Dai will do legal research on Chinese, U.S., and international human rights law relating to disability rights and nondiscrimination. In addition, Bin Dai will conduct legal research and assist in drafting a report on administrative detention in China.

 

Alex Dyste
U.S. Department of the Interior
Bloomington, MN

Alex is a second year law student at the University of Minnesota Law School. During the 2012-2013 academic year, she served as the Secretary for the Asian-Pacific American Law Student Association, as a staff member on the Journal of Law & Inequality, and as an Admissions Ambassador for the Admissions Office. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Michigan State University in 2011. Alex is interested in strengthening indigenous rights; this past school year, she wrote her student article for the Journal of Law & Inequality on the Implications of the Affordable Care Act on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. During her time in law school, she has clerked twice with the Minneapolis division of Legal Aid Society.

This summer, Alex will use her Human Rights Fellowship award to serve as an intern for the Department of the Interior (DOI), primarily working on litigation arising out of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Bureau of Indian Education. The Department of the Interior is the federal agency that works most closely with Native American individuals, governments, and organizations. Together with the BIA, the DOI is responsible for addressing a wide range of tribal needs. The DOI’s mission in this regard is to remedy the federal government’s past wrongdoings and give meaning to the treaty rights promised to U.S. tribes. Alex will perform research, draft briefs and motions, and participate in discovery.

 

Evan Gelles
Legal Rights Center
Minneapolis, MN

Evan just completed his first year as a law student at the University of Minnesota Law School. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a minor in Political Science. Prior to attending law school, Evan served as a civil rights intern at CAIR-Chicago (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and a law clerk at the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. He is an active member of the Muslim Law Student Association.

Evan is using his Human Rights Fellowship to work with the Legal Rights Center, a nonprofit poverty criminal defense law firm located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Legal Rights Center aims to assist populations most vulnerable to abuse in the criminal justice system. The organization provides pro bono legal assistance to low-income, disadvantaged populations. As a Fellow at the Legal Rights Center, Evan will work directly with clients and the court. He will conduct client intakes, perform legal research and writing, work on trial preparation, and may participate in trial proceedings.

Sanam Ghandehari
United Nations
New York, New York

Sanam Ghandehari is an LL.M student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She received her LL.B from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran and completed a highly selective Masters of Law from Tehran University in 2007, a program from which only seven top students are granted degrees each year. After passing the bar exams, she was an Attorney at Law in the Iranian Central Bar Association where she worked for almost five years.

As a Human Rights Fellow, Sanam is interning with two international human rights organizations in 2013. First, she interned with the United Nations Headquarters in New York focusing on the UN’s internal justice system; the UN recently established a new internal justice system to establish a more harmonious and accountable working environment, which will improve the performance of UN human rights units wherever they work. Sanam is now interning with the International Institute of Minnesota, which assists over 1,000 refugees, asylees, and immigrants to navigate the complex processes of permanent residency, citizenship, and other immigration procedures.

 

Paulina Houston
Marin County Public Defender
San Rafael, California

Paulina Houston (“Lina�?) just completed her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. During her first year of law school, she volunteered as a legal rights intern with Breaking Free, an organization that helps women who have been victimized by sex trafficking and prostitution. She worked as a policy intern at the Minnesota Department of Human Services during her first summer, where she increased access to chemical dependency treatment programs for pregnant and parenting women. She has also clerked at the Neighborhood Justice Center, a nonprofit criminal defense office in St. Paul, which sparked her passion for criminal justice. Lina graduated from UCLA magna cum laude with a B.A. in African American Studies and a concentration in English. While at UCLA, she advocated for African American construction workers at the Black Worker Center in Los Angeles and studied Afro-Brazilian culture in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.

This summer, Lina will use her Human Rights Fellowship award to clerk for the Marin County Public Defender in San Rafael, CA. She will be certified by the California State Bar to represent clients in court as a student attorney, and will likely appear on the daily calendar. The Marin County Public Defender is the only Bay Area public defender’s office that allows students to work on jury trials, and Lina hopes she will be able to work on one this summer. She will also conduct client interviews and jail visits, as well as be cleared to visit San Quentin State Prison.

 

Tisidra Jones
International Leadership Institute
Eldoret, Kenya

Tisidra graduated from the University of St. Thomas School of Law in 2012. During her time in law school, she served as a Legal Research Assistant, drafting and editing articles on mass incarceration in the United States. She also served as a Student Attorney for an arts-based civic engagement program. Tisidra holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music with a minor in Sociology from George Mason University.

During Summer 2013, Tisidra will serve as a Human Rights Fellow at the International Leadership Institute, a non-profit organization that focuses on improving the justice and education systems in host countries. Tisidra will primarily be working with youth in Kenya by applying an arts-based civic engagement model to raise awareness about human rights issues in nearby communities.

Nicole Kast
Centro Una Brisa de Esperanza
Cochabamba, Bolivia

Nicole is a first year graduate student in Community Health Promotion at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. After graduating from Swarthmore College with a degree in Sociology/Anthropology in 2008, Nicole lived in Oaxaca, Mexico, for four years where she collaborated with a number of community-based organizations. In 2009, she co-edited and published the book Lo Vimos Lo Vivimos: Narracciones en Movimiento, which features 20 short stories, poems, chronicles, and essays written by people of all ages who lived through the social movement in Oaxaca in 2006. Between 2010 and 2012, Nicole coordinated the early detection and prevention program for an organization working with the deaf community and led Theater of the Oppressed workshops for young indigenous girls at the local women’s center in Oaxaca. Currently, Nicole is a Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) Trainee at the Institute on Community Integration, as well as the research assistant for the Health Disparities Work Group at the School of Public Health. Nicole’s geographic focus is Latin America with a thematic interest in disability studies and intra-family violence.

Through her Human Rights Fellowship, Nicole will work with Centro Una Brisa de Esperanza (C.U.B.E.). This non-governmental organization focuses on the rights of children and adolescents to be protected from danger and works to improve the development of children’s well-being.

 

Anna Meteyer
Human Rights Program [MN-Colombia Project]
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Anna Meteyer is a third-year undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, pursuing a B.A. in Global Studies and Art, and minoring in Spanish. She currently works as a student assistant for the University of Minnesota Human Rights Program in the Institute for Global Studies, where she contributes to research, advocacy, and communications efforts. In Spring 2013, Anna interned with the Children’s Law Center, a small non-profit law firm in St. Paul, where she assisted in the advocacy and insurance of children’s rights within the foster care system through writing stories for the website, organizing case files, and developing promotion efforts. After graduating, Anna hopes to gain experience and develop her knowledge surrounding indigenous labor and land rights, particularly in the context of economic and sustainable development, through traveling to Central or South America and working with indigenous communities.

Anna will use her Human Rights Fellowship to work with the University of Minnesota Human Rights Program as part of its capacity-building partnership with several law schools in the Antioquia region of Colombia. In this position, she will serve as a liaison between the University of Minnesota human rights community and student populations at the Antioquia partner universities. She particularly hopes to establish a virtual student forum (via Skype) that connects human rights students in Minnesota to students in Colombia, creating a space for the exchange of innovative ideas and adding depth to the students’ understanding of the application of human rights advocacy and law in different cultural and political contexts. These forums will act as an informal “think-tank�? of sorts, combining many different outlooks and creating an international community of leading human rights students.

Brittney Miller
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Washington, D.C.

Brittney just completed her second year as a law student at the University of Minnesota. She graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Politics and English from Drake University. As an undergraduate, Brittney worked for a small consumer rights law office in Des Moines, Iowa. It was there that she became interested in public interest legal work.

This summer, Brittney will be using her Human Rights Fellowship to work as a law clerk for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C. Relying on advocacy and impact litigation, the Lawyers’ Committee combats disparities in housing, education, the workplace, and the voting booth. Brittney has been placed with the organization’s Employment Discrimination Project. She will join the organization’s efforts to challenge discriminatory employment barriers and to open up access to opportunity.

 

Spencer Peck
Food and Agriculture Organization
Kigali, Rwanda

Spencer Peck attended the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, majored in Political Science and History, and played intercollegiate basketball. While attending the university, he began to work with at-risk and substance-dependent youth in therapeutic treatment settings. In August 2010, Mr. Peck and his wife moved to Meru, Kenya, to work as Program Liaisons between Kenya Methodist University, Meru University of Science and Technology, and the University of Michigan Medical School. His role was to help the Kenyan institutes build their educational and research capacity by partnering with the University of Michigan. After a year in Kenya, he enrolled in law school, pursuing concentrations in Environmental and International Law. He is also concurrently pursuing a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Spencer’s ultimate career goal is to work to improve the livelihoods of those living in developing nations. Ideally, he wants to help African or Southeast Asian nations plan and develop their burgeoning urban centers in order to protect and enhance natural environments and resources.

Spencer’s Human Rights Fellowship will be with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Kigali, Rwanda. There, he will work on the Kagera Transboundary Agroecosystems Management Project. The overall goal of this project is to encourage the adoption of integrated ecosystem approaches for managing land resources in the Kagera Basin. As a Project Technical Assistant, he will help with several aspects of the project including: restoration of degraded lands, carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation, agro-biodiversity conservation, and sustainable use and improved agricultural production.

 

Angelica Ramirez
Transitional Justice Institute
Belfast, Northern Ireland

Angelica Ramirez has just completed her first year of Law School at the University of Minnesota. A native of Dallas, Texas, she is a graduate of Northland College in Wisconsin and was a 2010 McNair's Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. She has been elected to serve as President of the Latino Law Student Association and the Vice President of the Indian Services Project-Greater Minnesota Committee for the 2013-14 academic year. Angelica is passionate about community involvement and bringing underrepresented voices into the fold.

For her Human Rights Fellowship, Angelica will work for the Transitional Justice Institute in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Institute is recognized as a leading center for the field of transitional justice, where scholars from Ireland, the United Kingdom, and other countries generate scholarship on the role of law and legal institutions in post-conflict situations. Angelica will be working to prepare materials for, as well as participate in, the Institute's program on "Peace Negotiations, Peace Mediation, and Influencing Implementation: Engaging Women and Gender." She will engage with women in Africa and the Middle East who are looking to increase their participation in the development of post-conflict governments in their home countries.

 

Thea Reilkoff
The Advocates for Human Rights [Women’s Human Rights Program]
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Thea Reilkoff is a student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She has a B.S. in Chemistry from Mayville State University and an M.S. in Environmental Science and Engineering from the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology. Prior to law school, Thea served as the Director of External Relations for the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science. Before that, she worked as a research engineer at the Energy & Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Thea has a long history of political and community involvement, which motivated her to obtain a law degree with a concentration in human rights. For many years, Thea has had an interest in business and human rights, particularly the impact that multinational corporations and business entities have on women and children. Her focus has been on international trade and investment, as well as corporate transparency.

In Summer 2013, Thea will intern with the Women’s Human Rights Program at the Advocates for Human Rights. In January 2013, a team from the Advocates traveled to Mongolia for the first of two fact-finding missions to assess the Mongolian government’s efforts to protect victims of domestic violence. Thea will be responsible for reviewing and identifying key information from interviews conducted during the Advocates’ fact-finding mission and will assist in preparing the final report. In addition, she will provide substantive updates to the Stop Violence Against Women website, including country reports and news items. She will also have the opportunity to develop new content for the site.

 

Gada Roba
International Organization on Migration/U.S. Resettlement Support Center
Nairobi, Kenya

Gada Roba is an Oromo-American, originally a refugee from Ethiopia who came to Minnesota in 1999. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2009 with a double major in Global Studies and Political Science and a minor in African Studies. During his time at the University of Minnesota, Gada traveled extensively to develop his leadership skills in the U.S. and abroad, studying international development and human rights in Kenya and Tanzania, attending international conferences in Morocco and South Africa, and traveling through the southern U.S. to study the civil rights movement. During his time in Kenya, Gada interned with the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights where he was involved in documentation and investigation of post election violence in 2007/8. After graduating from the University, Gada has held key leadership roles in Minnesota-based Oromo organizations and worked as a bilingual Associate Educator in Minneapolis schools. He was also a Humphrey Policy Fellow in 2012-2013.

During the summer of 2013, Gada will use his Human Rights Fellowship award in conjunction with the Hawkinson Scholarship award to work with the International Organization on Migration and the U.S. Resettlement Support Center in Nairobi, Kenya. Gada will support those organizations as they serve refugees seeking resettlement in the United States and Canada.

 

Ethan Scrivner
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The Hague, Netherlands

Ethan Scrivner completed his first year of Law School in May 2013. Prior to enrolling at the University of Minnesota Law School, he served as a Senior Peer Mentor with the CLEAN Program at the College of St. Scholastica, assisting students recovering from substance abuse and carrying out research to raise awareness of the program. He also served as an English as a Second Language instructor in Finland during the summer of 2012. He holds a B.A. in International Studies and Journalism, summa cum laude, from the College of St. Scholastica. Ethan has traveled and studied extensively abroad, including for an independent research project in Hyderabad, India.

Ethan was inspired to seek an internship with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia by a trip he took through the former Yugoslavia, where he saw the legacy of the ethnic violence of the 1990s firsthand. For his Human Rights Fellowship, he will be serving in the Communications Section of the Tribunal, an experience which he hopes will expand his capacity to apply his legal education to the prevention of ethnic violence and genocide.

 

Kirsten Selvig
REDRESS
London, England

Kirsten graduated with a B.A. in History from the University of South Carolina. During her time as an undergraduate, she spent a year studying in France and England; in the fall, Kirsten studied at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and in the spring, she went to Leeds University in England. She has just completed her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School, pursuing a criminal justice track with a human rights focus. Last summer, Kirsten worked with the U.S. Navy JAG Corps in San Diego, CA, and she hopes to become a Navy JAG after graduating from Law School.

This summer, Kirsten will be working with REDRESS in London. REDRESS is an anti-torture NGO that assists survivors of torture to find justice. Through casework and research, REDRESS seeks to hold the perpetrators of torture accountable for their actions through national courts and international institutions. REDRESS also conducts extensive research on various issues related to torture. The organization has a global scope, but also works with individual clients in local communities.

 

Sarah Super
Justice Resource Institute, Trauma Center
Brookline, Massachusetts

Sarah Super is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota completing an interdisciplinary Masters degree program focusing on yoga and human rights. While earning her B.A. magna cum laude in Sociology and American Studies from the University of Minnesota, Sarah became a yoga instructor. Since then, her study of justice and her passion for yoga have propelled her to work with many ages, bodies, and abilities with the intention of serving the marginalized and facilitating wellness and peace within.

Sarah will complete her Human Rights Fellowship with the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute in Brookline, Massachusetts. There, she will work under the Director of Yoga Services to build a curriculum in trauma-sensitive yoga. Sarah intends to bring this trauma-informed yoga into the human rights community as a tool to heal victims of torture and other human rights abuses, as well as protect advocates from secondary trauma in their daily work.

 

Ariel Tazkargy
Center for Reproductive Rights Global Legal Program
New York, New York

Ariel Tazkargy is a rising third-year student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She graduated with highest distinction and honors from the University of Kansas in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. During her time in law school, Ariel has volunteered at Peace and Hope International's Walk-In Legal Clinic and will be the Executive Editor of Volume 32 of Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice. She has worked for the Advocates for Human Rights’ International Justice Program, where she helped create and organize resources for diaspora communities in the United States that would allow them to advocate for human rights in their home countries. Ariel also clerked for the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota, researching and writing on the enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

This summer, Ariel will use her Human Rights Fellowship to intern with the Global Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights, located in New York City. Ariel will have the opportunity to research and write submissions to the United Nations and regional human rights bodies, conduct general legal and policy research on international law, human rights law, and foreign and comparative law. She will also help to prepare advocacy materials for use in regional and international human rights enforcement bodies.

Shuangqi (Joy) Wang
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
Arusha, Tanzania

Shuangqi Wang is a University of Minnesota Law Student who graduated from Denison University in 2012 with a B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology. While earning her degree, Shuangqi acquired a strong interest in issues of human rights, including not only civil and political rights, but also social, economic and cultural rights, as well as collective rights. The fact that people from different cultures conceptualize and understand human rights differently fascinates Shuangqi; she believes that intercultural communication is crucial in developing a human rights concept that is sensitive to all cultures. Shuangqi also volunteers at the Public Health Law Center, conducting comparative research on international tobacco control.

As a Human Rights Fellow, Shuangqi will travel to Arusha, Tanzania, to provide legal assistance to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, an ad hoc tribunal created by the United Nations Security Council to address the serious human rights violations committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In this role, Shuangqi will contribute to the ICTR’s work on maintaining peace and facilitating national rehabilitation in Rwanda.

Grace Zaiman
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid
Minneapolis, MN

Grace Zaiman is a recent graduate of William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, MN. As a law student, Grace spent four semesters in the Immigration Law Clinic where she worked on cases involving gender-based asylum, adjustment of status, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. As part of the Clinic, Grace was involved in the Minnesota Detention Project, where she represented detainees in removal proceedings. While in law school, Grace also clerked for the Immigration Law Project at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid and served as the Minnesota Justice Foundation’s pro bono law clerk in the Immigration Department at Fredrikson & Byron. Prior to attending William Mitchell, Grace received a B.A. in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, and an M.A. from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Grace is using her Human Rights Fellowship to continue her work with Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid. Grace will be conducting legal research into immigrant and human rights issues, including humanitarian asylum and deportation defense.

Umar Zulqarnain
Childhope Asia
Manila, Philippines

Umar Zulqarnain just completed his first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. He obtained a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics and Management Science from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.

As a Human Rights Fellow, Umar will travel to Manila, Philippines, to work with Childhope Asia. Umar's work will focus on the organization's efforts to rescue child victims of human trafficking. Umar will prepare advocacy materials and activities to help stop and prevent child trafficking. He will also participate in developing awareness campaigns on the issues of children’s rights, child protection, and child abuse. Additionally, he will assist in the documentation and preparation of articles highlighting the success stories of street children who were able to overcome their adversities as a result of the support provided to them by Childhope and its donor partners.

 

 

Eleni Andre-Wolking
Islamic Law and Human Rights Program
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Eleni is a Masters of Education student specializing in the teaching of second languages and cultures. Upon completing her B.A. at Smith College in Religion and French Studies, she received an English teaching position with the French government, which led her to teach abroad for four years in Syria and then Saudi Arabia. During her graduate study at the University of Minnesota, she was awarded the Judy D. Walter scholarship for urban educators, and her research focused on community and family involvement, approaches to cross-cultural human relations, and transformative curriculum. She is currently working for the Global Citizens Network and International Student Exchange to research and develop alternative breaks abroad service-oriented programming for high school and college-aged students.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights fellow, Eleni will work with a small team of other fellows and interns for the Islamic Law and Human Rights Program at the Human Rights Center, supporting the exciting initial programming of this new and critical project by establishing organizational infrastructure including website development, communications, and funding. This summer, Eleni aims to help create a preliminary, but solid organizational framework through which Islamic legal scholarship that is in harmony with human rights may be brought to the forefront of regional and international discourse and debate.

 

Eric Bain
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Arusha, Tanzania

Eric is a student at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, MN, where he serves on the William Mitchell Law Review. He has clerked with the Housing Preservation Project and Peterson, Logren & Kilbury. Before law school, Eric was an account executive at the advertising firm McGarry-Bowen in New York City. He holds a degree from the University of Wisconsin in Political Science and Journalism.

Eric will be using his Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to provide legal assistance to the United Nation’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. He will be working in the Office of the Prosecutor.

 

Heather Baird
Shree Vinayak Hospital
Kathmandu, Nepal

Heather Baird is a fourth-year J.D./M.P.H candidate at the University of Minnesota. Prior to graduate school, Heather received a bachelor’s degree in nursing with highest honors from Montana State University—Bozeman. After her undergraduate studies, Heather worked as a critical care Registered Nurse in her hometown, Boise, Idaho.

Beginning in December 2012 and continuing through January 2013, Heather will travel to Nepal to learn about Nepali health care delivery and health systems. In Kathmandu, she will work at Shree Vinayak Hospital, working with the hospital’s administration and staff. Heather will also experience Nepali health care in a rural setting by spending time at a rural clinic in Dhading-Jyamrung Village. Though these experiences, Heather hopes to gain greater insight into international health care delivery systems and a better understanding of the human right to health care.

 

Allison Boyle
Casa de Proyecto Libertad
Rio Grande Valley

Allison just finished her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. She earned her B.A. in Spanish and Anthropology from the University of Minnesota. Allison is interested in immigration issues. As a first year student, she volunteered with Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services in El Paso, Texas through the Asylum Law Project. She also worked as an immigration law clerk for Guzior, Armbrecht, Maher. This past year Allison was part of the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic at the Law School where she worked with asylees.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Allison will be interning with Casa de Proyecto Libertad in Harlingen Texas. Casa de Proyecto Libertad is a non-profit, community-based organization that has a 30 year history of providing direct immigration legal services in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. They work within communities to promote and assist with empowerment for those who are most vulnerable to violence and deportation due to their lack of immigration status. Allison will be working with Proyecto to prepare VAWA petitions and U visas.

 

Kayleigh Brown
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DADD)
Bonn, Germany

Kayleigh has just completed her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. Originally from Butte, MT, Kayleigh attended college at Georgetown University where she majored in Government and minored in Theology. Kayleigh has served as a board member of the University of Minnesota Law School’s Asylum Law Project. This past summer she worked as a Robina Public Policy Fellow at the Indian Law Resource Center in Helena, MT.

This summer, Kayleigh will participate in the DAAD Summer Law School Program in Germany. Participants begin the summer taking classes on German, European, and international law in Freiburg, Germany. For the remainder of the Program, Kayleigh will be in Berlin interning with the German Institute for Human Rights. A primary goal of the Institute is to promote human rights education. The Institute also focuses on the implementation of international and European human rights standards throughout Germany.

 

Ann Marie Castleman
Women's Empowement Network
Matagalpa, Nicaragua

Ann Marie is a first year Master of Public Health student in the Community Health Promotion program. After graduating with a B.A. in Theology and minors in Spanish, Natural Sciences and Latin American Studies, Ann Marie served two years with Dominican Volunteers USA. She worked for the Worker Center at Arise Chicago, organizing in the Latino and faith communities around workers’ rights and later for a private employment attorney in Chicago. Ann Marie spent time abroad in Nicaragua leading a group of Xavier University students on an Academic Service Learning Semester, teaching English to business professionals and interning with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture on a climate change project in Guatemala.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Ann Marie will work on the Skills to Save Lives Pilot Project, a collaborative effort between the Women’s Empowerment Network and the Matagalpa Ministry of Health in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. The Pilot Project seeks to increase the knowledge and skills of midwives and community health workers in the rural areas of Matagalpa in order to reduce maternal mortality and increase access to health services. Ann Marie will assist in developing a sexual health curriculum for health workers to implement in area schools with adolescents.

 

Julia Cook
Law Office of David Shulman
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Julia just finished her first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Indianapolis. Following her graduation from the University of Indianapolis, Julia spent two years teaching English in Paris, France. She recently volunteered as a law clerk for the St. Thomas Human Rights Institute in Miami, Florida.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Julia will be working at the Law Office of David Shulman. She will assist in civil rights litigation focusing broadly on First and Fourth Amendment violations, police brutality, and employment discrimination cases. The office assists a large number of pro-se litigants and offers representation to indigent clients.

 

Hannah Doenges
National Association of Council for Children
Denver, Colorado

Hannah Doenges just completed her first-year of law school at the University of Minnesota where she plans to specialize in children’s rights. She graduated from Manchester College (now Manchester University) in Indiana, majoring in French and political science with a focus on international relations and poverty reduction strategies. She spent the previous year working for Communities in Schools Arizona, a non-profit organization which uses community networking to influence resource allocation in an effort to improve educational opportunities and success for at-risk youth. In relation to these experiences, she is most proud of coaching cross country for 4th and 5th grade girls and of her student volunteers in Phoenix, Arizona who worked on several community- and school-based projects throughout the academic year of 2010-2011.

She will be interning at the National Association of Council for Children this summer. The NACC advocates for abused and neglected children to have lawyers during their dependency proceedings. In this regard, the mission is also to create more uniformity across U.S. jurisdictions.

 

Michael Fenton
Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
St. Paul, Minnesota

Michael Fenton is a second-year law student at the University of Minnesota. As a DAAD Scholar, Michael earned his M.A. in International Relations from the Humboldt-University in Berlin. Michael holds a B.A., Summa Cum Laude, in German Studies and Political Science from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. His honors thesis, “An Ordained or Turbulent Destiny? Minnesota Wind Energy Policy as a Path Dependent Process�? stemmed from his involvement as a research assistant on comparative wind energy policy under Dr. Jeffrey Broadbent, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and Dr. Koichi Hasegawa, Tohoku University, Japan. Upon completing his studies, Michael was selected to the Congress-Bundestag Exchange for Young Professionals and spent six years working in Berlin, Germany on environmental and energy policy and development projects in both theprivate and public sectors.

Michael is using his Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to assist the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) with their efforts to promote and defend human rights in various environmental programs. The MCEA strives to protect the rights of those in need of environmental protection, as well as monitoring the human rights performance of private actors, enforcement agencies, and the judicial system in environmental contexts. Michael’s work will focus on environmental justice issues in communities where residents have been excluded from the environmental policy setting or decision-making process, where they are subject to a disproportionate impact from one or more environmental hazards, and where residents experience disparate implementation of environmental regulations, requirements, practices and activities in their communities.

 

Grace Fleming
Center for Victims of Torture
St. Paul, Minnesota

Grace is currently a student at the University of Minnesota, pursuing a dual degree (J.D./M.A.) in law and bioethics. She completed her undergraduate studies at New York University, where she graduated magna cum laude with honors, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. Grace has served as a clerk for the Public Health Law Center and has also worked in the Legal Office of the Minnesota Department of Human Services. She is currently working as a legal intern at the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights.

Beginning this spring and continuing into the summer, Grace has been working with the Center for Victims of Torture for her Fellowship. She is working on a project that involves data privacy for participants of CVT research. The project involves legal research focusing on the debated question of whether HIPAA privacy requirements apply in international research or treatment.

 

Anne Fuchs
International Criminal Court
The Hague, Netherlands

Anne recently graduated from the the University of Minnesota Law School. Prior to law school, she attended the University of St. Thomas and graduated summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts in Justice and Peace Studies and a double minor in Philosophy and History. As a 2010 Upper Midwest Fellow, Anne worked with the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights for the Republic of Macedonia (MHC) as a law clerk. While with MHC, Anne worked on prison reform and human trafficking issues. In 2011, Anne worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama on special education and juvenile justice issues.

This summer, Anne will be an independent observer for the International Criminal Court’s trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba at The Hague. Bemba is on trial for two counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes in the Central African Republic situation.

 

Mandy Hagseth
United Nations Women
Monrovia, Liberia

Mandy just completed her first year at the University of South Dakota Law School. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Music with a minor concentration in women’s studies. She also works in women’s health policy. During her first year of law school, Mandy founded USD Law Students for Reproductive Justice and was an active member of Women in Law, the Domestic Violence Legal Program, and the Public Interest Network. She was also the 2nd place award winner in the national Elizabeth Blackwell Bill Writing Competition for her “Informed Consent Equality Act.�?

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Mandy will work with the UN Women Liberia Country Office focusing primarily on the implementation of its Peace and Security Programme.

 

Susan Hallquist
Shelter for Life International
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Susan just completed her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. She graduated summa cum laude from St. Catherine University with a B.A. in English Literature and a minor in Spanish.

This summer, Susan will serve as an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow at Shelter for Life International, a non-profit that focuses on sustainable development and humanitarian work. Its current field sites are in Afghanistan, Liberia, Sudan, and Tajikistan. Susan will be mainly assisting with the Liberian waste management project focused on the West Point area of Monrovia.

 

Kayleen Jacobson
Shaishav
Gujarat, India

Kayleen is an undergraduate student studying South Asia and Human Rights and Justice through the Global Studies department at the University of Minnesota. She has studied in Rajasthan, India and interned for an education focused NGO during her stay there. She will begin her first research project this summer gathering qualitative data on local youth civic engagement programs across the Twin Cities area. Upon completing her B.A. in Global Studies this Fall, she will began her internship in January through the Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Kayleen will intern with Shaishav, an NGO based in Gujarat, India. The organization focuses on child rights and education as it works to train and empower youth and adults to take ownership of their rights. Kayleen will work on documentation for the organization and researching other forms of youth empowerment and rights education in the area while learning more about the intricacies of youth rights focused NGO work in India.

 

Eleanor Lewis
The Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Eleanor Lewis has just completed her first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. She earned her B.A. in Spanish at the University of Leeds in the UK, graduating with first class honors. During her undergraduate studies, Eleanor spent a year studying at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain. After graduation she spent six months traveling around the world, visiting Brazil, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Laos and China. Eleanor then moved to Florida in order to complete a M.A. in Latin American Studies and International Development. She designed and implemented her own thesis research project, a case study of a rural women’s organization in Nicaragua, spending a summer conducting interviews and focus groups with the leadership and the grassroots members of the organization. During her first year of law school, Eleanor served as Vice-President for the Asylum Law Project, organizing volunteer trips to Miami, Florida. In Miami Eleanor volunteered with the Human Rights Institute of St Thomas University.

Eleanor is using her Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to assist the Women’s Human Rights Program at The Advocates for Human Rights with their efforts to end violence against women around the world. In particular, Eleanor will be working to develop long-lasting partnerships between The Advocates and human rights organizations in Latin America.

 

Willy Madeira
Timap
Freetown, Sierra Leone

Willy Madeira graduated magna cum laude in 2012 from the University of Minnesota Law School, where he earned a concentration in Human Rights. Willy received the Human Rights Law Award for his contributions to advancing human rights throughout his law school career. Prior to law school, he interned at the ACLU in Pennsylvania and guided youth with behavioral issues on backcountry expeditions in Montana. Willy also served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Zambia as a community health development worker, facilitating interventions to prevent disease and promote public health.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Willy will be interning with Timap for Justice, a Sierra Leonean NGO which combines formal legal procedures with traditional justice mechanisms to foster access to justice in rural Sierra Leone. Willy will assist community legal workers in resolving community conflicts as well as work alongside staff attorneys on the Timap litigation team.

 

Faiza Majeed
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
New York, New York

Faiza Majeed is a second-year law student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She graduated from New York University with a Bachelor’s and Master's in Arts, where she majored, respectively, in Political Science, and Trauma and Violence Transdisciplinary Studies. Before coming to law school, she worked with survivors of domestic violence as an intern at Sakhi for South Asian Women. Last summer, she worked at the Homeless Advocacy Project in San Francisco, California, on eviction defense and social security benefits cases. This year, as a Student Attorney in the Human Rights Litigation and International Legal Advocacy Clinic, she advocated before the United Nations Human Rights Committee regarding human rights abuses committed by small arms and light weapons by state and non-state actors, and also worked on a human rights case pending in US Federal Court.

This summer, Faiza will be interning at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) as an Ella Baker Intern, in New York. She will have the opportunity to work on CCR's vast docket which includes issues such as, Guantanamo Bay and Illegal Detention, International Law and Accountability, Racial, Gender and Economic Justice, and Government Abuse of Power, among others.

 

Laura Matson
Human Rights Program, University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Laura has just completed her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. This fall she will begin a joint Ph.D. program in the University of Minnesota’s Geography department. She holds a M.Sc. in Violence, Conflict, and Development from the University of London and a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, she will travel to Geneva, Switzerland to attend the 105th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, where she and Professor Barbara Frey will coordinate with the Committee members and State party representatives to advocate for increased awareness and attention to the misuse of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in countries that are signatories to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. After the Human Rights Committee meeting, she will travel to New York for the UN Conference on an Arms Trade Treaty. There, with Professors Barbara Frey and Jennie Green, she will focus on integrating human rights considerations into the disarmament group’s treaty negotiation process.

 

Patrick McCarthy
Partners In Health & ETESC
Huehuetenango, Guatemala

Patrick just completed his first year of medical school at the University of Minnesota. He completed his undergraduate studies at Yale College where he received a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies. After graduating from Yale, Patrick conducted research on disparities in childhood malnutrition and maternal health access in minority communities in Yunnan province of China as part of a U.S. State Department Fulbright Research Grant. Prior to medical school, he volunteered for Partners in Health in Guatemala, developing a curriculum and training teams of community health workers on managing childhood pneumonia. In addition, he serves as a Spanish interpreter and interpreter coordinator for the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic, a student-run free clinic in Minneapolis.

This summer, Patrick will be going back to Guatemala to work with Partners In Health for his Fellowship will the goal of starting a long-term infant nutrition program. He will work with the new nurse coordinator to conduct a child nutrition workshop for Partners In Health’s health workers. He will also develop community-based malnutrition interventions, including supplementary feeding programs for the poorest families and support of women-led nutrition groups.

 

Jessie Morrison
Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre
Arusha, Tanzania

Jessie is a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul, MN. She received her nursing degree from Stony Brook University in New York. Prior to her career in nursing, Jessie taught high school science in Brooklyn, New York. She also has degrees from Pace University in New York (Masters of Science in Teaching) and the University of Wisconsin (Bachelor of Science: Biology).

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Jessie will be working as a nurse at the Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre in Arusha, Tanzania. Her work will help increase the access to and quality of healthcare to the local population. Her specific interest and focus area is women's healthcare.

 

Mariyam Naadha
Human Rights Program, University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Mariyam Naadha was born and raised in Male’, Maldives. Her interest in social justice stemmed from her undergraduate studies in Criminology and Women’s Studies at the University of Manitoba, located in Canada. She was particularly interested in gender inequality and women’s human rights as well as rights of incarcerated people. She is currently a Masters of Public Policy candidate at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, where she is self designing her own concentration in gender and development. Prior to joining the Humphrey School, she worked for four years in various social justice and human rights programs in the Maldives, most recently as a Communications Officer for the UNICEF Maldives Country Office. Naadha will carry out her Fellowship at the Human Rights Program in the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota. The Human Rights Program serves as a hub for interdisciplinary research and practice at the University of Minnesota by bringing together faculty, governmental and non-governmental practitioners and connecting them to students. At the Human Rights Program, Naadha will provide research in to the political, social and human rights situation in Myanmar, for potential engagement of the University of Minnesota in public health programs in Myanmar.

 

Inga Nelson
Office of the Appellate Defender
Helena, Montana

Inga recently completed her first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. She has a B.A. in Liberal Studies, summa cum laude, and a M.A. in History from Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Prior to entering law school, Inga worked as a political organizer and policy advocate for over a decade with public interest organizations in Oregon and Montana on issues of women’s and worker’s rights. Upon completing law school she intends to continue this work as a public interest attorney.

This summer, Inga will be working with the Montana Appellate Public Defender’s Office where she will be assisting with the representation of indigent individuals who are appealing their criminal convictions before the Montana Supreme Court.

 

Luke Olson
Food and Agriculture Organization
Rome, Italy

Luke recently completed his first year of law school at the University of Minnesota. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Xavier University in Cincinnati. After graduating from Xavier University, Luke co-founded Soccer Balls for Africa, a charitable organization that raises funds to aid African schools and communities with school supplies, building supplies, food, and soccer balls. In this position, he traveled to Africa for three months to personally distribute supplies to local schools and communities. Luke has also worked at Bowman and Brooke LLP as a case assistant.

This summer, Luke will be working with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a UN organization based in Rome, for his Fellowship. He will assist the Office of Knowledge, Exchange, Research, and Extension (OEKR) in preparing the technical content for a major publication on Agriculture Innovation in Family Farming. His responsibilities include preparing background information, documents, and case studies focusing on the enabling environment for agriculture innovation.

 

Sandip Patel
The Sikh Coalition
New York

Sandip just completed his second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. Prior to law school, he worked as an educator at Global Kids, Inc., a non-profit that conducts leadership and attendance improvement programs in New York City high schools. Specifically, Sandip facilitated the after-school Human Rights Advocacy Program through which his students developed and executed a grassroots campaign to improve educational rights and opportunities for undocumented students. Sandip earned his B.A. in Sociology from Bowdoin College. He currently serves on the Board of Amnesty International at the UMN Law School.

Sandip will be spending the summer working as a Legal Intern with The Sikh Coalition in New York City, which seeks to defend the religious freedom of the Sikh community through protection from employment discrimination, racial profiling and inequity in schooling. He will be assisting with the organization’s litigation strategy through in-take interviews, legal research and writing, and community outreach and organizing.

 

Julia Peasley
Partners in Health & ETESC
Santa Ana Huista, Guatemala

Julia Peasley has just completed her coursework at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health for her Master’s in Public Health Nutrition with a concentration in Global Health. Julia is fluent in Spanish and has lived and traveled abroad for study and work in Mexico, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia. While studying at the University of Minnesota, Julia has worked at a community dental clinic, with the National Children’s Study in Ramsey County, and as a Jr. Scientist at the Nutrition Coordinating Center.

For her Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship, Julia will be going to Guatemala to volunteer with Partners in Health. They partner there with a local non-profit organization that was founded by Guatemalan refugees who returned to their homeland after the civil war was over in order to rebuild their community. She will be working on increasing their nutrition programming to address the very high rates of child malnutrition in that area.

 

Eric Peffley
United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
Arusha, Tanzania

Eric Peffley graduated from Bethel University in St. Paul, MN, in 2009 with a B.Mus. in Music Composition, and in 2010 with a B.A. in Philosophy. He served in the United State Army Reserve from 2001-2009, with two deployments to Iraq in 2003 and 2008. In 2008, he worked as a Tactical Psychological Operations Team Leader where he interacted regularly with the local population using non-violent tactics to achieve peace and stability in East Baghdad. Eric has also worked private security for 6 years, including armed security work in 2010 for the Transportation Security Administration Headquarters in Arlington, VA. He is now a student at the University of Minnesota Law School pursuing a career in international and human rights law.

This summer, Eric will be working as a legal intern at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in Arusha, Tanzania. He will be working with the Office of the Prosecutor, Appeals and Legal Advisory Division. ICTR was set up to promote national reconciliation and maintain peace in the region by trying the leadership responsible for the 1994 Rwanda genocide, as well as other citizens who have committed grave violations of law.

 

Hindolo Pokawa
Sierra Leone Found for New Democracy (SLFND)
Freetown, Sierra Leone

As a child in Sierra Leone, Hindolo Pokawa experienced the brutal violence, economic destruction, and social disintegration of civil war. After finishing high school as an adult in Zimbabwe, where he fled once the war escalated, he later entered the United States on a student visa and earned his undergraduate degree in Political Science and Global Studies, with a Minor in African-African American Studies, focusing on Peace and Governance. In the last five years, he has completed one Master’s degree and has nearly completed a second while cultivating a supportive network through school and by working for various organizations and volunteering with communities that have been displaced as a result of conflict. Hindolo has served as a Board Member of the Nonviolent Peaceforce. Hindolo’s leadership led to the formation of the organization’s Youth Program, which provides youth with opportunities to engage with nonviolent theories and practices through training, and paid summer internships. As the founder and executive director of the Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy (SLFND), Hindolo’s role has been to build local communities’ capacity to see themselves as part of the solution to socio-economic problems and as agents of change.

 

Kristen Rau
Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC)
Johannesburg, South Africa

Kristen is a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School (J.D.) and the University of Minnesota Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs (M.P.P.). Kristen has pursued her interests in international human rights law and international criminal justice throughout her graduate career, and recently published an article ("Jurisprudential Innovation or Accountability Avoidance? The International Criminal Court and Proposed Expansion of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights") in the Minnesota Law Review. Kristen has interned at the U.S. Senate, the U.S. State Department, Refugee Law Project, Center for Justice and Accountability, and Human Rights Watch.

As a 2012 Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Kristen will work as a legal fellow with the Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC) in Johannesburg, South Africa. SALC's international justice program seeks to encourage southern African states to comply with their international obligations through litigation and advocacy.

 

Amanda Anais Ruiz
Colorado Public Defender
Castle Rock, Colorado

Amanda just completed her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. While in law school, she has co-founded the Criminal Justice League and started a volunteer campaign helping persons whose criminal records lock them in a cycle of poverty. Prior to law school, she served two AmeriCorps terms, doing grassroots activism anti-violence and gender equality work with V-Day, the Rape Recovery Center, and the Salt Lake Unified Police Department. She graduated summa cum laude from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, earning a double B.A. in Philosophy and in Spanish & Latin American Studies.

For her Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship, Amanda will work at the Colorado State Public Defender defending indigent juveniles accused of criminal activity. She aims to deflect the lifelong collateral consequences that attach when kids accumulate criminal records, while also connecting at risk youth to services to alleviate the social factors involving them with the criminal justice system in the first place.

 

Mo Shepherd
Transitional Justice Institute
Belfast, Northern Ireland

Mo Shepherd was raised in Zimbabwe. She has a B.Sc. in criminal justice from California Lutheran University, a M.Div. from Oral Roberts University, M.A. in international relations (with emphasis in human rights) from the University of Chicago, and a M.A.S./LL.M. in international organizations from the University of Zurich. She is currently a law student at the University of Minnesota and a Clarendon Scholar at Oxford.

This summer Mo will be working with the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) in Northern Ireland. The TJI is a research center dedicated to examining the role of law in the movement of societies from conflict to peace.

 

Waeiz Syed
Islamic Law and Human Rights Project
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Waeiz Syed is a recent graduate from the University of Minnesota Law School. He graduated cum laude with concentrations in International Law and Human Rights. He graduated magna cum laude from DePaul University, with a Bachelor of Arts in History. He has worked on various civil rights issues with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department, and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota. Last summer, Waeiz worked with the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco, CA. While there, Waeiz assisted the Center’s litigation efforts against war criminals and human rights abusers.

This summer, Waeiz will be working with the Islamic Law and Human Rights Project at the University of Minnesota Law School. The Islamic Law and Human Rights Project engaged in research, scholarship, and educational and practical activities on issues of Islamic law, human rights, rule of law, and terrorism. Waeiz will be assisting the Project by helping create a functional program infrastructure and perform research related to the topics of Islamic Law and Human Rights.

 

Alexis Watts
Timap
Freetown, Sierra Leone

Alexis is currently a first year law student at the University of Minnesota. She is originally from Seattle and attended the University of Washington, where she earned both a BA in Anthropology and an MPA in International Development. Alexis has also served as both an AmeriCorps literacy volunteer in the Seattle Public Schools, and a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali from 2006-2008.

This summer, Alexis will be working with Timap for Justice in Sierra Leone. Timap for Justice is a national organization dedicated to increasing legal access throughout the country and ameliorating human rights conditions in the country. The organization works with citizens to offer basic legal advice and mediation, and to address issues within the dualist legal structure of the country. Alexis is excited to work for this very interesting organization and to work with the citizens of Sierra Leone to further empower themselves.

 

Jennifer Wong
Gender Justice
St. Paul, Minnesota

Jennifer Wong received her B.A. in Political Science and Japanese from Vassar College and is currently a rising 2L at the University of Minnesota Law School. Between college and law school, she worked on voting rights for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York City. During her 1L year, she served on the boards for APALSA and OutLaw. Since January, she has volunteered for Gender Justice, a St. Paul-based nonprofit dedicated to eliminating gender discrimination.

This summer, Jennifer will continue working with Gender Justice, where she will conduct research on the systemic barriers that transgendered individuals face within healthcare and employment contexts. A significant aspect of her project will include examining the disparate impact these barriers have on socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, youth, and communities of color.

 

Artemis Ahmadi
Islamic Law and Human Rights Program
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Artemis has a Bachelor of Law from Iran and obtained a Master’s of Law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School in May 2010. She is an expert in the area of Family Law and has been a human rights activist since 1996. Artemis is working as a community resource coordinator for the Partners in Closing the Gap Project and is a community research coordinator at Broadway High School, where she is implementing a human rights curriculum. Previously, Artemis taught languages and law subjects including; Family Law, Criminal Law, and International Human Rights at the high school level.  She also worked on cases for women seeking refuge from abusive marriages.  Under Minnesota Supreme Court Rule 114, Artemis is a qualified mediator and practices in the civil area. She is currently working at the Human Rights Center as a Fellowship Programs Assistant and Human Rights Legal Fellow.

As a an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Artemis will conduct research of  judicial proceedings at the State and Federal Courts in Minnesota to observe and examine the implementation of International Human Rights Law as it relates to political, gender, racial, and religious equality. She will also establish an online database for the Islamic Law and Human Rights Program regarding the situation in Iran, focusing specifically on the protection of human security and enhancement of women’s and children’s rights, strengthening the rule of law by promoting citizen participation in the political process, and advancing human rights education. Artemis will also establish online database material and resources to complete Iran’s profile for the Human Rights Library.

 

Brock Berglund
Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ)
Belfast, Northern Ireland

Brock recently completed his first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of North Dakota with a BA in English.

This summer, Brock will intern for the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) in Belfast, Northern Ireland. CAJ is an independent human rights organization that ensures that the government of Northern Ireland complies with its human rights obligations. While working at CAJ, Brock will focus primarily on Criminal Justice and Human Rights, monitoring the operation of criminal justice institutions, researching areas of concern, and working to form a more enhanced culture of human rights in Northern Ireland.

 

Marianna Chaparova
Balkan Association of the Producers and Traders of Ecological Products
Sofia, Bulgaria

Marianna Chaparova is a second year law student at the University of Minnesota. In the summer of 2010, Marianna attended the Asia-America Institute in Transnational Law in Hong Kong, where she studied international banking and arbitration with faculty from Duke University School of Law and Hong Kong University.

Marianna is using her Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to work in Sofia, Bulgaria, as a legal assistant for the Balkan Association of the Producers and Traders of Ecological Products (BAPTEP).  BAPTEP provides the Bulgarian government with proposals of new strategies for management of organic waste and assists in the implementation of a new national standard for soil enhancers and fertilizers.

 

Anne Fuchs
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Montgomery, Alabama

Anne just completed her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School.  During the 2010-2011 academic year, she served as president for the Amnesty International Student Chapter.  She graduated from St. Thomas University summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts in Justice and Peace Studies and a double minor in Philosophy and History.  Anne has studied in Namibia and South Africa, where she interned with the National Society for Human Rights - Namibia working to identify and rectify human rights violations. In addition, Anne studied conflict resolution in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.

As a 2010 Upper Midwest Fellow, Anne worked with the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights for the Republic of Macedonia (MHC) as a legal assistant.  While with MHC, Anne visited prisons to inspect facilities and interview prisoners.  She also completed a comparative human trafficking analysis of prosecution procedures of Macedonia, Romania and Poland. 

This summer, Anne will work with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Montgomery, Alabama as a legal intern. There, she will work on prison rights issues, focusing on harsh conditions in Alabama county jails, including improper nutrition, overcrowding, and lack of medical care.  Anne will conduct research and field visits to gather information for advocacy work to correct these problems.

 

Elizabeth Graber
Bay Area Legal Aid
Oakland, California

Elizabeth is a law student at the University of Minnesota Law School. Prior to law school, she worked as a legal assistant at the Public Interest Law Project in Oakland, CA, on public benefits litigation and policy advocacy. She has traveled extensively and worked on women’s human rights, domestic worker rights, reproductive healthcare rights and community development in Guatemala, Peru and Germany. At the Law School, she is on the student board of Amnesty International and volunteers with Línea Legal Latina. She earned her B.A. from Northwestern University in 2007.

This summer at Bay Area Legal Aid, Elizabeth will work with Burmese refugees living in the Bay Area and help reduce language barriers they face as they access the public benefits system. She will also work with survivors of domestic violence without legal residency and help them petition for VAWA and U-Visas.

 

Lindsey Greising
Amnesty International-USA
New York City, New York

Lindsey is a law student at the University of Minnesota Law School and will graduate next spring with a concentration in human rights law.  She graduated magna cum laude with Phi Beta Kappa honors from the University of Denver where she received her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies with minors in Political Science and Italian.  Lindsey has worked with Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala, India and researched post-conflict reconstruction in Timor-Leste.  She worked at a conflict resolution and human rights NGO in Timor-Leste after college and continues to serve on the Board of Directs for that organization.  Last summer, she interned for the judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.  She currently works on asylum cases as a student attorney for the University of Minnesota Immigration and Human Rights Clinic and will serve as a student director of the Clinic next year. 

This summer, Lindsey will use her Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to serve as a legal research intern for Amnesty International-USA in New York City.  To aid Amnesty International’s human rights advocacy campaigns, she will provide legal research on a variety of topics, with a particular emphasis on immigration and economic, social and cultural rights. 

 

Mustafa Jumale
American Refugee Committee
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Mustafa Jumale is double majoring in Sociology and African-American/African Studies and he will graduate with honors in May 2011. He is an undergraduate research assistant for the Immigration History Research Center and the Institute for Global Studies. After spending a few years in the "real world," Mustafa intends to return to graduate school to obtain a Ph.D. in either History or Sociology.

Mustafa is using his Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to work with the American Refugee Committee. He plans to work with that organization on a community-based Somali oral history project. He plans on working with Somali youth and elders in Minneapolis.

 

Kelsey Kelley
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Arusha, Tanzania

Kelsey just completed her first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. She graduated from Iowa State University magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Studies and a double minor in English and German. Kelsey was a volunteer law clerk at the Minnesota AIDS Project throughout the past school year and is an active member of the Women’s Law Student Association and the Amnesty International Student Chapter.

Kelsey is using her Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to provide legal assistance to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, an ad hoc tribunal created by the United Nations Security Council to prosecute perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. She will be working in the Office of the Prosecutor.

 

Gordon Knoblach
Hungarian Helsinki Committee
Budapest, Hungary

Gordon Knoblach is a second-year law student at the University of Minnesota. Gordon earned his B.A. in Spanish & International Studies from Iowa State University. During his undergraduate studies, Gordon spent a year studying and working in Cáceres, Spain. During his first year of law school, Gordon served as Vice-President for the Asylum Law Project, coordinating three volunteer trips to El Paso, Texas. While in El Paso, Gordon worked at the Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project in their economic justice division. Gordon also served as a member of the 1L board for the Law School’s Amnesty International chapter. He has volunteered at the Línea Legal Latina, helping Spanish-speaking clients gain access to the court system.

Gordon is using his Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to assist the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) in Budapest, Hungary, with their efforts to promote and defend human rights within the penal system of Hungary and Central Eastern Europe through legislative reform and litigation.  The HHC's main areas of activity are centered on protecting the rights of asylum seekers and foreigners in need of international protection, as well as monitoring the human rights performance of law enforcement agencies and the judicial system. It particularly focuses on the conditions of detention and the effective enforcement of the right to defense and equality before the law.

 

Taehohn Lee
International Labour Organization (ILO)
Geneva, Switzerland

Taehohn Lee is a dual degree student who has been working on his Juris Doctorate and Master of Public Policy at the University of Minnesota since 2008 and plans to graduate in 2012. Before that, Taehohn received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley in 2002.  Shortly thereafter, he served in the Korean army until 2005, participated in a Masters program in International Relations at Seoul National University until 2007, worked with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, and interned at the International Service for Human Rights.  After coming to Minnesota, he worked with refugee resettlement agencies and other legal service providers, and was fortunate enough to work with the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center over the past summer, which helped him get to know many wonderful people striving to make this world a better place.

Taehohn will be interning this summer with the International Labour Organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. He will be assisting the work of the Office of the Legal Advisor, which will include working with the Administrative Tribunal, as well as assisting with general questions of law. He would like to work with the migration and evaluation departments should workload obligations permit. He is also personally excited to visit Geneva again, as he proposed to his wife in the same city three years ago.

 

Michelle Lobo
Amnesty International
Quezon City, Philippines

Michelle Lobo is a first year law student at the University of Minnesota, where her extra-curricular focus has been on human rights law and questions of equity and criminal justice.  She is the founder and President of the University of Minnesota’s Criminal Justice League, an organization dedicated to providing students with a forum to discuss and learn about issues relating to criminal justice.  Prior to attending the University of Minnesota Law School, Michelle attended St. Stephens College, Delhi University, where she graduated with an Honours Degree in History.  During this time she worked with various legal aid groups in New Delhi, concentrating on issues of women’s rights with regard to social justice and equality.

Michelle will be using her Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to work with Amnesty International in Quezon City, Philippines, where she will be working on women’s reproductive rights and issues of maternal health, as well as lobbying for the Philippine government’s ratification of human rights treaties.

 

Hassan Mahamud
Generation for Change and Growth
Nairobi, Kenya

Hassan is receiving his BA in Business and Marketing Education this year from the University of Minnesota. He plans to attend law school to further his interests in Human Rights Advocacy. During his formative years, he grew up and went to school in Nairobi, Kenya, where he experienced human rights violations first hand.  In the 1990’s, Kenyan civil society was advocating for democracy and a multi-party system. Many young Kenyans lost their lives during the struggle. It is at this time that Hassan developed an interest in pursuing a degree in human rights law.  As he continues to seek a career in advocacy, he strongly believes in doing field research in a place rife with human rights violations, and that this will point his career in the right direction.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Hassan will be placed in Nairobi and Wajir, Kenya to work with the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and newly formed Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC). His focus will be on the Wagalla Massacre, which was conspired and executed against the Dagodia People of Kenya by former President Moi's regime in February 1984.  This fellowship will contribute to the scholarly research in the field of global human rights.  Hassan also hopes to be a role model for young immigrants of disadvantaged backgrounds who want to pursue courses in law and human rights advocacy. 

 

Bridget Marchesi
American Public Media - Women and Girls Initiative
Los Angeles, California

Bridget Marchesi is pursuing a Master of Public Policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Master of Business Administration at the Carlson School of Business with graduate minors in Human Rights and Populations Studies. Ms. Marchesi also studied economics and management at Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan, Italy. Ms. Marchesi holds a graduate certificate from Dartmouth College and Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University.

Bridget Marchesi will spend the summer and fall of 2011 working on a large, multi-stakeholder public media initiative inspired by Nicholas Kristof’s book Half the Sky. The initiative, called Women and Girls, is a public media initiative designed to raise awareness, advance dialogue, and inspire action that helps women and girls realize their potential and break the cycles of violence and poverty. The Women and Girls initiative involves a variety of stakeholders, including PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, USAID, ITVS International, American Public Media, the Ford Foundation, and NGOs throughout the world. Ms. Marchesi will support the executive producer throughout production by helping the production team and narrators frame experiential stories consistently with relevant and timely academic research. Ms. Marchesi will also work with key stakeholders and partners to help activate the Women and Girls initiatives in the United States and featured countries such as Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Cambodia, and Congo.

 

Kiel McElveen
Foreclosure Relief Law Project
St. Paul, Minnesota

Kiel McElveen is a student at the University of Minnesota Law School. He earned a B.S. in Political Science with a focus on African politics at the University of Wisconsin. In the past, Kiel worked as an intern at Cotlands AIDS Orphanage in Johannesburg, South Africa, and as a volunteer law clerk at DMRS in El Paso, TX.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Kiel will be working with the Foreclosure Relief Law Project in St. Paul, MN.  While there he will be assisting with litigation surrounding federal mortgage adjustment programs and with the Project's other programs including policy advisement.

 

Outeiba Merhebi
Islamic Law and Human Rights Program
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Outeiba has been committed to public service since 1992, working as a lawyer and human rights advocate.  She has a Bachelor of Law from the University of Lebanon, Tripoli, and recently received her Master of Law (LL.M.), from the University of Minnesota Law School, with a concentration in human rights and international law. During her study, she has worked on projects involving the changes in family law over the last two decades in Islamic countries and the impact of implementing international norms of equality in the family including CEDAW and other human rights treaties.   

She was one of the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellows for 2009-2010, selected by the U.S.  Department of State for a one year program of graduate study and professional development at the Human Rights Center in the University of Minnesota Law School.  She is also an active member of both the North Lebanon Bar Association and the Women’s Organization.  Outeiba was the co-founder of the Forum on Arabic Women Lawyers in 2008, with the hope to enhance the role of Arab women lawyers in the development of legislation relating to the situation of Arab women. She was also the co-founder and principal of the Merhebi International School in Akkar, Lebanon, from June 2004 through March 2009.   As an educator and trainer of women’s rights, she spread human rights awareness in schools and universities.

She is currently an Islamic Law & Human Rights Program Fellow, and will continue this project with her Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship. The Islamic Law and Human Rights Project will engage in research, scholarship, and educational and practical activities on issues of Islamic law, human rights, rule of law, and terrorism.

 

Claudia Ochoa
Human Rights Center
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Claudia Ochoa graduated from the University of Texas, El Paso.  She is now a third-year law student at the University of Minnesota.  Claudia is interested in immigration issues, and as a first year law school student she volunteered to take part in the Asylum Law Project. She is part of the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic at the Law School where she helps refugees file their asylum claims. Claudia has also worked with the Humphrey Fellowship and the Human Rights Law Clinic on a legislative research project on Arizona’s anti-immigration laws, known as SB 1070.

Claudia plans on using her Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to expand on this legislative project. She seeks to explain the drawbacks of anti-immigrant laws, with an emphasis on their negative effects on the employment and law enforcement sectors.  She will also explore the implications of what might happen if a similar bill were to be pushed in Minnesota.  Claudia’s ultimate goal is to create awareness and halt anti-immigration legislation within the state of Minnesota.

 

Robert Painter
UN Independent Expert on the Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation
Berlin, Germany

Bobby is currently finishing his second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. In 2009, he received his B.A. in Political Science and International Studies, with a concentration in Human Rights & Humanitarianism, from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.  He has worked on migrants’ rights issues with the Asylum Law Project in El Paso, Texas, and the Advocates for Human Rights’ Refugee & Immigrant Program in Minneapolis. He has also worked on economic, social and cultural rights with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland.

Bobby is using his Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to travel to Berlin, Germany, where he will work with the staff of the UN Independent Expert on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation. His work will focus primarily on articulating practical steps to promote the development and equitable distribution of water resources by developing a compendium of best practices. He will also be assisting with a variety of other tasks, including preparing for country missions and researching and drafting reports to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly.

 

Abigail Peterson
Mexico Appleseed
Mexico City, Mexico

Abigail Peterson is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and is currently pursuing a Master’s of Public Policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.  She earned her B.A. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Abigail has a strong interest in immigration and international law.  She has worked as an immigration law clerk for Fredrikson & Byron, served as a judicial clerk for the EOIR Immigration Court in Minnesota, and currently works as a graduate fellow for the Advocates for Human Rights. 

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Abigail will be working with Mexico Appleseed on immigration law and policy issues.  She will assist Mexicans who have been deported back to Mexico with unresolved legal issues they have in the United States.  Abigail will also help research, create, and translate a deportation manual to assist Mexicans who have been deported from the United States.  The manual will explain the deportation process and also outline legal rights deportees have, particularly the rights of deported minors.  In addition, Abigail will assist with policy advocacy to improve immigration policy in both the United States and Mexico.

 

Chris Schmitter
Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.

Chris Schmitter is a native of southern Minnesota and is currently a law student at the University of Minnesota. He is a member of the class of 2013. Chris earned his undergraduate degree in International Politics at Georgetown University and he spent four years working for Minnesota Congressman Tim Walz, both in Minnesota and in Washington. 

This summer, Chris will be interning in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, which prosecutes cases involving the violent interference with liberties and rights defined in the Constitution or federal law.  He will conduct legal research and writing in support of attorneys prosecuting cases of hate crimes, corruption, and human trafficking. 

 

Waeiz Syed
Center for Justice and Accountability
San Francisco, California

Waeiz Syed is currently a second-year law student at the University of Minnesota Law School. He graduated magna cum laude from DePaul University, with a Bachelor of Arts in History. He has worked on various civil rights issues with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department.

This summer, Waeiz will be in interning in San Francisco, California, with the Center for Justice and Accountability.  The Center for Justice and Accountability is an international human rights organization dedicated to deterring human rights abuses and bringing perpetrators of such abuses to justice. Waeiz will be assisting the Center by providing legal research, preparing written memoranda and briefs, and performing other tasks related to the Center’s litigation efforts.

 

Nick Thompson
Minnesota AIDS project
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Nick Thompson received his B.A. in International Affairs from the Florida State University in 2010 and is currently pursuing a Juris Doctorate from the University of Minnesota. During his first year of law school, Nick helped re-establish the law school’s chapter of the ACLU and still serves as the organization’s secretary.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Nick will be working with the Minnesota AIDS Project, an organization dedicated to stopping HIV transmission through education, advocacy, awareness, and community service. He will help HIV/AIDS patients cope with legal problems related to estate planning, social security benefits, immigration, and discrimination.

 

Claudia Vincze Turcean
Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project
Phoenix, Arizona

Claudia Vincze Turcean is a first-year law student at the University of Minnesota.  She was born in Vulcan, Romania, and has lived in the United States for fourteen years. Claudia completed her undergraduate studies in Global Studies, Spanish Studies and minored in English at the University of Minnesota. Claudia has worked with indigent clients and underrepresented communities by volunteering with Volunteer Lawyers Network and Casa de Esperanza in Minneapolis; Nuestros Ahijados in Antigua, Guatemala; and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Florence, Arizona.

Claudia will be interning with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in their Phoenix office in Arizona. She will work to educate, empower, and provide legal assistance to unaccompanied immigrant minors detained for removal proceedings before the Phoenix Immigration Court.  The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project strives to address inequity in immigration removal proceedings through direct service, partnerships with the community, and advocacy and outreach efforts.

 

Leo Esparza Twiggs
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
Geneva, Switzerland

Leo is a third-year law student graduating in May 2011.  Beginning in September 2011, Leo will work for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) based in Geneva, Switzerland.  The International Commission of Jurists is dedicated to the primacy, coherence and implementation of international law and principles that advance human rights.

Leo will use his Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship to assist the organization in providing legal expertise at both the international and national levels to ensure that developments in international law adhere to human rights principles, and that international standards are implemented at the national level.  In addition, Leo will gain first-hand experience with advocacy work on legislative reforms, human rights fact-finding missions, and interventions to protect human rights defenders. 

 

Brian Wilson
Center for Migrant Advocacy
Quezon City, Philippines

Brian is a graduate student in the philosophy department. He studied mathematics and philosophy as an undergraduate at Tufts University. Alongside his Ph.D. in philosophy, he is pursuing a minor in human rights.  Brian has helped create a psychology experiment through the Institute of Child Development investigating the development of moral judgment. The philosophy research he does investigates how to integrate conceptual and theoretical foundations to create practical policy changes relating to human rights. 

For his Upper Midwest Fellowship, Brian is going to the Philippines to work with the Center for Migrant Advocacy. He will help the organization with advocacy work, data mining and research. He will also write short articles, press releases and position papers on migration issues. 

 

Catheranne Wyly
Center for Constitutional Rights
New Orleans, LA

Catheranne Wyly grew up in Montgomery, Alabama.  She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Sociology from Beloit College.  After graduating from Beloit in 2005, Caty served as a Health Volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps in Uganda and worked in several different capacities for the Central Alabama Fair Housing Center (CAFHC), a non-profit organization that works to enforce anti-discrimination laws.   These experiences inspired Caty to apply to law school, and she recently finished her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School.  

Last summer, with the help of an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship (UMHRF), she worked with the ACLU of Alabama to investigate and improve conditions in prisons and jails throughout the state. Thanks to another generous grant from the UMHRF, Caty will be joining the Center for Constitutional Rights this summer as an intern in the Ella Baker summer program. She will work in New Orleans to combat police policies that unfairly target African Americans and the LGBTQ community.  She will also work on poverty issues and continuing barriers to return for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Abdi Ali
Womankind Kenya
Kenya

Abdi Ali is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Multicultural Mediation and Restorative Justice in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  The Center is a direct service, mediation, and restorative justice program for people with family or cultural roots in East Africa, as well as those who work with them as employers, teachers, neighbors and service providers.  Abdi conducts trainings in cultural competency and provides facilitation and other consulting services to organizations and corporations.  He holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration and a Certificate in Public Dispute Management from Hamline University.  In 2006, the Otto Bremer Foundation awarded Abdi a Philanthropy and Human Rights Fellowship, which he used to conduct research on the causes of Somali youth homelessness in Minnesota and the cultural competency of organizations working with them.  In 2007, the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs awarded Abdi a Public Policy Fellowship, through which he has received extensive training on public policy making.  

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Follow, Abdi will spend the summer visiting refugee camps along Kenyan-Somali border to study the situation of Somali refugee children living in the camps.  He will examine existing resources for the refugee children and the work of the international organizations serving them. The study will also cover the challenges Somali refugee children are facing in the refugee camps and will attempt to investigate alleged human rights violation in the refugee camps against Somali refugee children.

Veronica Bean
OutFront Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Veronica Bean graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College, in St. Peter, MN, in 2008, with a B.A. in Classics and Political Science. Through her years at Gustavus, Veronica discovered her interest in social justice, and particularly in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) issues. As a first-year law student at the University of Minnesota, Veronica hopes to put her interest in social justice to good use.

This summer, Veronica will have the opportunity to work with OutFront Minnesota, a GLBT rights advocacy organization in Minneapolis. She will be working both on the legal and public policy fronts. With the recent events and developments with same-sex marriage in the United States, Veronica is very enthused about working on GLBT issues during this exciting time.

Ramla Bile
Horn Relief
Nairobi, Kenya

Ramla Bile received her B.A. in Global Studies and Political Science with a thematic focus on governance, peace, and justice, and a minor in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota. She is a currently a Producer for the KFAI collaborative series Muslims in Minnesota, and she is a Minneapolis stringer for the New York Times. Prior to her journalism experience, she worked at The Advocates for Human Rights, where she saw first-hand the implementation of international human rights standards.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, she will work with Horn Relief in the Gender and Human Rights Program. Horn Relief is a development and humanitarian organization in East Africa that promotes human rights in Somalia, a country torn apart by eighteen years of unremitting violence. The organization is based in Nairobi, Kenya and works with marginalized communities in Somalia to empower and educate youth and women to engage in civil society, promote peace, establish food security, and provide emergency relief, including rehabilitating water resources. The Gender and Human Rights Program empowers Somali women by facilitating their participation in the peace and development of Somalia. Upon her return to the Twin Cities, she hopes use this opportunity as an advocacy and education tool in both the Somali community and the broader Minnesotan community through presentations, discussions, and media engagement.

Mike Brehm
Midwest Coalition for Human Rights
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Mike Brehm is a first year student at the University of Minnesota Law School.  He graduated in 2008 from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse with degrees in Business Management and Public Administration.  Mike is interested in international law and is a member of the Law School’s Amnesty International student chapter and the International Law Society.  He is also serving on the Board of Directors of a local NGO that helps immigrant families and children to integrate into their communities.

Mike will be working this summer with the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights, focusing specifically on local advocacy regarding the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).  The United States is one of two nations who have not ratified the CRC.  Through grassroots action and encouraging adoption of the provisions in the CRC, the Midwest Coalition hopes the United States will become a State Party to that treaty.

Sean Burke
Homeless Advocacy Project/UNITY Homeless Coalition
New Orleans, Louisiana

Sean, originally from Denver, Colorado, just completed his first year of Law School at the University of Minnesota. He developed a strong interest in social justice issues while receiving his B.A. in History, Theology, and Justice and Peace Studies from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Since his undergraduate work, Sean has volunteered with youth and young adults in Chelsea, Massachusetts, taught High School in Montgomery, Alabama, and worked as a youth group director at a Catholic Church in North St. Paul, Minnesota.

This summer, Sean will be working with the Homeless Advocacy Project (a division of Southeastern Louisiana Legal Services) and UNITY homeless Coalition in New Orleans, Louisiana. This summer will mark a return to this organization for Sean, who, along with other U of M law students, participated in the Student Hurricane Network volunteer trips that took place over both winter and spring break of the 2008-09 academic year. As a Fellow, he will be assisting with the day-to-day casework of homeless clients and also helping research and develop plans to effectively disperse city resources in favor of chronically and temporarily homeless individuals and families. He hopes to be able to bring back tools, training, and contacts from a city deeply affected by a growing homelessness crisis in order to assist with local issues of poverty and homelessness in the Twin Cities.
 

Ilina Chaudhuri
Fundación Mexicana para la Salud (Mexican Health Foundation)
Mexico City, Mexico

Ilina Chaudhuri graduated from Tufts University in 2003 with degrees in biology, biomedical engineering, and community health.  Just prior to returning to school, she lived and worked in Chile and Argentina.  She graduated in December 2008 from the schools of law and public health at the University of Minnesota.  Ilina has recently been researching and writing on health policy issues in Mexico, including obesity, diabetes, and insurance reform. 

During her fellowship, Ilina will be working at Fundación Mexicana para la Salud on a regional campaign to promote the rights of women to quality health care, with an emphasis on breast cancer.  The Foundation is a non-profit health policy think tank with a mission, in part, of promoting health policy research and programming. 

Brandon Drazich
Pax Christi International
Brussels, Belgium

Brandon will graduate Magna Cum Laude with All-College Honors from St. John’s University (SJU) in May 2009.  He is majoring in English with a minor in Philosophy and writing an honors thesis, “Past the Semantics of Liberation: Frantz Fanon and M. K. Gandhi’s Singular Message.�?  At SJU, Brandon has served as a Social Justice and Service Student Minister, coordinating campus justice advocacy and volunteerism.  He has also interned with the Public Innovators initiative of Root Cause, studied abroad in South Africa and France, and was a 2007 Fellow of the Fund for Theological Education.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Brandon will join Pax Christi International in Brussels, Belgium for the summer.  Pax Christi International is a Catholic peace movement working on a global scale on a wide variety of peace, human rights, disarmament, and development issues.  Brandon’s work will focus on human rights research and advocacy, peace spirituality and peace theology, and NGO fundraising.

Kumneger Emiru
National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC)
Chicago, Illinois

Kumneger Emiru received her B.A. from the University of Chicago, with honors, in Public Policy Studies and African and African American Studies with a specialization in Human Rights in 2008. She is currently in her first year at the University of Iowa-College of Law. Kumneger’s personal experience as an immigrant from Ethiopia sparked her interest in immigrant and refugee rights and, more broadly, international human rights law.

This summer, Kumneger will work as a legal intern at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) in Chicago, IL. The NIJC provides immigration-related legal services to low income immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Furthermore, it serves as an advocate for these populations through policy reform and litigation and education. During her internship, Kumneger will work specifically with asylum seekers.

Anders Erickson
The John Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development
Jackson, Mississippi

Anders grew up in the city of Minneapolis. Following high school he attended Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, majoring in Political Science. He is currently finishing his first year at William Mitchell College of Law.  Anders is interested in the various aspects of civil rights law, specifically, working with individuals who are marginalized in U.S. society.  His interest in this area grew while interning for Congressman Martin Sabo in the summer before his senior year of college.  Anders witnessed how the political staff devoted their time and energy to helping those in need. He was also drawn to issues of civil rights through volunteer work in undergraduate and in Law School, working with impoverished communities in Mississippi and New Orleans.

This summer Anders will be working with theJohn Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development. His work will focus on issues of racism and discrimination that our society still faces. He will be based in Jackson, Mississippi, but will also work with community organizers throughout the Mississippi Delta.

Shannon Golden
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Washington, D.C.

Shannon Golden is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Sociology and is also pursuing a graduate minor in human rights.  Her dissertation research addresses local mechanisms for transitional justice and post-conflict community reconciliation in northern Uganda, East Africa. She is currently involved in research exploring African immigrant organizations and entrepreneurs in the Twin Cities area. She serves on the graduate editorial board for Contexts, a magazine working to make sociology accessible to a public audience. Shannon is actively involved in social service organizations, and is interested in sociological research that engages the community and is relevant for policymakers.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Shannon will spend the summer working with the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), based on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. FCNL is a peace lobby organization, and Shannon plans to work with FCNL on the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs.

Anne Johnson
International Organization for Migration (IOM) – Tajikistan Mission
Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Anne Johnson hails from rural northern Wisconsin and will graduate with a B.A. from Macalester College in May 2009.  Her majors are International Studies and Anthropology, and she is most interested in cultural globalization and the challenges and critiques of international development programs. She has worked and studied in China, Croatia, and the Netherlands, and has published several academic papers on the role of the English language in globalization. Outside of her academic life, Anne is involved in a number of cultural organizations and is an avid salsa dancer and kayak enthusiast. In preparation for a career in international development, she plans to pursue graduate studies in public policy or international relations and will spend the upcoming year working in China at the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Anne will use her fellowship to contribute to the work of the Tajikistan Mission of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The IOM spearheads a number of migration and counter-trafficking programs in Tajikistan, such as national policy reforms, trafficking victim support, and dispersal of information to potential labor migrants. Based in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Anne will work in the IOM’s counter-trafficking unit.  She will focus on strengthening the Tajikistan mission’s international communications and will support the IOM’s network of local counter-trafficking NGOs.
 

Mory Keita
Actions pour les Droits Humains et l’Amitie (ADHA)
Dakar, Senegal

Mory Keita was born and raised in Conakry, Guinea. Before coming to the United States in 2003, he completed 3 years of studies in economics at Koffi University in Guinea. In addition to speaking English, he speaks three other languages: French, Mandingo and Pular. Mory is currently a resident of St Cloud, Minnesota and expects to graduate in Spring 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a minor in Political Science from St. Cloud State University. He is involved with many student organizations and serves as an executive member of one of the largest student organizations at St. Cloud State Organization for the Prevention of AIDS in Africa (OPAA).  Mory is planning to pursue a master’s degree in international relations, political science, conflict management or public and non-profit institutions.

This summer, Mory will be working with “Actions pour les Droits Humains et L’Amitie (ADHA) in Dakar, Senegal. ADHA is one of the leading NGOs in Senegal working in the field of human rights. One of the aims of ADHA is to work directly with asylum seekers in completing their administrative paperwork. Additionally, they also closely work with Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs).

Nick Manthey
DECIDE Corporación de Estudios
Quito, Ecuador

Nick Manthey is a third year law student at the University of Minnesota Law School with interests in human rights, criminal law, international contract law, and business. A 2006 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Nick holds a B.A. with a double major in Political Science and History. In addition to recently externing for a Hennepin County judge and working at the Ramsey County Public Defender’s Office, Nick is currently serving as a director of both the Bankruptcy Clinic and the William E. McGee National Civil Rights Moot Court. Nick has also volunteered with the Asylum Law Project (El Paso, TX), the Student Hurricane Network (New Orleans, LA), the Worker’s Rights Center (Madison, WI), the Madison Area Literacy Counsel (Madison, WI), and other organizations devoted to community support and education.  Nick’s interest in Latin American human rights began when he moved to Quito, Ecuador in 2004, where he taught English at Public School El Centro Experimental Eloy Alfaro.

During his fellowship, Nick will work with DECIDE Corporación de Estudios (DECIDE), a non-profit human rights organization based out of Quito, Ecuador. DECIDE has most recently engaged itself in a campaign to combat illegal child labor. Nick hopes to use his legal background to assist in research on human rights challenges in Ecuador, participate in community teaching sessions and conferences, contribute to DECIDE’s campaign to solicit the support of local politicians, and use his grant-writing experience and English language ability to request the support of international donors and grant makers.

Laura Matson
The Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Laura, a native of Mankato, Minnesota, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2006 with a focus in Anthropology and African Studies. During her undergraduate program, she studied Swahili and coastal cultures in Kenya. Upon completing her degree she worked on a non-formal education project in rural Uganda and was a member of the conflict resolution program at the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding in New York. She is currently completing a Master of Science in Violence, Conflict and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where she focuses on forced migration and war-to-peace transitions.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Laura will spend the fall working with The Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a leading organization in the field of refugee and immigrant advocacy. She will be a member of the Special Projects Program, where she will engage primarily in community reconciliation initiatives within the Liberian population in the greater Twin Cities area. She will also be involved with follow-up and evaluation of The Advocates’ Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission Diaspora Project.

Timothy Meyer
Center for Victims of Torture
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Timothy is currently a first year law student at the University of Minnesota.  He developed an interest in issues of social justice while interning with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Office for Governmental Advocacy in Washington, D.C.  After graduating from Miami University of Ohio, with a degree in Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs, Timothy served as a women’s empowerment and education volunteer in Togo, West Africa, with the United States Peace Corps.  In this role, he worked to combat gender discrimination, improve understanding of the dangers of child trafficking, and encourage AIDS awareness and prevention.  

This summer, Timothy will be working with the Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He will be conducting policy research and analysis on issues related to torture survivors engaged in the political asylum process.  This will entail reporting on problems in the political asylum system and recommending specific policy interventions.  

Monica Miller
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
The Hague, Netherlands

Monica Miller was born and raised near Des Moines, Iowa.  She graduated from St. Olaf College in 2005, with a B.A .in Women's Studies and Family Studies.  While at St. Olaf, Monica's interest in human rights work grew, and she became particularly interested in the impact of warfare on women.  Monica is currently a third year law student at the University of Minnesota, and will graduate in May 2009.  During law school, Monica participated in the International Law Moot Court, which piqued her interest in international and human rights law.

Monica's will undertake her Fellowship with the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in The Hague, Netherlands.  The Office of the Prosecutor is responsible for investigating and prosecuting serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the former Yugoslavia after January 1, 1991, and handles both trial and appellate work.  Monica's internship will begin at the end of August, and will continue through mid-December 2009.
 

Hollie Nyseth
Mexico City Human Rights Commission
Mexico City, Mexico

Hollie Nyseth is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.  She is also pursuing the graduate minor in human rights and is interested in issues of human rights surrounding genocide, torture, education, health, and international law.  Hollie has a B.S. in Political Science and in Sociology and minors in Spanish and International Studies.  She currently serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors of a local Minneapolis special school for immigrants and works with several nonprofit organizations in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  She has also spent time working in Mexico, where she interned with an NGO, taught English at a women’s prison, volunteered at a women’s shelter, and taught human rights in several indigenous villages. 

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Hollie will work with the Mexico City Human Rights Commission.  Founded in 1993, the Mexico City Human Rights Commission is in charge of investigating complaints and alleged violations to human rights in Mexico City.  As an intern during summer 2009, Hollie will work with Commission members on many human rights initiatives. However, she will particularly focus on the reforms to Mexico’s criminal justice system and will work with the Commission to develop training programs for Mexican lawyers, judges, and human rights professionals in relation to the constitutional and state-level reforms to Mexico’s criminal justice system. 
 

Graham Ojala-Barbour
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Graham Ojala-Barbour studies law at the University of Minnesota.  He believes that everyone deserves to have their human rights protected, both in the beautiful state of Minnesota and the rest of the world.  Graham grew up in Northfield, Minnesota, and canoes down the Cannon River when he can, which flows through that town.  He received his B.A. in religion and Spanish literature from Pacific Lutheran University.  He has also lived in India, where he studied philosophy and the practice of yoga. 

During the summer of 2009, Graham will be working at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, a non-profit organization that provides legal services to immigrants and refugees who live in Minnesota.  He will work directly with clients of the Center to help ensure that they have the best legal representation available.

Taylor Pierce
Center for Public Interest Law (CEPIL)
Accra, Ghana

Taylor is from Madison, Wisconsin. She received her B.A. in Spanish, with a double major in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, from Emory University in 2007. During college, Taylor studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina and completed a senior honors thesis about memory theory relating to human rights violations of the military dictatorship in Argentina. Currently, Taylor is completing her second year of a joint JD/MPH program at the University of Minnesota.

Taylor’s fellowship will be with the Center for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) in Accra, Ghana. The Center for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) is a rights-based, non-profit organization that utilizes the law to obtain justice for poor and marginalized individuals and communities. CEPIL achieves these objectives through advocacy, litigation, research, and social mobilization efforts. The Center promotes human rights by seeking to achieve a society without injustice, oppression, and social inequality, and strives for a culture without discrimination. CEPIL represents those that cannot afford to pay for legal services and also conducts research, publication, and human rights education.

 

Jordan Shepherd

Refugee Advocacy and Support Program (RASP)

Istanbul, Turkey

 

Jordan Shepherd is a student at the University of Minnesota Law School, specializing in international human rights law.  Jordan began work in refugee studies through the Anthropology department at Texas Tech University.  After completing a Master of Arts degree with thesis research on the transnational experiences of African and Asian immigrants in Istanbul, Turkey, he interned for one year with the Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights in Seoul, South Korea. 

 

As an Upper Midwest/Robina Fellow, Jordan will return to Istanbul to intern with the Refugee Advocacy and Support Program.  With the RASP, he will represent non-citizens in their claims for relief before the United Nations and international bodies, as well as advocate for the development of international policy to protect the human rights of non-citizens.

Kelsey Sheridan
Kallari Association of the Ecuadorian Amazon
Ecuador

Kelsey is a St. Paul native who received her B.A. in International Relations and Anthropology from Beloit College in 2006.  During her studies, she focused on Latin American and Native American issues, including studying and traveling for 6 months in Ecuador.  From 2007-2008, she participated in the RARE (Resource Assistance for Rural Environments) Program through the University of Oregon as an Americorps volunteer.  The RARE program focuses on rural Oregon, and Kelsey lived in the 700-person town of Chiloquin, Oregon, working on a youth center project and other community development initiatives.  She is currently working at a gourmet deli in Minneapolis, pursuing her interest in food issues.

The Human Rights Fellowship will afford Kelsey the opportunity to work with the Kallari Association of the Ecuadorian Amazon.  Kallari is an indigenous cooperative of Kichwa artists and cocoa farmers in the Amazon jungle.  Kallari's income provides families with an alternative to oil drilling and deforestation, and ultimately gives them a voice in the future of their homelands.  Kelsey will assist with the marketing and improvement of the Coop’s “beyond fair trade�? products, as well as organize community leaders to defend their land rights.  She plans to document human rights abuses, connect with other human rights organizations, encourage women to become advocates, and improve her understanding of fair trade and environmental issues.

 

Tyler Simmons

Malawi Human Rights Commission

Lilongwe, Malawi

 

Tyler is a first year law student at the University of Minnesota. He came to Minnesota from Helena, Montana top pursue his undergraduate studies at Concordia College in Moorhead.  Before graduating from Concordia with a B.A. in Political Science and History, Tyler became interested in International Human Rights issues while studying during a semester in India. While a first-year law student, Tyler has also been an assistant debate coach at Henry Sibley High School in Mendota Heights, Minnesota .

 

This summer, Tyler will work with the Malawi Human Rights Commission, which is an organization that addresses all levels of human rights research, reporting, and litigation, pursuing complaints and presenting various human rights issues to the courts.  He will work primarily on legal issues in a variety of areas, including migrants’ rights, women’s rights, and development and rights.

Elizabeth Super
Transitional Justice Institute
Belfast, Northern Ireland

Elizabeth is currently a first-year law student at the University of Minnesota. She became interested in human rights at a young age, while watching family friends (who were Bulgarian immigrants) struggle through the naturalization process. This interest was developed further while studying social justice at Cretin-Derham Hall high school, during which she volunteered at Adams Spanish Immersion Grade School.  She deepened her interest in international human rights while studying Political Science at the College of St. Benedict and through her participation in the Women as Global Leaders Conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE.  While a student at the Law School, Elizabeth has been a member of Amnesty International, Raise the Bar Day of Service, and the Asylum Law Project, with whom she spent a week working on immigration and asylum cases at Catholic Charities in Miami, Florida.

This summer, Elizabeth will intern at the Transitional Justice Institute in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  She will work on the Inquiries Observation Project, with which she will monitor and evaluate governmental inquiries into the deaths of defense attorneys in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Jennifer Swedberg
United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Contemporary Forms of Slavery
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Jennifer Swedberg grew up in southern Minnesota and graduated from Bethel University in 2007 with a degree in Socio-cultural Studies. She spent a semester of her college career studying abroad in the South of France, giving her the opportunity to explore Europe. She has a passion for learning about and understanding people. She is also interested in social justice issues.

This summer she will be pursuing her Fellowship in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She will be assisting the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Contemporary Forms of Slavery by reviewing NGO applications for funding. The Trust Fund sponsors NGOs working to combat slavery in its modern forms.

Shelby Vandenberg
The Alliance for Children’s Rights
Los Angeles, California

Shelby is currently in her second year at the University of Minnesota Law School. She received her B.A. in Political Philosophy from Syracuse University in 2005. When she’s not busy studying, she enjoys teaching swing dancing. Shelby became interested in children’s rights when she did vocational work with special education students.

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Shelby will spend the summer working with The Alliance for Children’s Rights in Los Angeles, California. The Alliance is a non-profit agency that provides free legal services to children living in poverty. They provide legal services in the following areas: foster care, adoptions, guardianship, special education, public benefits and access to health care. Shelby will be focusing on special education cases this summer.

Anna Veit-Carter
Saligan
Quezon City, the Philippines

Anna Veit-Carter is currently a first year law student at the University of Minnesota.  She received her B.A. in mathematics from Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Iowa in 2005.  After graduation, she spent two years teaching middle school math and science in inner-city Newark, New Jersey with the Teach for America program.  This sparked her interest in the issues facing the urban poor and inspired her to go to law school in order to work with that community in another capacity.

This summer, she will be doing an 8-week internship with Saligan, an alternative law organization, in Quezon City, Philippines.  Saligan works to promote the rights of women, workers, and the urban poor.  She will be working with their urban poor program, assisting in their legal clinics and teaching paralegal classes to empower the community.
 

Natalie Volin
Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ)
Belfast, Northern Ireland

Natalie Volin grew up in Hudson, WI. She is a summa cum laude graduate from the University of Minnesota’s Philosophy Department. During her time at the University of Minnesota, she was awarded the Woodbridge Scholarship for Academic Achievement. She also received a College of Liberal Arts Undergraduate Internship Grant for her work at the Sheila Wellstone Institute.  After graduating from the U of M, she went on to work as Regional Director for the endorsement phase and then Director of Women’s Outreach for the general election of the Al Franken’s senate campaign.  She is a board member of the DFL Feminist Caucus and is on NOW’s Global Issues and Strategies Advisory Committee. Her academic pursuit and general interest is in feminist legal theory, and more particularly, human rights law, post-conflict societies, and gender-specific issues in each. She plans on pursuing a JD and a PhD.
    
During her fellowship, Natalie will be working at the Committee on the Administration of Justice in Northern Ireland. CAJ is an independent, non-governmental organization affiliated with the International Federation of Human Rights. The general mandate of CAJ is to ensure that the government of Northern Ireland adheres to standards set forth in international human rights law.  Natalie will be working in the policing and criminal justice areas. She is interested in learning about the balance between terrorism, security, and human rights, as well as how Northern Ireland's lessons could be applicable to the United States.

Matthew Webster
Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services (SMRLS)
Rochester, Minnesota

Matthew Webster is a 1L student at the University of Minnesota Law School who hopes to practice immigration law in southeastern Minnesota.  As a former ESL teacher in Brownsville, Texas, he developed a passion for immigrant advocacy, and he has continued representing the immigrant community both as an activist and law student.  In March 2008, Matthew led a nine-day march for immigrant rights along 126 miles of the Texas-Mexico border.  Also in 2008, he worked with an immigration attorney in Rochester, MN, and contributed to a U of M research project on non-traditional immigrant destinations.  In his 1L year, Matthew served as Vice-President of the Asylum Law Project, a law school organization that mobilized 100 students to volunteer in asylum law agencies in El Paso, Miami, Las Vegas, Arizona, and Minneapolis.  He continued to be engaged in immigration law through volunteering with Park Avenue Foundation Clinic and Citizenship Day in Rochester, MN. 

This summer through the Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship, Matthew looks forward to working with migrant workers in Rochester, Owatonna, and Plainview on issues of immigration, housing, family, and employment law.  Under the supervision of Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services (SMRLS), he will conduct community education events, interview clients in the field, assess legal claims, and work to provide representation for migrant workers in this non-traditional immigrant destination.  After the tragic ICE raids at Postville, Iowa, and Worthington and Austin, Minnesota, immigrant workers in this region of the country are reticent to pursue legal remedies, so much of his job will be gaining the trust of this vulnerable community and ensuring their basic human rights are secure.
 

Jay Wilkinson
International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus
Brussels, Belgium

Jay Wilkinson is a Minnesota public interest lawyer.  He has represented clients of the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis (www.midmnlegal.org) in the fields including youth law, public benefits, equal employment and fair housing.  Jay is a founding board member of the Children’s Law Center of Minnesota, the Minnesota Fair Housing Center and HOME Line.   His family has been enriched by hosting teachers, students and volunteers from four continents.    He writes poetry about his Vermont relatives and other topics.  If he can support human rights for people with disabilities across the world and  ride a bicycle for more than 3000 miles and in more than three nations during this sabbatical year, he will be very, very happy. 

In 2009, Jay will work on a project addressing international human rights issues that arise when infants are born with severe disabilities.  His host is the International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

Nick Wunder
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Washington, D.C.

Nick Wunder graduated from Carleton College in 2002, where he studied English literature. Prior to enrolling at the University of Minnesota Law School, Nick worked at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Project. As a member of the Project’s public education team, he worked to create strategic communications initiatives and media advocacy tools to support the ACLU’s litigation and legislative work.

During his fellowship, Nick will return to the ACLU’s LGBT Project to work as a summer law clerk. Law clerks perform a vital role in performing research, writing legal and policy memos, drafting pleadings and briefs, and assisting the attorneys in their work with clients.  The ACLU is committed to integrating the fight against LGBT discrimination into the organization’s broader human rights work, and today it brings more sexual orientation cases and LGBT advocacy initiatives than any other national civil rights organization.

Maisue Xiong
Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Maisue Xiong was born in the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand and grew up in California.  She is currently a third year law student at William Mitchell College of Law.  She received her undergraduate degree in Social Justice and Legal Studies from Hamline University in 2006.  The opportunity to engage with the refugee community in Thailand is a dream come true.  Maisue is particularly interested in Refugee and Immigration Rights in Thailand, due to the past and current refugee issues surrounding the Hmong people.

With her fellowship, Maisue will contribute to poverty alleviation and challenging inequality through legal and educational means.  She will conduct legal research of Thai laws and jurisprudence and draft manuals on relevant laws, which will be used to educate Hmong refugees in Thailand.  She will also work on various advocacy projects and community empowerment initiatives to address Prisoner and Detention Rights, Access to Health Care in Thai Prisons and Detention Centers, Juvenile Justice, HIV and Drug Use, Children’s Rights, Thai Criminal Law Procedure, and Human Trafficking.

 

 

 

 

Benjamin Alsdurf
Community Aid Network Uganda

Uganda

 

Ben graduated from Calvin College in 2005 with a degree in philosophy and political science. Since then he has worked with community development organizations in Honduras and Uganda as well as on a number of political campaigns in Minnesota. In the fall of 2007 he served as an election observer in Sierra Leone and volunteer with Democracy Sierra Leone, a coalition of civil societies. In the fall he will be attending the University of Chicago to pursue a master’s degree in International Relations.

 

Ben plans to use his fellowship to build on the work and relationships he formed with the Community Aid Network Uganda (CANU) last year, specifically helping to develop an education and advocacy program for the rights of children. Based in Tororo, in the eastern part of the country, he will work to educate community leaders on the rights of children as well as develop a network of volunteer attorneys willing to represent cases of human rights violations. Through the work he began with CANU last year, Ben hopes to build on the organization’s success in affecting change in rural Ugandan communities.

 

 

 

Jonathan Brandis
Housing Preservation Project

St. Paul, Minnesota

 

Jonathan, a native and resident of St. Paul, Minnesota, is a second-year law student. He became interested in affordable housing issues while interning at the St. Paul office of the late Senator Paul Wellstone in the summer of 2002. After graduating from the University of Minnesota with a B.A. in Political Science in 2004, Jonathan went to work in the private sector, and in 2006 decided to go to law school at William Mitchell College of Law to pursue his dream of working to serve the less fortunate.

 

This summer, Jonathan will clerk at the Housing Preservation Project, working on the Foreclosure Relief Law Project. He will work with Twin Cities’ homeowners facing foreclosure to root out violations of the Truth in Lending Act in their mortgages, and negotiate with lenders to allow families to keep their homes. Jonathan will also contribute to legal research when necessary.

 

 

 

Melanie Clatanoff
Center for Public Interest Law

Accra, Ghana

 

Melanie Clatanoff received her B.A. in French from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts in 2006. She is currently in her first year at the University of Minnesota Law School.  Melanie is interested in women’s rights, especially reproductive rights issues, and is a member of Law Students for Reproductive Justice. She has travelled throughout Europe and lived in Paris, France, where she taught English as a Foreign Language. In 2007, she briefly travelled through Ghana and Togo, which inspired her to combine her legal studies with her interest in international human rights.

 

During her fellowship, Melanie will work at the Center for Public Interest Law in Accra, Ghana.  The Center's current projects include a housing rights program to help victims of forced evictions, and an assistance program for mining communities in west Ghana. The Center aims to make justice accessible and affordable to the poor and marginalized individuals in Ghana by way of education, research, and free legal aid and court room representations.

 

 

 

Amelia Cotton Corl
Center for Victims of Torture

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Amelia Cotton Corl is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is concurrently pursuing a graduate minor in human rights focusing on genocide and women and children’s rights. Her dissertation research addresses children's rights and the concept of agency in childhood in the international human rights community. Amelia’s current research explores the identification of perpetrators by different cohorts of Holocaust survivors based on data from the Shoah Visual History Archives. Her ongoing research investigates the links between the theoretical frameworks of collective memory and cultural trauma and the problem of children participating in armed conflict.

 

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Amelia will spend the summer working with the Center for Victims of Torture on the anti-torture public policy campaign, headquartered in Washington, DC, developing materials for media and grassroots use. The campaign, which will be launched publicly in the spring of 2008, aims to expand America’s growing anti-torture movement and mobilize the political will necessary to change U.S. policy with the support of religious leaders and experts in the military, security and foreign policy sectors.

 

 

 

Geoff Dancy
International Center for Transitional Justice

New York City, New York

 

Geoff is a M.A. in Political Science who began pursuing his Ph.D. in the fall of 2007 at the University of Minnesota. His research is broadly interested in the merging of normative and rationalist studies of decision-making using cross-national data. Specifically, Geoff has an interest in questions surrounding international law, transitional justice, and human rights. His Master’s thesis, “Do As They Say and As They Do: An Integrated Approach to the Study of Norm Influence on Truth Commission Initiation, 1976-2003�? (MA Thesis, Department of Political Science, University of North Texas, 2006), examines whether truth commissions are an “effective�? institution, in addition to why they are established by state leaders in the first place. Geoff also worked for two years as an editorial assistant for International Studies Quarterly before teaching three sections of American Politics and four sections of International Relations as an adjunct instructor at the University of North Texas. He has published in Social Sciences Quarterly, and has presented papers at numerous conferences, most notably the International Studies Association Annual Convention.

 

 

 

Swati Deo
Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights

Cairo, Egypt

 

Swati is currently completing her first year of a Master in Public Policy degree at the Humphrey Institute—University of Minnesota, where she is specializing in policy analysis and human rights. Prior to coming to the Humphrey, she worked as a project manager at a market research firm and a program evaluation center; she also worked briefly in Ecuador.

 

This summer, she will be doing a 12-week internship with the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights in Cairo. She will be assisting in the development of their internal research unit, and conducting research for upcoming human rights campaigns. The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights works to promote the civil and political rights of women in Egypt and the Arab region, and to promote a strong civil society.

 

 

 

Anna Donnelly
Genocide Intervention Network

Twin Cities, Minnesota

 

Anna will graduate from the University of Minnesota in Fall 2008 with a B.A. in Global Studies and Spanish. Since its founding three years ago, Anna has worked with the Genocide Intervention Network (GI-Net) to empower citizens and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide through education, advocacy and fundraising. Anna along with her fellow GI-Net members received the Youth in Philanthropy award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals. In fall 2007, Anna received the A.I. Johnson Scholarship from the University of Minnesota in order to work as a research intern for GI-Net investigating human rights atrocities throughout Latin America. The following semester, Anna interned with Dr. Daniel Feierstein at the University of Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires, Argentina researching the collective memory in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay in the aftermath of the military dictatorships. While in Buenos Aires, Anna also worked with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo – Founding Line by assisting them with advocacy work and the development of their living memory.

 

With the fellowship, Anna will document individuals’ experiences of human rights violations in Latin America through taped testimonies in order to: have the testimonies available for educational purposes; validate the survivors’ experiences; externalize the horrific events and promote healing; provide an outlet for the community to be heard. For the project, Anna will use interview protocols based on guidelines from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and modeling the USC Shoah Foundation Institute: for Visual History and Education. The information will be available through the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota and through GI-Net-MN complementing the organizations’ statewide education and outreach. The Genocide Intervention Network is hoping to conduct similar documentation projects throughout the country connecting the local to the global while educating the community about Latin American conflicts and advocating on the victims’ behalf.

 

 

 

Elizabeth Hagmann
International Leadership Institute
Uganda Women's Coalition for Peace
Uganda

 

Elizabeth is from Fridley, Minnesota and currently a senior at the University of Wisconsin – River Falls. She will be graduating in December 2008 with a BA in International Studies and Business Administration. Post graduation, she hopes to pursue a graduate degree in International Development. She has studied abroad in 13 countries in Europe, as well as traveled to Sudan, Tanzania and Kenya. While spending time in Africa, she developed an interest in improving the living conditions of the people.

 

In conjunction with the International Leadership Institute (ILI) and the Uganda Women's Coalition for Peace, she will be using all of her education and previous fund-raising experience preparing fund-raising events, for August distribution in the war effected area of Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan. She will be studying the opportunities as they exist to make measurable progress in the human rights situation and preparing detailed reports of the research conducted by the Women’s Coalition for Peace and the ILI in order to help others organize community fund-raisers and to raise awareness of the human rights violations of the women and girls in the war affected area. She will participate as a team member in the dissemination of this information which will allow ILI as well as other organizations and world bodies to design projects which contribute to long term sustainable change in the lives of women and girls in Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan.

 

 

 

Luke Haqq
Center for Victims of Torture

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Luke graduated from Northwestern College in St. Paul, MN in 2006 with a B.A. in philosophy and linguistics. He also spent time as a visiting student at Oxford University, studying philosophy and Islam and completed his MSc in philosophy from the University of Edinburgh this past year. In fall 2008, he will do a joint JD/PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy program in UC-Berkeley.

 

Luke worked with the Center for Victims of Torture last summer on their International Capacity-Building project. This summer, he will be working on their New Tactics in Human Rights project. This project seeks to find effective strategies and tactics for addressing human rights, viz. tactics which have the versatility to be adapted to similar situations elsewhere. The goal of New Tactics is to disseminate this information globally, so organizations can learn from the successes and failures of others. A tactic could be, for example, getting people to write letters to local and federal officials when a country's government tries to contravene anti-torture laws. Or a tactic could involve holding a youth rally to garner grassroots support for a certain measure to be taken. New Tactics offers small grants to other organizations to help propel these efforts, as well as training tools and workshops. His focus will be to contact organizations who have been recipients in the past in order to document the efficacy of New Tactics' efforts, and where their strengths and weaknesses are located. This is intended to help New Tactics discern how to adjust its efforts for future workshops, tools, and future grant recipients.

 

 

 

David Hauth
Green Empowerment/Asofenix

Managua, Nicaragua

 

David graduated from St. John’s University in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and will be attaining his degree in Aerospace Engineering this May from the University of Minnesota. As his interest and background in the sciences and engineering grew and he began to see technology as an answer to much of the economic, social and health problems afflicting people in developing world. Over the past few years David’s experience and background in renewable energy technology has grown through coursework, his research in the University of Minnesota’s Solar Energy Lab and involvement in student groups such as Applied Environmental Solutions. It is with this experience that he hopes to make a difference implementing renewable energy systems in rural Nicaraguan villages.

 

David’s fellowship begins in August, when he plans on spending 1 year in Nicaragua volunteering on with a Portland based organization, Green Empowerment, and their local partner NGO, Asofenix. Green Empowerment is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to fostering human rights and social justice through community development, local leadership and sustainability in developing nations. To further this aim they are dedicated to promoting community-based renewable energy, potable water delivery and related watershed restoration to international communities in need. Asofenix, a small Nicaraguan NGO founded by 5 engineering students, is dedicated to finding environmentally sustainable and economically feasible energy and water solutions for rural Nicaraguan communities.

 

While with Asofenix, David will be working on solar water pumping projects, a bicycle-powered battery charging station and designs for pico-hydro and small-scale wind systems. He will also be building a website for Asofenix as well as working on developing partnerships between Asofenix and a US based renewable energy distributor called DC Power. Finally David will be preparing several watershed management plans and sanitation education programs.

 

 

Rebakah Heckmann
Fundaciόn Cimas del Ecuador
Ecudor

 

 

Benita Kaneza
Ligue Iteka

Burundi

 

Benita was born and raised in Bujumbura, Burundi. She is currently an international relations major at St Cloud State University with an emphasis in political and economic development. In the future she hopes to attain an International Law degree with an emphasis in international human rights. Benita has a strong passion for the oppressed and has the drive to fight against human rights violations all over the world.

 

During the summer of 2008, she will work with Ligue Iteka, one of the leading human rights organizations in Burundi. She will work with a team in charge of monitoring human rights in prisons, camps, and other detentions centers. It will also allow her to get familiar with the practical field of human rights. She believes that as Burundians speak out of human rights violations the society and the international community will have a better force to end them. She believes that there is still hope in Burundi and this can come from understanding and helping healing wounds that the war has caused. She hopes to get the youth involved in the process of reclaiming what has been taken from them: their rights.

 

Although the Burundian government has promised free healthcare to women and children under five there are still many that are untreated or detained in state hospitals. The detainees are living in unimaginable conditions. Ligue Iteka pleads on their behalf to the government, donors and hopes to make decisions on cutting Burundian debts and sending aid so doctors can treat those in need. One of the projects she hopes to accomplish is to fundraise for these women and children to purchase basic needs that hospitals do not provide for them.

 

 

 

Ji Hyong Lee
University of Minnesota Human Rights Center

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Ji was born in Seoul, South Korea, but he has spent his childhood in San Francisco, and his teenage years in Turkey and Hungary. After studying International Relations in Dongguk University, Korea, he has served the Korean Army as an English Interpreter for two years. Upon finishing his military service, he worked at International Finance Institute as an assistant sales associate. Currently, he is studying for his Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies at the University of Minnesota.

 

Ji will be working at the Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota. He recently returned from a six month trip through Central America, working as a part time summer intern in an NGO called the Advanced Infrastructure Development Group in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. He also participated in a study abroad program in San Jose, Costa Rica. Using those experiences, he will assist the Center with its cooperation with FLASCO, an organization of several universities throughout Mexico. This will involve dealing with the Dream Act in Minnesota, which allows low income immigrant students to be eligible for in-state tuition for college. Furthermore, he will also assist translating the online Human Rights Library of English documents into Korean.

 

 

 

Caitlyn Lothian
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota

St. Paul, Minnesota

 

Caitlyn Lothian is a student at the College of Saint Benedict. She is majoring in Peace Studies and Sociology, with interests in justice, global issues, public health, immigration, and human rights. She has spent four months studying in South Africa, and she hopes to continue her education by earning a law degree in Human Rights and a Master's in either Public Health or Immigration and Refugee Studies. She has interned at Lutheran Social Services in the Refugee Resettlement Program, and this has influenced and guided her passion for human rights and immigration issues.

 

She will spend the summer with the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota serving as the Education Intern. She will assist in redesigning the educational materials and program presented to immigrant youth in the Twin Cities about the consequences of crime in the United States. She hopes to incorporate issues of human rights into the curriculum, so the participants have a greater awareness of their rights.

 

 

 

Amanda Lyons
International Center for Transitional Justice

Bogotá, Colombia

 

Amanda was born and raised in Austin, Minnesota. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2004, where she studied Sociology and Latin American Studies. After teaching English in Brazil for two years, she moved back to the Midwest to study international human rights law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She is currently in her second year, and expects to graduate in 2009.

 

Over the summer Amanda will be working with the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in Bogotá, Colombia. The ICTJ works primarily in societies emerging from armed conflict or repressive rule, seeking accountability for past abuses and respect for human rights in the context of a peace process. In order to promote justice, peace, and reconciliation, a variety of transitional justice approaches are used. Amanda will be working in the Justice Unit, which focuses on criminal prosecution for past human rights violations.

 

 

 

Joe Mailander
Pillsbury Communities-Waite House

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Joe Mailander is a 2008 graduate of Saint John’s University where he majored in Spanish. Three years ago, Joe co-founded a non profit music organization called The Medicinal Strings that promotes the arts within underserved communities as a bluegrass band. His band has traveled the country for three summers playing folk concerts and leading educational workshops for all ages. Joe also served as a teacher’s aide, camp counselor, conference organizer, and retreat leader throughout his high school and college years. Joe is passionate about a human right to education, to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, and to enjoy the arts.

 

This summer, Joe Mailander will be spending his time at Pillsbury Communities Waite House in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is his goal to create a youth music program at the Waite House that encourages youth to take the stage through musical performance, poetic expression, and cultural preservation, and in turn, take the stage as an active and responsible member of their community at large. Beginning with the basics of singing, he will teach a wide variety of children’s choir songs from around the world. From that point, the students and Joe will explore different instruments, how to read notes, approaches to song writing, and various musical styles from different cultures. For students who are especially interested in pursuing music, he will provide private or group lessons to learn the piano or the guitar. To showcase the students’ work and progress at the end of the summer, Joe will hold a community concert or record a CD of their music.

 

Giovanni Mantilla
Human Rights Watch

New York City, New York

 

 

Giovanni Mantilla is currently a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Minnesota. He holds B.A. degrees in Political Science and in Languages and Sociocultural Studies from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, his native country. Giovanni has experience in the area of business, human rights, conflict and peace building, particularly in Colombia. His research focuses, among others, on the emergence and impact of international human rights norms and standards on non-state actors such as corporations and armed groups. He also has a developing research interest in LGBT rights and in humanitarianism.

 

This summer Giovanni will be supporting the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch (HRW) in New York City. Giovanni will pursue research related to abuses against the LGBT community by members of paramilitary groups in Colombia. He will also look into hate crimes committed in Mexico City against LGBT human rights defenders. His work will contribute to upcoming reports by HRW on Colombia and Mexico.

 

 

 

Joao Medeiros
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

The Hague, Netherlands

 

Joao received is Bachelor's degree as a Theater major from Grinnell College in 2002. He will receive his J.D. this spring from the University of Minnesota Law School. He is presently a member of the Minnesota Law Review, which published his student note in its present volume. As the son of a Brazilian diplomat, Mr. Medeiros was exposed to a wide variety of countries and cultures during his childhood. He has built on this experience through two summer experiences abroad during his undergraduate and professional education.

 

Mr. Medeiros will use his fellowship to fund an internship in the trial chambers of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The trial chambers of the tribunal are responsible for conducting judicial pre-trial and trial activities. Interns in the trial chambers are assigned to a specific chamber and directly assist judges by conducting legal research and writing, drafting legal documents, assisting with the management of documentary evidence, and participating in legal discussion and analysis.

 

The ICTY was established by U.N. Security Council resolution 827 on May 25, 1993. The tribunal is tasked with reviewing human rights violations associated with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. As a legal institution, the tribunal has had the opportunity to set important precedents in international humanitarian law, and has been tasked with addressing many questions of first impression, as well as issues that have lain dormant since the war crimes tribunals that followed the close of World War II.

 

 

 

George Norris
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Arusha, Tanzania

 

George is currently a first year law student at the University of Minnesota. He graduated from Macalester College in 2004 with a Bachelors of Art in Religious Studies and Philosophy. Before law school he served in the United States Peace Corps as a Water & Sanitation Technician in the Philippines and most recently he spent a week in Ghana with The Advocates for Human Rights as a volunteer taking statements for the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

 

This summer, George will be working at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in the Office of the Registrar. The ICTR’s mandate is to prosecute genocide and other major violations of international humanitarian law that occurred during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The Registrar is responsible for the overall administration and management of the tribunal and provides judicial and legal support services to the trial Chambers and the Office of the Prosecution.

 

 

 

Amanda Noska
Hospital Bienfaisance Pignon

Pignon, Haiti

 

Amanda Noska is an MD/MPH student at the University of Minnesota, currently finishing up her public health curriculum and soon to entering into her third year of clinical medicine rotations in the Twin Cities area. In December 2008- February 2009, she will travel to Pignon, Haiti to complete her Human Rights Fellowship. This will be a return visit for her, since she was in Pignon in July of 2007 for a brief month-long visit. Pignon is a rural community and home to over 35,000 people, located northeast of Port au Prince in a mountainous region of Haiti about a 45 minute charter flight from the capital city.

 

During Amanda’s time in Pignon, she will be working alongside the administration and staff of Hopital Benfaisance Pignon (HBP), many of whom she had the privilege to meet and work with during her past stay, in order to gain a more thorough understanding of the daily medical, public health, and community functions of the people and city of Pignon and to better comprehend the human rights situation therein. Through this experience, she hopes to establish long-term connections with HBP and the community of Pignon, to become part of recruiting and advocating for the medical and health needs of the people of Pignon. Also, she would like to play a role in creating awareness of the human rights situation within the region. She hopes to maintain the friendships that began to form during her initial visit to the region as well.

 

 

 

Megan O’Rourke
Balaod Mindanaw

Cagayan de Oro, Philippines

 

Megan is from St. Paul, Minnesota. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. in 2005. After graduation, Megan joined the Peace Corps where she served in Ecuador from 2005-2007. During her time in Ecuador she helped found an anti-human trafficking task force, worked with women’s groups, and implemented a number of community banks in rural areas. Currently, Megan is in her first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. She hopes to pursue a career in International Law with a focus on Human Rights.

 

Megan’s fellowship will take her to the Philippines where she will be living and working in Cagayan de Oro City on the southern island of Mindanao. She will work with BALAOD Mindanaw (Balay Alternative Legal Advocates for Development), a legal resource organization with a focus on alternative human rights law and capacity building. The organization serves the needs of the poor and marginalized sectors which are comprised mainly of local farmers, fisherfolks, Indigenous people and women. Megan will be working closely with the staff of human rights lawyers assisting with legal research and participating in case management and policy advocacy in the field.

 

 

 

Roseanne Pereira
Center for Victims of Torture

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Roseanne Pereira grew up in Fort Lauderdale, FL. She received her B.A. in literature from Yale University and her MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco, where she focused on creative nonfiction prose. In 2005, she was one of three Kroc fellows selected to spend a year in Washington, DC learning public radio journalism. After training at NPR, she moved to Minneapolis where she served as the fellowship reporter for Minnesota Public Radio. Her radio features focused on issues in area immigrant communities and on the work of international humanitarian and human rights organizations active in the Twin Cities. Currently, she is a freelance writer based in Minneapolis. One of Roseanne's most memorable summer jobs was as an ESL and American culture instructor for refugees resettled in Louisville, KY. She has also been a volunteer at the Tibet Justice Center in Berkeley, CA and a member of Human Rights Watch Young Advocates in San Francisco.

 

During the summer of 2008, Roseanne will be working with the Center for Victims of Torture in St. Paul, MN on a public education campaign that will expand the nation's anti-torture movement. She will help with outreach and to develop written materials to raise awareness about torture.

 

 

 

Rachel Peterson
United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

Abuja, Nigeria

 

Rachel is a graduate of Bethel University with a Bachelor’s degree in History and Art History. She recently completed three years of service in the Peace Corps in Madagascar where she taught English in a rural town and organized several gender empowerment activities in the first two years. In her third year of service she worked with Population Service International in one of their provincial offices as a HIV/AIDS technical advisor with their peer education program which stressed HIV testing and counseling. She plans to pursue her graduate studies in International Development with a gender focus.

 

During her Fellowship, Rachel will work with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Abuja, Nigeria where she will focus on violence against women and HIV/AIDS. UNIFEM supports women’s empowerment programs within countries as well as collaborates with governments and women’s’ groups to bring women’s’ rights into policies and laws that uphold the fundamentals of UNIFEM.

 

 

 

Roger Renville
Indian Law Resource Center

Helena, Montana

 

Roger is a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton (Dakota) Oyate and a descendent of Chief Gabriel Renville. Roger was born on the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota and has lived for many years in Montana. He graduated from the University of Montana-Missoula in 1992 with Bachelor of the Arts degrees in history, political science and journalism. He earned a Master's degree in American History at Yale. Roger's varied career includes teaching high school social studies on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. He is currently a second-year law student at the University of Minnesota Law School.

 

For his Fellowship project, Roger will work with the Indian Law Resource Center, at its Helena, Montana, office. Since 1978, the Center's lawyers and staff have advocated for the rights of indigenous people throughout North America and Central America. They have litigated indigenous land claims on behalf of Shoshone activists Mary and Carrie Dann and environmental reclamation claims on behalf of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes in Montana. The Center is involved in the campaign to protect the sacred Bear Butte in South Dakota. The Center's international work includes precedent-setting litigation on behalf of the Awas Tingni community in Nicaragua—where aboriginal land title was affirmed as a matter of international law by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. The Center's most recent accomplishment—shared with many allies in the indigenous and human rights communities—is the United Nations' adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

 

 

 

Kristin Roehl
Grameen Bank

Dhaka, Bangladesh

 

Kristin graduated from the College of Saint Benedict in 2007 with a degree in Liberal Studies and a minor in Gender and Women’s Studies. She is currently a full time AmeriCorps volunteer with the St. Joseph Worker program in Minneapolis. The majority of her volunteer position time is spent with a domestic violence agency working in the development department.

 

During her fellowship with the Upper Midwest Human Rights Center, Kristin will be conducting research at the Grameen Bank in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank provides small loans to women who would not otherwise be allowed to have an account with a traditional bank in Bangladesh. She will observe the distribution of loans in rural villages and visit the businesses that women have been able to start as a result of receiving these loans. Kristin will also be researching the overall effectiveness of the microfinance economy in Dhaka and its surrounding villages.

 

 

 

Robyn Skrebes
Yar’s Campaign to End Child Abduction

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Robyn graduated from the College of Santa Fe in 2003 with a Bachelors degree in Political Science. After graduation, she spent three years with a non-profit political organization. Currently a graduate student in the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Robyn is working toward a Master of Public Policy with concentrations in global policy and human rights. As a student at Humphrey, Robyn has studied human rights in both academic and practical settings. She has worked with Plan International (Honduras), The Advocates for Human Rights, and World Relief Organization. In October of 2007, Robyn worked with her classmates to organize Yar’s Campaign to End Child Abduction, in which she has served as Chair for the last several months. Through Yar’s Campaign, Robyn has traveled to Africa to examine children’s rights in post-conflict Sudan.

 

This summer, Robyn will continue her work as chair of Yar’s Campaign to End Child Abduction. Her goals for the summer include developing the image of the Yar’s Campaign, building relationships with key actors, and creating a vision to take the organization into the coming year. Robyn is excited and grateful to have the opportunity to continue her work with Yar’s Campaign. Through Yar’s Campaign, Robyn hopes to provide a voice to vulnerable children and families, and to contribute to peace and stability in South Sudan.

 

 

 

Lindsay Smith
Center for Minority Rights Development

Nairobi, Kenya

 

Lindsay is currently a first year student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan in English and Sociology, with a minor in African and Afro-American Studies. Lindsay is a board member of the law school’s Amnesty International chapter and participated in the Asylum Law Project at the law school, where she spent a week volunteering at the St. Thomas Institute for Human Rights Center in Miami to work on immigration and asylum law cases.

 

During the summer, Lindsay will be interning with the Centre for Minority Rights Development in Nairobi, Kenya. CEMIRIDE is an NGO that works to strengthen the capacity of minorities and indigenous peoples in Kenya and the rest of Africa and to secure the rights of these communities in all social, political, and economic development processes. While in Nairobi, Lindsay will be participating in various advocacy campaigns around the country and working with the Justice and Equality program to research and draft pleadings to be presented to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the Child of the African Union.

 

 

 

Ann Theisen
El Centro de Orientación del Migrante

Oaxaca, Mexico

 

Ann holds a Masters of Public Affairs from the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. She received her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire in English and Spanish Education and worked for 12 years as a middle and high school teacher in Texas and Minnesota. She has also worked with the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and The Advocates for Human Rights to educate the general public and immigrants themselves about their human rights and responsibilities regarding immigration law, the contributions immigrants make to the United States and the complexities of current immigration legislative proposals.

 

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Ann is grateful for the opportunity to volunteer with COMI, El Centro de Orientación del Migrante in Oaxaca, Mexico. COMI’s mission is to offer aid, respite and shelter to migrants. They operate a house of hospitality where passing migrants are provided three days and nights of food, medical attention, lodging and an orientation regarding the risks and consequences of migration as well as training about their human rights and obligations. During her ten-week fellowship, Ann will share her expertise in immigration education for incorporation in orientation sessions, community workshops and design of educational materials. Ann will set up a website for COMI and will assist with development research and grant-writing. She hopes to spend as much time as possible directly serving migrants in the house of hospitality - cooking, accompanying them to the clinic and listening to their experiences. She hopes to gain more understanding of the causes of migration. Upon returning to the U.S., Ann will have real-life examples to add to the policy explanations and statistics she uses in presentations for educating the majority community about human rights and the immigration issue. Additionally, she plans to produce an online audio lesson for U.S. students using interviews conducted with migrants served by COMI. This lesson will be added to The Advocates for Human Rights, “Energy of a Nation�? website.

 

 

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Birhanemeskel Abebe
Pan Africa Legal Aid (PALA)
Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Birhanemeskel received his LL.B. degree in law from Addis Ababa University School of Law in Ethiopia. After graduation, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice which led to his appointment as High Court Judge. As High Court Judge, he served on civil, criminal, and labor benches. He later joined the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as legal advisor on international law. In that capacity in addition to his advisory role, he also represented the Ethiopian Government at various multilateral and bilateral forums including the Organization of African Unity (OAU, now African Union (AU)) and the United Nations (UN). From 2001 to 2006, he has served as Legal Advisor at the Permanent Mission of Ethiopia to the United Nations Headquarters in New York covering the work of the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council as well as various regional bodies such as the African Union (AU) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Birhanemeskel has also attended New York University School of Law as UNITAR Fellow.

 

Birhanemeskel has been a Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center of University of Minnesota Law School since October 2006. He is working on Human Rights Center’s online Research Library by focusing on human rights country situations in Africa. He also initiated and helped organize panel discussions on human rights, democracy and the rule of law including the “The ‘New Breed of African Leaders’ and the Future of Human Rights and Democracy in Africa�? conference with the Human Rights Center, the Law School and the Hubert Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs of University of Minnesota.

 

During his Fellowship as the Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Birhanemeskel will work with Pan African Legal Aid (PALA), Minneapolis based non profit organization, established to giving culturally and linguistically appropriate legal aid to the African immigrant communities in the Twin Cities and the greater Midwest. During his fellowship Birhanemeskel will provide immigration related legal aid to new immigrant communities from Africa by focusing on the East African immigrant communities. He will also work on the human rights, civic awareness and leadership development within the African immigrant communities by focusing on the youth. He will also work as liaison with other governmental and non-governmental organizations working with immigrant communities representing PALA. After his fellowship, Birhanemeskel intends to continue working on human rights and immigration related issues by focusing on Africa and African immigrant communities including through hosting awareness raising conferences and seminars as he continues his studies at the Law School.

 

Mahima Achuthan
Amnesty International USA

New York City, New York

 

Mahima was born in New York, and raised in both India and New York. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004. Currently she is a second year student at the University of Minnesota Law School and plans to concentrate in Human Rights Law. She has interned with the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights and the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security in New York City. Besides English, Mahima speaks Hindi fluently.

 

During the summer of 2007, Mahima will be working at Amnesty International USA’s Research Department in New York City. The research department conducts its major projects during the summer, and this summer they are planning on investigating particular human rights violations in the United States. The issues they are going to address will include looking at sexual and domestic violence against Native American women in the United States, and the housing opportunities available to them under U.S. law. The research department might also take on a new project that will extend Amnesty's traditional mandate from civil and political rights to include economic, social and cultural rights (ESC).

 

 

Jaquilyn Waddell Boie
Hope International

Zaporozhye, Ukraine

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Jaquilyn graduated from Iowa State University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Sociology, and Philosophy. Currently, Jaquilyn is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute, pursuing a Masters of Public Policy with concentrations in International Minority Human Rights and Advanced Policy Analysis. In her research, Jaquilyn focuses on the impact of foreign and international policy and law on repression and human rights violations among minority populations. She is specifically interested in how policy and law can be designed to ensure the basic economic rights of minority women and children in developing nations.

 

Across the summer of 2007, Jaquilyn will be working with the microfinance program of Hope International in the Ukraine. Hope International is a global, faith-based, non-profit organization focused on holistic, sustainable poverty alleviation through micro-enterprise development. As an intern, Jaquilyn will be working with Hope to evaluate, revise and implement policy and programs in the microfinance program. Upon returning from the Ukraine, Jaquilyn plans to present her work at various panel events at the University of Minnesota and the Humphrey Institute.

 

Dan Brutlag
Arakan Oil Watch

Thailand

 

Dan Brutlag graduated from St. John's University in May 2007 with an individualized degree in International Relations and a minor in French. During college, he spent three semesters studying abroad and traveling in 27 countries on five continents. One of these countries was Burma, where he observed the hardships of life under an oppressive military regime and developed an interest in improving the country's political situation. After spending the summer in Thailand, Dan plans to teach English in France for nine months and pursue a joint J.D./International Relations M.A. degree beginning in the fall of 2008.

 

For his fellowship, Dan will be working with Arakan Oil Watch (AOW), a human rights NGO located in Thailand near the Thai-Burmese border. AOW works in conjunction with other local and international NGOs to monitor human rights abuses stemming from oil development and exploration projects in Burma. He will be assisting with the research and writing of the monthly English edition of The Shwe Gas Bulletin, and will assist AOW in compiling an additional report on the impacts of Chinese oil operations in the Arakan State in western Burma.

 

Vuth Chhunn
Cambodian Cente for Human Rights

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Vuth Chhunn was born in a Thailand Refugee Camp. He came to Rochester, Minnesota as a refugee in 1993. In 2007, he graduated from the University of Minnesota with degrees in Political Science and Global Studies. Vuth has a strong passion for Cambodia. The last several years he has been active in the Cambodian community in Minnesota. He was the president of the Cambodian Student Association of Minnesota at the University of Minnesota and help established a mentorship program for middle/high school Cambodian students.

 

This fall, with the help of the fellowship, Vuth will be traveling to Cambodia for the first time in his life. He will be volunteering with the Cambodian Center for Human Rights where he will work on various issues such as forced eviction, human right education, the genocide project, and “freedom of expression�? campaign. The main goals of his fellowship are to understand the problems that exist in Cambodia today and share those understanding with the Cambodian communities in Minnesota. He hopes the experience will enlighten his mind and help him further pursue his interests in the human rights field in Cambodia and the Cambodian communities in Minnesota.

 

 

Yi Deng
Pangea World Theater
Immigration Law Center of Minnesota

Twin Cities, Minnesota

 

Yi Deng was born and raised in China. She graduated from Renming University of China in July 2004, with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy. Currently, Yi is a third year Ph.D. student in Philosophy with a graduate minor in Human Rights at the University of Minnesota. Her academic interests are political philosophy and human rights.

 

This summer, Yi will work with two non-profit organizations in the Twin Cities: Pangea World Theater and Immigration Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM). Committed to creating a community of equity, Pangea World Theater has staged plays that reflect a strong global perspective and brings a vital human rights mission with programming designed to form discussion of issues that affect all of us, such as immigration, refugee and indigenous voices. Yi is excited to contribute to projects of uniting divergent communities and advocating human rights by participating in the activities of Pangea World Theater’s programming and by providing administrative and production support while assisting the directors of the projects in Pangea. In addition, motivated by a desire to get involved in the project of offering legal assistance to low-income immigrants, Yi will assist ILCM by developing and expanding materials in communications initiative. She hope her works at ILCM will further the general public’s awareness about the immigration heritage of Minnesota and the current situation of immigration locally and nationally.

 

 

Joshua T. Gardner
The Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions

Twin Cities, Minnesota

 

Josh recently finished his second year of law school at the University of Minnesota. He grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. He did volunteer work as a religious missionary in Brazil, and taught English and distributed relief supplies to people displaced by severe flooding in Mozambique in 2000. Josh graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Portuguese from Brigham Young University in 2002. He is twenty pages’ worth of revisions away from defending his M.A. thesis in Luso-Brazilian Literature, for which he started his course work in the fall of 2002 at the University of Minnesota. Josh continues to teach Portuguese in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Minnesota. He spent last summer interning for a Federal Magistrate Judge and doing estate planning as a law clerk for a local attorney. Recently, he did volunteer work for a Tanzanian non-profit organization called The People’s Hope and for the Boy Scouts of America. He continues to do volunteer work in his church.

 

During his fellowship with the Upper-Midwest Human Rights Center, Josh will work with the Center for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE)—an NGO based in Geneva (though its U.S. office is in Duluth)—and a local grass-roots task force meeting at St. Stephen’s Church in Minneapolis. The task force will fight homelessness by framing it in terms of International Human Rights. Josh will create a “Know Your Rights�? pamphlet that teaches about the international covenants related to housing rights ratified by the United States. He will also draft a shadow report to the Committee of CERD about housing rights in the United States, using this summer’s experiences in the Twin Cities to supplement his findings. Josh will also work with other local attorneys on fair housing and landlord-tenant disputes.

 

 

 

Sonia Gill

Law Society of Zimbabwe

Sonia Gill is a second-year law student at the University of Minnesota. A 2003 graduate of New York University, she holds a B.A. in Arts in Politics. Sonia is interested in civil and political human rights issues, with a particular focus on Africa. She has worked for the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern Law School in Chicago as a research assistant for a variety of projects. Sonia is also involved with the Midwest Voices for Human Rights.

 

Sonia will work with the Law Society of Zimbabwe, a non-profit organization created to encourage a culture of human rights in Zimbabwe and is also dedicated to upholding the law and ensuring the unimpeded administration of justice. Sonia will spearhead a complaint on behalf of the organization regarding Zimbabwe’s elections and compliance with international human rights law. Her main objectives will be to gather evidence, in the form of election reports, media reports, and domestic Zimbabwean cases challenging voter disenfranchisement as well as research international law supporting the complaint. This complaint will be submitted to the Southern African Development Community Tribunal and African Commission.

 

 

Sylvia González-Castro
Emiliano Zapata Elementary School

Oaxaca, Mexico

 

Sylvia González-Castro was born and raised in Racine, Wisconsin and moved to Minneapolis in 2003 to enroll in the University of Minnesota. She holds a degree in Individualized Studies with concentrations in Chicana/o Studies, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, and Political Science.

 

This fall, Sylvia will work with Emiliano Zapata Elementary School, a bilingual Zapotec/Spanish school that stresses indigenous cultural pride and language revitalization. She will work as a teacher’s assistant and union organizer, helping the school mobilize resources for future bilingual schools in rural Oaxaca. Upon return, Sylvia will carry her experiences of organizing in the so-called third world and channel them into grassroots organizing at the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network where she will work as a Community Organizer to work towards equal access to higher education for undocumented students. Furthermore, she hopes to spark transnational dialogues about movement building for equitable education with raza students at the U of M.

 

 

 

Amanda Grafstorm
Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL)

 

Amanda Grafstrom, 24, is a Roseau, Minnesota native and a recent graduate of the University of North Dakota School of Law where she graduated with distinction. Previously, Amanda graduated summa cum laude in three years from St. Cloud State University majoring in political science with a minor in international relations.

 

For her fellowship, Amanda will be an intern at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). The SCSL is a hybrid tribunal that was set up by the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations. This Court was established to try those with the greatest responsibility for the serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonan law committed in Sierra Leone since November 30, 1996.

 

 

Nicole Gurgel
zAmya Theater Project

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Nicole Gurgel is a freelance theater artist and arts administrator, as well as the The Children Theatre Company’s Community Engagement Associate. A 2005 graduate of the University of St. Thomas, she holds a B.A. in English, with a minor in Women’s Studies. Following graduation, Nicole spent a year working at Tara Publishing, an independent publishing house located in Chennai, India. Throughout college Nicole worked extensively at The Family Place, a day shelter for homeless families in St. Paul. Her experiences there led her to develop Somewhere Else Mother, a play based on interviews with women she had met at the shelter. She is currently directing the show to be performed in the Minneapolis Fringe Festival this summer.

 

Nicole will work with zAmya Theater Project, a unique creative process that brings together homeless and housed individuals to create and perform a theatrical production. zAmya’s plays emerge from script development workshops held at local shelters where both the housed and homeless come together to create dialog and share stories through theater exercises. What results is an hour long production performed during National Homelessness and Hunger Awareness Week in November. Now entering its fourth season, zAmya is partnering with the Hennepin County to create a public awareness campaign around Heading Home Hennepin, the county’s ten year plan to end homelessness. Between September and November Nicole will be serving as zAmya’s Stage Manager, Tour Manager, and Public Relations Director for their 2007 road show. Her work with zAmya will allow her to explore the intersection between the arts, human rights and social change.

 

 

 

Kara Hadley
National/Global Association for Thrift and Humanitarian Aid

St. Cloud, Minnesota
Kenya

Kara Hadley is a senior at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota, with a double major in Communication Studies, Women Studies, and a minor in Intercultural Communication. Kara will graduate in the spring and continue her education by attending graduate school. This summer, Kara will be undertaking her fellowship in Nyahururu, Kenya. She will be working with a Not-for-Profit organization registered in the state of Minnesota called NGATHA International. NGATHA International stands for National Global Association for Thrift and Humanitarian Aid. NGATHA International addresses many human rights issues. Some of the issues that NGATHA International is committed to include; access to education for underdeveloped children, particularly those that are devastated by HIV/AIDS; women's access to healthcare and health education; women's ability to access civil rights, particularly their rights as women; and address issue of environmental preservation and sustainability.

 

The projects Kara would focus on are working in the orphanage, teaching in the education center, working in women's groups, and creating a volunteer program. An objective Kara has working with NGATHA International is to create an infrastructure for a volunteer program to have people living in the United States to volunteer with NGATHA International and to travel and stay in Nyahururu and work in the orphanage, education center, and other projects. Another project Kara would be focusing on is working with women's groups in their community group projects supported by NGATHA International. Currently NGATHA International is looking into purchasing farmland so that women can grow crops to create a sustainable living for themselves and the orphanage. For these projects to be implemented much planning and discussion needs to take place and by living and interacting in the community for five weeks Kara would assist in this process. Through her work with NGATHA International she hopes to build cohesion between the U.S. and Kenya through a volunteer program and her continuous involvement in advocating for human rights.

 

 

 

Emily Hedin
La Comité de Derechos Humanos de Villa El Salvado
Lima, Peru

 

Emily Hedin is a senior at Macalester College. She is majoring in Political Science and International Studies with a minor in French and Francophone Studies. Emily has volunteered regularly with Habitat for Humanity, the Jane Addams School for Democracy (where she tutors East African immigrants in English and Citizenship Exam preparation), and Open Arms of Minnesota (where she prepares and delivers meals for people living with HIV/AIDS). After college, she hopes to pursue her PhD in Political Science; long term career goals include working with international development organizations or teaching at the college level.

 

This summer, Emily is excited to work with La Comité de Derechos Humanos de Villa El Salvador (CODEHVES). CODEHVES is a community organization which works in the southern cone of Lima, Peru. In the wake of the political violence of the 1980s, CODEHVES strives to re-establish human rights awareness. Emily will organize two free human-rights workshops for the residents of the neighborhood of Villa El Salvador. The first workshop will focus on women's rights, the second on economic rights. The purpose of the workshop is to raise awareness of human rights and design strategies for human rights protection in communities. Upon her return, Emily hopes to foster links between organizations in the Twin Cities and CODEHVES to encourage cross-cultural communication and human rights organization.

 

 

 

Andre Heuer
Center for the Victims of Torture

Minneapolis, Minnesota and Liberia

 

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Andre Heuer uses his clinical and storytelling skills to foster healing and to educate for justice across the country. Andre earned his doctoral degree at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota where his studies included an investigation of the role of personal narrative in research. He is an Editorial Associate for Storytelling, Self, Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Storytelling Studies.

 

He is presently a psychotherapist at a non-profit crisis center. In previous work he has taught psychological social life skills in corrections, provided psychotherapy in private practice, and ministered to the sick and dying. He is presently a member of the Rescue and Restore Coalition Against Human Trafficking - Minnesota Watch advisory board and previously served as a board member of the Healing Story Alliance of the National Storytelling Network. For the last thirteen years he has taught classes in complimentary health care and has developed policy for client services at Pathways: a health crisis resource center. In addition, he volunteered for three years at Casa Guadalupe, a Catholic Worker House serving documented and undocumented immigrants.

 

Andre is the creator and facilitator of the Center for Victims of Torture Story Project. The CVT Story Project's purpose is to preserve the history of CVT and to collect stories for articles, books, and training and educational materials to support CVT's mission. The project was originally developed primarily for use with individuals from oral cultures and was developed not only for the collection of stories but also to help grow the sense of community, enhance the dignity of those who share their story, and most importantly, foster healing.

 

In Fall '07 Andre will work for eight weeks at the CVT Healing Center in Voinjama, Liberia. This area was almost entirely depopulated during the country's fourteen-year civil war. CVT Liberia provides counseling and community health activities to thousands of Liberians, including returning refugees, internally displaced people, and local community members who have suffered the effects of war and torture. The fellowship provides Andre with the opportunity to explore ways of adapting the CVT Story Project for use internationally; expand his awareness of ways to use story to foster healing with those who have suffered torture; and lastly, give Andre hands on experience in working with story with torture survivors in their home countries.

 

 

 

Mitchell King
International Leadership Institute

Kigali, Rwanda

 

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Mitch King grew up in Duluth, MN and is currently a second-year student at William Mitchell College of Law. Mitch received his B.A. in Economics and minor in Physics from Lake Forest College, in Lake Forest, IL. While in law school Mitch has volunteered over 100 hours with Volunteer Lawyers Network in its Minneapolis legal clinics. 

 

This summer, he will be working with International Leadership Institute (ILI) in Kigali, Rwanda. The goal of the Fellowship is to create a Human Trafficking Awareness Manual focused on educating children. Mitch’s work will include exploring the legal, communal, and personal effects that trafficking has on these children. The awareness manual will incorporate theatre exercises to help educate children on human trafficking risk-factors, alternative life choices, and human rights. The awareness manual will be adaptable for ILI’s uses in other developing nations to help combat human trafficking. Upon completion of his Fellowship, Mitch will write a research paper based on his work in Rwanda, and he has plans to present his work at William Mitchell College of Law.

 

 

 

Eve Alexandra Lotter
American Refugee Committee International

Monrovia, Liberia

 

 

Eve Lotter holds a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She received her undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Eve’s studies have focused on forced displacement and the human rights of migrants. She has worked with Earthjustice (a nonprofit environmental law firm), Amnesty International USA’s Refugee Program, San Francisco’s Human Rights Watch Young Advocates, and Student Action for Refugees, among other organizations. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Eve was recently a research fellow with the Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota. She also volunteered with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights’ Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission Project.

 

As an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow, Eve is volunteering with American Refugee Committee (ARC) in Liberia. She is grateful to have this opportunity. Eve began her fellowship in April 2007 and is based in Monrovia. She is working on gender-based violence prevention and response programs with ARC, including a participatory video project and legal aid program. She will be assisting with grant and information reporting and other projects during her tenure as well. Eve’s fellowship with ARC Liberia is uniquely tied to Minnesota in two key ways. First, because ARC is headquartered in Minneapolis, Eve will be able participate in ARC speaking events, outreach, and fund raising efforts in town. Second, Minnesota has a strong connection with Liberia. Minnesota is home to an estimated 25,000 Liberians -- the largest Liberian diaspora outside of West Africa. Upon return to Minneapolis, Eve will reach out to diaspora community leaders and volunteer to assist their efforts to bring peace and justice to their country people both in Minnesota and Liberia.

 

Alyssa Macy
International Indian Treaty Council

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 

Alyssa Macy is of the Wasco, Navajo, and Hopi descent and a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon. She was raised on the Warm Springs Indian reservation in central Oregon until she was 18 years old. She received her B.S. in Justice Studies from Arizona State University where she focused on American Indian Justice and Psychology and is currently finishing her M.P.P. at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. She is also an avid photographer and writer and uses these tools to document social movements. Alyssa currently resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 

Alyssa’s fellowship will focus on the planning and content development of a training and capacity-building module for Indigenous Peoples focused on expanding awareness of and information use of international mechanisms in support of local struggles and campaigns to defend indigenous peoples rights, cultures, homelands and survival. She will work with the Indian Treaty Council (IITC). IITC is an organization of Indigenous Peoples working for human rights, environmental justice and self-determination for Indigenous Peoples and the recognition and protection of their rights, treaties, traditional cultures and sacred lands. She has attended previous United Nations meetings including the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations held annual in Geneva and the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) held in New York. As part of her Fellowship, Alyssa will attend the upcoming UNPFII held in May 2007.

 

Kelly McDermott
International Leadership Institute

Kigali, Rwanda

 

Kelly McDermott is a second year law student at William Mitchell College of Law. She grew up in California and Arizona. At age four, she began acting and continued in theatre through college. In 2003, she graduated with her B.A. in Theatre from Arizona State University. From there, Kelly spent two years working at Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica, California where she taught theatre to kids from inner-city Los Angeles. Law school opened Kelly’s eyes to human rights and international law. A study abroad program in Malta encouraged her to turn international human rights law into a career.

 

As an Upper Midwest Fellow, Kelly will work in Rwanda with the International Leadership Institute. She will assist in writing a human trafficking awareness manual that uses theatre to teach children about prevention and their rights. Kelly hopes this project will allow her to combine her life-long passion for theatre and children, with her new-found interest in the law.

 

 

 

Jessica Nault
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota

St. Paul, Minnesota

 

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Jessica Nault graduated from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls with a degree in Sociology. She is going to be a third-year law student at William Mitchell College of Law. Jessica is involved in public interest and human rights organizations on campus and was the head of the William Mitchell chapter of Amnesty International during the 2006-2007 school year.

 

This summer, Jessica will be working at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. Immigrant Law Center is a non-profit organization that provides legal services to immigrants in St. Paul and the surrounding areas. Her main focus will be working on Violence Against Women Act and u-visa petitions for victims of domestic violence. She will also use her legal skills to work on other cases that come into the office like asylum and naturalization cases. When she completes her fellowship, Jessica looks forward to continuing to raise awareness about immigration issues through educational programs and speaking in the community.

 

 

 

Seyon Nyanwleh
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

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Seyon Nyanwleh received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Global Studies as majors and Afro-American African Studies as a minor from the University of Minnesota. He intends to pursue his graduate studies in Public Policy or Government Studies. Seyon is a native of Liberia but he currently resides in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. As a student leader, Seyon served as Vice Chairman, Student Senate Consultative Committee, two-term President, African Student Association (ASA), Liaison ASA-Black Student Union, At Large Member, Minnesota Student Association, member United Nations Student Association and International Global Studies Student Organization. And as a community organizer/advocate, Seyon is heavily involved with organizing events that address social justice related issues such as immigrants' rights awareness, immigrant police relations, and immigrant community relations.

 

Seyon has a strong passion for transitional justice model in Africa. He argues if Africa must resurrect from its ashes of self-destruction-the civil war, gross human rights abuses, and other forms of human rights abuses, transitional justice is the corridor to a democratic Africa. For his fellowship, Seyon is excited to work with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, specifically working on the Liberia Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC) project. Minnesota Advocates was founded in 1983 by a group of Minnesota lawyers who recognized the community's unique spirit of social justice as an opportunity to promote and protect human rights in the United States and around the world. Mirroring the TRC's work in Liberia, Minnesota Advocates is coordinating an effort to collect statements from Liberians living throughout the United States. Seyon will help organize and advise volunteers to conduct interviews with Liberians who will voluntarily come forward to give statements to the TRC. The TRC will collect thousands of statements from the Liberian people about human rights violations between 1979 and 2003. At the end of this project, Seyon will pursue his call for transitional justice through organizing events and raising the awareness.

 

 

 

Stela Osmancevic
International Organization for Migrants

Sarajevo, Bosnia

 

Stela Osmancevic received a Bachelor degree in Global Studies with a minor in Spanish from the University of Minnesota in 2004. Currently, she is a master’s degree candidate at the University for Peace in Costa Rica, where she is completing a degree in International Peace Studies. Throughout the past five years, she has dedicated her time to working for several organizations related to the fields of international relations as well as human rights, such as teaching basic computer skills to adults who do not speak English in Minnesota, working in an immigration center in Spain as well as working as an administrative assistant in the State Capital Building in St. Paul. Stela has also completed an internship with the Human Rights Centre at the University for Peace where she worked as a researcher of human rights violations in Mexico. Last year, Stela was awarded the Ambassador for Peace scholarship by the Rotary International to continue her studies in Costa Rica.

 

For her fellowship, Stela will be working with the International Organization for Migrants (IOM) in Sarajevo, Bosnia, which is her home country. IOM is an international organization whose main focus is working with immigration and development issues. In Sarajevo, this organization has several ongoing projects which aim to prevent illegal immigration, stop trafficking of humans as well as contribute to national development. Stela is excited to have an opportunity to participate in the projects launched by the IOM and in turn contributing to making Bosnia a stronger country.

 

 

 

Michael Otremba
The Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children

Bumwalukani, Uganda

 

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Michael Otremba graduated in December 2006 from the University of Minnesota with a BA in French and Global Studies. Throughout his undergraduate career, Michael has sought to develop the skills necessary to become an effective humanitarian physician by integrating medicine and international volunteer work into his studies of the humanities, human rights, and public policy. He has worked with Copprime Children’s Foundation in El Progreso, Honduras, Helping Hands Nepal in Kathmandu, and the Red Cross in Copenhagen, Denmark. At the University of Minnesota, Michael founded a chapter of The Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC) and was a board member of the Students Against Human Trafficking. He will be attending medical school in the fall.

 

During the summer, Michael will work at FIMRC’s clinic in Bumwalukani, Uganda. The clinic began last year primarily to assure health-services to the 300 students and teachers of a local school established by Arlington Academy of Hope. While there, Michael will the assist the staff to compose surveys of common health concerns within the village, formalize an education program to inform students, teachers, and members of the community about diseases, water safety, nutrition, and personal hygiene as well as document the state of health facilities and community centers within the area. He will also work with the organization to incorporate further human rights language and objectives into their operation. After returning to the Midwest, Michael intends to hold public discussions about the role of healthcare in ensuring human rights for underserved communities based on his work in Bumwalukani.

 

 

 

Elizabeth Post
American Nicaraguan Foundation

Managua, Nicaragua

 

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Elizabeth Post is an Environmental Education Specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension office of the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center in Ashland, Wisconsin. She directs Lake Superior Pathfinders, an Environmental Leadership and Social Justice Program for high school youth in partnership with the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute of Northland College.

 

Elizabeth received a BS degree in Social-political Environmental Studies and Outdoor Education, with a minor in Environmental Education, from Northland College in 2000. She grew up in Maryland and co-founded and directed a countywide youth environmental group. Shortly after graduating high school, Elizabeth began teaching Environmental Education in Monteverde, Costa Rica where she spent two summers working with local schools, communities, and international volunteers to focus on the sustainability of a rapidly expanding rural town. While at Northland College, Elizabeth worked as an Environmental Education intern, a WaterWatch intern, GreenStar Coordinator, Energy Conservation Coordinator, kayak instructor, and as a volunteer for Alistar International, an organization in Nicaragua organized to assist the Miskito, Mayagna, and Sumo Indian Tribes. After graduating Northland, she was hired in June of 2001 with UW-Extension, where she has led on-the-water adventure trips, directed the Superior Kids program, assisted with school environmental programs, and assisted in the formation of the Lake Superior Pathfinders program, amongst other environmental education activities. Elizabeth has a passion for working with native cultures, organizing for various native issues, journeys, and causes over the last 10 years.

 

During her fellowship, Elizabeth will travel to Nicaragua to work with the American Nicaraguan Foundation (ANF). She will help create an innovative initiative in human rights, by helping to establish the first Milennium Village in Latin America. Elizabeth will provide the crucial?first step by assessing the needs and current human rights conditions of the selected village with regard to the Millenium goals.

 

Elizabeth’s son, Kai Mattinas is a member of the Constance Lake First Nation of Ontario, Canada, and will be accompanying Elizabeth during her fellowship.

 

 

 

Pamela Rojas
University of Minnesota Human Rights Resource Center

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Pamela Rojas was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in English and French education from a Catholic University in Chile, in 1989. While completing her first professional teaching assignment at a German School in Santiago, Pamela accepted a one year scholarship program that selects qualified candidates to teach the Spanish language and culture to American students. Her experience working in a Spanish Immersion Elementary School in Minnesota during 1989-1990, motivated her to further her studies in the areas of instructional design and technology. In 1992, she received a Master’s in Education from the University of Minnesota. Determined to apply her skills in Computer Based Instruction, Pamela worked for a private company as an intern during the summer of 1993 and on three consecutive times at 3M and Imation. Her interests in bilingual education, literacy development and reading instruction among English Language Learners as well as her dedication towards professional growth, has enabled her to become tenure in St. Paul in 1996, Eden Prairie in 2002 and Minneapolis Public Schools in 2007.

 

Pamela will be working with the Human Rights Resource Center at the University of Minnesota. As a Fellow participant, her goal is to provide input in the design of a course for future teachers in the area of human rights education, translate from English into Spanish documentation from “This is my Home: A Minnesota Human Rights Education Experience,�? providing bilingual support during events as well as write in Spanish advertising material if needed. She is also planning to train teachers in human rights education online and using Authorware Professional for computer based instruction.

 

 

 

José Suárez
Fundación Cimas del Ecuador

Quito, Ecuador

 

José Suárez obtained the degrees of Medical Doctor and Bachelor of Arts in Medicine in 2003 from the University of San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. Upon completion of these degrees, he came to the University of Minnesota where he obtained in 2005 a Master’s of Public Health in Epidemiology. Currently he is a PhD student in Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, pursuing research interests in cardiovascular disease and children’s growth.

 

Jose will be implementing his doctoral dissertation research, with the assistance of Fundacion Cimas del Ecuador, in the rural county of Pedro Moncayo in the highlands of Ecuador. He will be assessing the impacts of secondary occupational pesticide exposure on childhood growth, neurobehavioral development, heart rate, blood pressure, and blood acetylcholinesterase levels. In 2007/2008, 300 children will be examined and their parents will be interviewed for occupational pesticide exposures.

 

 

 

Joseph M. Towle
Centro de Derechos Human Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, México

 

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Joseph M. Towle received his Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and International Studies from North Dakota State University in 2003 and his Master of Arts in Hispanic Literature from the University of Minnesota in 2006. While completing his undergraduate degree, he was employed as a Bilingual Health Outreach/Officer with Migrant Health Services Inc. in Moorhead, MN. In 2003, he moved to Minneapolis and worked for Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES), a social service agency focusing on Spanish-speaking populations in Minneapolis and St. Paul. He is currently a Graduate Instructor and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

 

Joseph will be working with the Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México as a member of the Civil Observation Brigades for Peace and Human Rights (BriCO). As a human rights observer, his main goal is to maintain a civil presence in indigenous communities due to the increased military offensives against these communities. Observation and accompaniment is the main focus of the project, however, he will also record stories of human rights abuses and document the indigenous response to modern economic and political pressures. Upon return from his work in indigenous communities in Chiapas, he plans to develop an upper-division undergraduate course to be taught in Spanish focusing on human rights issues in Latin America.

 

 

 

Eissa Villaseñor
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights

Harare, Zimbabwe

 

Eissa Villaseñor is a second year student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She received her undergraduate degree in Politics and Spanish from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA. Eissa is a board member of the law school’s Amnesty International chapter. In the past, she has volunteered with the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Project at Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, a non-profit organization located in Minneapolis. In addition, she was a member of the law school’s Asylum Law Project. As a board member of the project, she organized and participated in a weeklong volunteer trip to El Paso, Texas to offer pro bono legal assistance to immigrants. Prior to starting law school, Eissa spent a year in Johannesburg, South Africa volunteering with the Refugee Rights Project at Lawyers for Human Rights.

 

During the summer, Eissa will intern with Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR). ZLHR is an organization of lawyers and law students that strives for the implementation of human rights norms and respect for the rule of law in Zimbabwe. ZLHR provides extensive services in Zimbabwe ranging from public interest litigation protecting the work of human rights activists in Zimbabwe to public policy advocacy relating to cultural, social and economic rights. The internship will allow Eissa to assist the organization in the various areas of its programming ranging from public interest litigation to enforce fundamental freedoms and constitutional human rights guarantees to international litigation at the level of the United Nations or the African Commission to test compliance with Zimbabwe’s obligations under various international human rights treaties. Upon her return, Eissa hopes to have the opportunity to share her experience and that of Zimbabweans with the law school community and the larger Twin Cities community as means to bring attention to the grave human rights crisis in Zimbabwe today.

 

 

 

Mark Wagner
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Arusha, Tanzania

 

 

Mark Wagner graduated from Syracuse University in 2000 and went on to earn a Master’s Degree in history from Northwestern University. He then worked in a variety of positions, including Director of Communications for the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care, before returning to his home state to pursue a law degree at the University of Minnesota.

 

Mark’s goal is to address human rights violations by working in and advancing international criminal law, and he believes his internship with the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) will serve that goal immensely. Interns at the ICTR work hard and are relied on as part of the team, so that the experience Mark gains will be of value to him throughout his career. More importantly, contributing to the efforts of the ICTR serves the people of Rwanda, and, Mark feels, all of humanity. As Kofi Annan put it, the ICTR represents the international community’s “collective determination to confront the heinous crime of genocide in a way we never have before.

 

 

 

Alycia Wright
National Service of Gacaca Courts

Kigali, Rwanda

 

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Alycia Wright is currently a law student at University of Minnesota. She received her B.A. in International Relations from Richmond, The American International University in London and a Masters in International and Comparative Legal Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her focus has been on the legal institutions put in place to deal with the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. In 2003, she spent four months interning at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.

 

This summer, Alycia is honored to have the opportunity to work with the National Service of Gacaca Courts in Kigali, Rwanda. With an overwhelming number of prisoners and the need to heal a war-torn society Rwanda introduced a form of community justice inspired by a Rwandan tradition known as Gacaca. Gacaca roughly translates into English as justice on the grass. This new system of Gacaca Courts was meant to speed up the trial process as well as play a large role in ‘truth, justice, and reconciliation.’ In 2003, Alycia wrote her thesis looking at the impact of this legal system on the women of Rwanda, but this will be her first time working directly with the Gacaca Courts. She hopes to continue to pursue a career in international human rights law, specifically in the area of restorative justice.

 

 

 

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Denise Andrews
Minnesota Academy International School
Ghana, West Africa

Denise Andrews received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Minnesota and a Mini-MBA in business from St. Thomas University. She currently works for Public Radio International in the Finance Department. Denise brings a wealth of experience to this fellowship, having worked with women’s groups in other African countries. She attended a United Nations Decade of Women conference in Kenya, which focused on the human rights of women and children. The Minnesota Academy International School in Amponsah Akroase, Ghana is Denise’s host organization. This fellowship will take place over the summer of 2005. Her work will be informed by the critical areas of human rights that came out of the United Nations Decade of Women conference called the "Beijing+10 in Africa" principles. She will spend time with the youth of the Academy and will teach a class on human rights, an initiative that could become a model human rights class for all of Ghana. The human rights curriculum has been developed particularly for the students of the academy. She will also assist in teaching students English, providing them with school supplies, and giving them unique opportunities to travel around Ghana. Denise will also spend time working with women’s groups and helping to establish a Sister to Sister International (STSI) chapter in the village. An internationally respected NGO, STSI will help the women in the village connect with and feel part of the larger community of women throughout Africa and the world. The women of Amponsah Akroase will be empowered to educate themselves and to influence other areas of village life by being a part of a larger organization. 

 

Mark Arneson
El Movimiento Desarraigados Organizado para el Desarrollo Integral del Norte del Quiche
Nebaj, Guatmala

Mark Arneson has taught biochemistry at the University of Minnesota for nine years. He also has long had an interest in Latin America including leading student study classes to Guatemala and Cuba and local activism. His internship is with the Guatemalan NGO El Movimiento Desarraigado Organizado para el Desarrollo Integral del Norte del Quiche which translates to The Movement of the Uprooted Organized for the Complete Development of North Quiche. The ‘uprooted’ refers to internally displaced populations during Guatemala’s civil war. The centerpiece of his internship will be a project to record oral history songs of war victims’ experiences during the 36 year civil war that officially ended in 1996. Mark plans to produce a CD to help preserve these songs, to raise money for projects in the region and to be used for education here at home. This internship also provides Mark experience as he explores a transition from science education to international human rights.

 

Julie Blaskowski
Senegalese Association for School as an Instrument for Peace (EIP)
Senegal, West Africa

Julie Blaskowski recently graduated from Hamline University with majors in Global Studies and Social Justice. She is currently interning with the Senegalese Association for School as an Instrument of Peace (EIP-Sénégal). EIP-Sénégal is the national branch of the World Association for School as an Instrument of Peace, whose headquarters are in Geneva. EIP-Sénégal has established clubs for students who work for the peaceful resolution of conflict within their schools. It also provides workshops for teachers, so that they may better incorporate democracy and human rights into their curricula. EIP-Sénégal also works to promote the rights of the child and the right to education within the Senegalese context by addressing the plight of the talibés, the young maids, and other child workers.

 

Elizabeth Braun
South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre
New Delhi, India

Elizabeth Braun is currently a student at the University of Minnesota Law School and Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Elizabeth received her B.S. in Mathematics and German at the University of Wisconsin. During the summer of 2005, she will be working at the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC) located in Delhi, India. SAHRDC is an NGO that studies and documents human rights violations in the South Asian region. SAHRDC seeks to investigate, document and disseminate information about human rights treaties and conventions, human rights education, refugees, media freedom, prison reforms, political imprisonment, torture, summary executions, disappearances and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment 

 

Paul Corbit Brown
International Leadership Institute and
Kingdom Oil
Rwanda

Paul Corbit Brown is currently self-employed as a freelance photographer in the field of Human Rights and Social Justice. His fellowship is in cooperation with the International Leadership Institute and Kingdom Oil, a faith-based organization involved for several years in the reconciliation effort. Paul aims to photograph and interview victims and offenders of the Rwandan genocide to create a documentary revealing the lives, aspirations, and resiliency of post-genocide Rwanda. Upon his return to the U.S., he plans to produce a traveling exhibit and accompanying lecture series to share his fellowship experiences. His main goal is to educate and motivate the public to become involved in the issues that face us all, whether in our homes and communities or the Planet Earth as our global community. Paul's photography website is at http://www.paulcorbitbrown.com/.

 

Sara Carpenter
UNESCO Centre at University of Ulster
Northern Ireland

Sara Carpenter is a Master's candidate in the Work, Community, Family Education program at the University of Minnesota and a member of the teaching staff at HECUA. Sara will be working with the UNESCO Centre at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. Sara will help the center with curriculum and research projects focused on the role of education in social inclusion in post conflict societies.

 

Christina Clusiau
Human Rights Education
http://www.mklaymissioners.org/index.php
http://www.educationaid.net/homepage.html
Rhodes, Greece

Christina Clusiau graduated from the College of St. Benedict/St. John's University in 2003. After graduation she received an Upper Midwest Fellowship to work with Maryknoll Missions in Bangkok, Thailand on Human Rights and Refugee issues. Since returning in June of 2004 she has been working as a freelance photographer and with the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center. During the upcoming fellowship period, Christina will be working with The Human Rights Center, Crossroads Elementary School, and the International Institute of Peace Education on Documentation and Facilitating a Human Rights Tool of emerging practices through the arts with The Human Rights Center K-12 initative project, titled, "This is my Home: Human Rights Education in Minnesota Public Schools".

 

Coventry Cowens
Womankind Kenya-WOKIKE
Kenya
Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP)
Tanzania

Coventry Cowens comes to the program with a broad based professional career and experience, which includes academia and multicultural programs and international non-profit organizations, project management and marketing programs in technology focused corporations, social service agencies and independent project management consulting. She is currently the Assistant Director of Multicultural Programs and Services at the College of St. Catherine, based in St. Paul Minnesota, and volunteers as program director of the International Leadership Institute, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Fellow Cowens is a graduate of Minnesota State University, Mankato and along with years of professional development course work has a MBA Program Certificate from the University of St. Thomas, based in St. Paul. Ms. Cowens developed a Dreaming Kilimanjaro motivational presentation to educate students and others about Tanzania, Africa and other African countries. She also developed a program for female students of color to improve their retention at the college level and wrote a children's book called Bibi's New Village (Tanzania).

As a Human Rights Fellow, Coventry Cowens will be working with woman¹s advocate programs in Tanzania and Kenya. Her host organization is Womankind Kenya in Garissa, Kenya (July) and the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (June). Her work will include developing collaborative relationship with the two non governmental organizations; provide college writing training for orphaned secondary-level female students in the arid region of Garissa and interview women advocates working for women and girl¹s rights in Dar es Salaam. As the work of human rights is very individual and occurs in a variety of settings around the world, it is Coventry Cowens hope to continue developing relationships begun in Africa over the past few years that focus on the growth and enrichment of all concerned. She also hopes to share her knowledge and skills with young women eager to develop additional resources in a rapidly changing world.

 

Saroeun Earm
Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-CAM)
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Saroeun is a Cambodian-American woman originally from St. Paul, MN. She is currently a temporary office and administrative specialist in the College of Professional Studies at Metropolitan State University. She previously worked for the Saint Paul Area Council of Churches as an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer, congregational organizer, developing an employment ministry. Before that Sarouen was employed by Southeast Asia Resource Action Center in Washington, D.C. as a Values, Empowerment, Resources and Betterment (VERB) project intern. Saroeun holds a B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology and Asian Studies from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN and studied Khmer at the University of WI-Madison through Southeast Asia Summer Study Institute (SEASSI). She traveled extensively throughout China, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Thailand as part of her education. Her current goal is to attend graduate school in international relations for fall of 2005.

 

Leonardo Filippini
United Nations Office of the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide
New York, New York, USA

Leonardo Filippini earned a law degree (honors) at University of Buenos Aires (UBA) School of Law and an LL.M. degree from University of Palermo (UP) School of Law. He has law clerked at the Supreme Court of Justice of Buenos Aires and at different inferior courts, and he has been responsible of the Institutional Reform Area of the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS). He has also been advisor of the Prison Ombudsman of the Ministry of Justice. Mr. Filippini has lectured on criminal law and international human rights at UP and UBA. He has directed research, and published articles and contributions on these areas. Leonardo Filippini is currently a Hubert H. Humphrey fellow at University of Minnesota and he is working with the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York.

 

Brian Heilman
Loreto Day School
Sealdah, Kolkata, India

Brian Heilman is a 2005 graduate of St. John's University in Collegeville, MN and is thrilled to be traveling to Calcutta, India this fall to complete his fellowship at the Loreto Day School in Sealdah. The Loreto Day School is a revolutionary girls primary school and orphanage whose principal, Sister Cyril Mooney, has received many international human rights awards for her work in opening the school's doors to the urban street-dwelling poor of Calcutta. The school currently houses 200 formerly street-dwelling children who participate in the "Rainbow Program." Brian's duties will include caring for, teaching and tutoring the Rainbow students, as well as traveling to rural locations around Calcutta with Mooney's "Barefoot Teachers" program to conduct lessons for children out of the reach of an organized school system. Brian's previous volunteering efforts have taken him to the Community for Creative Nonviolence in Washington DC, St. Ann's Mission in Navajo Nation AZ, and a variety of human rights NGOs throughout Northern India (including the SAHRDC, Caritas India, SANLAAP and others). 

 

Sarah Herder
Children’s Defense Fund
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Sarah Herder will receive her Master of Public Policy degree, with a concentration in Human Rights, from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs in May 2005. She has worked as an intern with the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota, as well as at the Concerned Center for Child Workers in Nepal in Kathmandu. Sarah's fellowship this summer will be at the Children's Defense Fund-Minnesota (CDF-MN), where she plans to bring her knowledge and work with international human rights frameworks to local causes. At CDF-MN, she will advocate for children's basic rights to health care coverage and child care; research demographic data concerning children's well-being; and work with staff to create alliances with political leadership to bring about sustained commitments to children. Sarah hopes to begin a career in human rights research upon completion of her fellowship.

 

Meizani Irmadhiany
Poverty Alleviation Committee, Ministry of People Welfare
Indonesia

Meizani Irmadhiany is currently a sophomore at the University of Minnesota. She grew up in Indonesia, and three years ago, she moved to the United States for her studies. This summer she will be working with PKPU (Pos Keadilan Peduli Umat), a humanitarian NGO based in Indonesia. She will be working in Aceh to rebuild the area that was hit hardest by the December Tsunami. The organization works together with other institutions in coordinating recovery and rehabilitation efforts related to the disaster and focusing on micro economic activities to reduce poverty in Aceh. As a volunteer in the organization, she will be working on various development programs in Aceh. She will be doing field work relating to community development, such as setting up trauma centers for victims of the disaster, capacity building on micro economic activities and income generating arrangements. 

 

Martha James
Human Rights Education
http://www.i-i-p-e.org/
http://www.crossroads.spps.org/
http://www.mcae.k12.mn.us/
Rhodes, Greece

Martha James is a doctoral student in the department of Critical Pedagogy at the University of St. Thomas as well as being a full-time employee of Saint Paul Public Schools. For her fellowship she will be traveling to Rhodes, Greece to participate in the International Institute for Peace Education. The Institute will gather artists and educators from around the world to engage in dialogue about how the Arts and education can merge to be powerful tools to educate for peace. Along with attending plenary sessions, while at the institute Martha will be conducting a workshop where she will share ideas for using dance as a medium to address cultural identities. Upon her return she will be a resource to the community by sharing her experiences as well as incorporating them into her existing dance/Arts/education partnership with the Human Rights Center of Minnesota, Crossroads Elementary School, and the Perpich Center for Arts Education.

 

Anna Jaquith
A SEED EUROPE - Action for Solidarity Equality Environment and Diversity
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Anna Jaquith recently completed a Liberal Arts B.A. degree at Metropolitan State University. Her fellowship will be with the European branch of Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment and Diversity (A SEED) located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. During Anna’s fellowship, she will be working on the European World Bank Bonds Boycott Campaign. Her work will include research and analysis of the World Bank, writing articles, assisting with publications, updating the website, and grassroots outreach to strengthen the European Campaign. The mission of the campaign is to educate and persuade socially responsible financial institutions in the Global North to stop investing in World Bank Bonds until the World Bank agrees to adopt new policies that respect, rather than exploit, human rights and the environment in the Global South.

 

David Johnson
UNHCR Regional Office for the U.S. and the Caribbean
Washington DC, USA

David Johnson is a rising third year student at the University of Minnesota Law School. During the summer of 200, he will be working with the Legal Section of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Regional Office for the United States and the Caribbean in Washington, DC. As a volunteer intern, David will assist UNHCR in its mission to promote and safeguard the rights of refugees. His duties will include providing legal counseling to asylum seekers, monitoring legislation affecting refugees, drafting advisory opinions regarding international refugee law, and preparing for UNHCR missions to detention centers to monitor the welfare of asylum seekers. 

Jennifer Johnson
UN Sub-Commission for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Jennifer Johnson is entering her third year of law school at the University of Minnesota. She is working for the United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights under Ms. Barbara Frey, the UN Special Rapporteur on Small Arms and Light Weapons. Jennifer will be traveling with Ms. Frey to Belfast, Northern Ireland for a conference on women’s roles in transitional societies. She will also travel to London to attend meetings with NGO’s working in the field of small arms and light weapons research and advocacy. Jennifer will have the opportunity to spend time in Geneva, while the 57th Session of the Sub-Commission meets. Jennifer’s primary responsibilities throughout her fellowship include assisting Ms. Frey in compiling Draft Principles on the Prevention of Human Rights Violations committed with Small Arms to be reviewed by the Sub-Commission during its 57th Session, researching human rights jurisprudence associated with small arms violence and the responsibilities of States to use due diligence in addressing human rights violations committed with small arms, and writing a paper on the gendered implications of small arms violence. During the summer of 2004, Jennifer participated in an academic human rights program in Galway, Ireland with the Irish Centre for Human Rights. Jennifer would like to practice law in the human rights arena.

 

Mara Michaletz
Voting Rights Project
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Mara Michaletz is currently a second-year student at the University of Minnesota Law School. She will be working for the Voting Rights Project of the ACLU is located in Atlanta, Georgia. Their mission is improving voters’ rights throughout the United States. The Project is currently challenging legislative redistricting which creates a “supermajority�? of Indians that dilutes their vote, or districting which unfairly splits Indian communities and blocks Indians from holding public office. She will be assisting with the research and litigation of these redistricting suits, as well as preparing for the 2007 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. 

Ted Meinhover
FORUM-Asia
Bangkok, Thailand

Kofi Annan, in the May/ June 2005 edition of Foreign Affairs, said, “Future generations will not forgive us if we continue down this path.�? Speaking about the lack of cooperation at an international level, it is obvious that, for the cause of Human Rights to be a successful one, communication and action must take place at a global level. The importance of the Human Rights Center’s Fellowship program is therefore obvious.

Ted Meinhover, a native of Ottertail, Minnesota, is a final year undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is pursuing degrees in Global Studies and Journalism/ Communications. He is currently an intern with the Human Rights organization Forum Asia, a regional body based in Bangkok, Thailand. Forum Asia focuses on the protection of human rights in Asia through its activities and the sharing of information among organizations, activists, and governments in the region. It has member organizations in many countries around the region, and deals with a myriad of issues such as women’s rights, displaced persons, refugees, human rights defenders, and many others. At Forum Asia, Ted is focusing on the Human Rights implications of the December 26 Tsunami that devastated many places in the region.

He is also a member of the task force that is working with groups in Aceh, Indonesia, to resolve the ongoing conflict there and work on the peace process. His internship involves many other activities including fact finding, delivering press conferences, training, and others. After returning to Minnesota, Ted looks forward to helping others understand the importance of Human Rights as well as the issues in South East Asia. He hopes to build stronger ties at a transnational level so that Human Rights Defenders can support each other around the world.

 

Ana Lisa Peña
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM)
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

From June 1 until August 1, 2005, Ana Lisa Peña will provide direct legal assistance and education to low-income victims of domestic violence in the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota who are petitioning U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for protection under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Ana will work under the direction of the Supervising Attorney of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM), a St. Paul, Minnesota non profit, independent organization that provides assistance in immigration matters to low-income immigrant and refugee families and individuals in Minnesota. The ILCM’s services consist of direct legal representation and community education, and likewise, Ana will provide both direct legal representation and community outreach.

 

Franklin Reed
Kingdom Oil and the Great Lakes Region Task Force
Rwanda

Franklin Reed graduated from the University of Northern Iowa and the University of Minnesota Law School. His fellowship will take him to Rwanda to work with Kingdom Oil and the Great Lakes Regional Task Force (The Partnership). He will work directly on a micro lending program which is geared towards a greater vision of economic recovery for mothers (and their children) who survived the genocide. Also, he will have the opportunity to assist the Partnership in developing a program geared toward community building and reconciliation. Currently, Mr. Reed works with the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis.

 

Laura Shattuck
Legal Aid of Cambodia (LOC)
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Laura Shattuck is currently pursuing a J.D. and a M.P.A. at the University of South Dakota, and she received a B.A. from St. Olaf College. Her fellowship will be with Legal Aid of Cambodia (LAC), a non-profit, non-governmental association of lawyers dedicated to serving the legal needs of Cambodians who are unable to afford adequate legal representation. As a legal intern, she will work directly with LAC lawyers and investigators to provide legal support to victims of trafficking and advocate against trafficking in Cambodia. Upon returning home from the fellowship, she plans to raise awareness in South Dakota about human trafficking concerns in Cambodia through campus forums and interactions with her local community.

 

John Van Rooy
Comision Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz (CIJP)
Bogota, Colombia

John Van Rooy is currently a junior at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN and is majoring in Peace Studies and the Spanish Language. His fellowship will allow him to work with the Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz (Intereclesial Commission of Justice and Peace), a non-profit in Bogotá, Colombia, which works with peasant communities who have been the object of forced displacement. As an intern with CIJP, John will have the opportunity to participate in the organizational process of the communities, help set up education workshops, and formulate reports about the communities to present to international organizations.

 

Fordam Otieno Wara
International Leadership Institute
Kids Home International
Kenya

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Fordam Otieno Wara is an Associate with Blackwell Igbanugo P.A. practicing in the areas of commercial litigation, immigration & nationality law, and international trade. He received his law degree at the University of Minnesota law school and is admitted to the Minnesota State Bar. His fellowship aims to raise awareness on the need for protecting the human rights of street children within the Kenyan juvenile justice system. Beginning September of 2005, he will work with the International Leadership Institute to organize seminars and conduct targeted interviews in Kenya involving individuals and institutions working in child protection initiatives. He will then establish a resource center to spearhead the public awareness campaign.

 

*Note: The Human Rights Center provided additional funding support to Jeff Morierty.

 

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Wendy Adams
The League of Minnesota Human Rights Commissioners
Minneapolis, MN

Wendy Adams is currently a student at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, Minnesota, working on her Masters in Social Work. Her host organization is The League of Minnesota Human Rights Commissioners where she will work on the program “Reducing and Eliminating Hate Behavior (REHaB). The REHaB Program is a response to requests for corrective services for persons who have been convicted of hate crimes. The judicial system requests one-on-one counseling with the offenders. Wendy will serve on the committee that deals with human rights issues throughout Minnesota. Her fellowship will focus on engaging individuals in learning about human rights and responsibilities while challenging offenders to change their attitudes and behaviors.

Kwaku Agyeman
Legal Aid Society
New York, NY

Fellowship Report

Kwaku Agyeman is a second year law student at the University of South Dakota. In May, he will undertake an internship with the Legal Aid Society in the Bronx, New York. His work will be in the Housing Unit that handles landlord and tenant law. The Housing Unit mediates and litigates cases of individuals who are being evicted by landlords. He will interview clients, act as liaison between staff attorneys, prepare motions to be filed in court, to clients and opposing attorneys. Kwaku plans to work as an international law and human rights attorney. Upon his return to South Dakota from New York, he would like to raise awareness on shelter issues, a fundamental human right, through campus forums and interactions with his university community.

Clay Collins
Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE)
Ghana

Fellowship Report

Clay Collins is enrolled in the Child Psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Minnesota. In addition, he has been conducting research for a book on non-citizens and assisting in the development of a draft copy of a chapter on stateless persons. His fellowship will be with the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and will be based in Ghana. COHRE is an international human rights organization that seeks to ensure full housing rights by applying human rights law to housing situations around the world. He will work with COHRE’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Litigation Programme and the COHRE Africa Programme.

Lydia Dobrovolny
Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ME3)
Manitoba, Canada

Fellowship Report

Lydia Dobrovolny is currently working on her Master of Science in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the University of Minnesota. Her fellowship will enable her to focus on energy and environmental policy utilizing her science training and research skills, working for Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ME3). ME3 is a non-profit organization the works regionally to transition communities to a clean, fair, and efficient energy system. Her work with ME3’s Just Energy Program will focus on advocating for the human rights of the First Nation's communities in Manitoba, specifically implementing environmental just and sustainable policy.

Adriana Dobrzycka
South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC)
New Delhi, India

Fellowship Report

Adriana Dobrzycka is in her senior year at St. Cloud State University, majoring in Anthropology and Political Science. She is also currently interning with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, conducting research on the Sierra Leone Truth Commission as well as monitoring human rights situations in Peru. Her fellowship this summer will take place at the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC) in New Delhi India. SAHRDC is an NGO that studies and documents human rights violations in the South Asian region. The Centre educates the public about international human rights standards and treaties. Adriana plans to bring her experience back to her community by giving presentations and sponsoring discussions regarding the human rights situation in the South Asian Region.

Jonathan Eoloff
Center for Justice and International Law
San Jose, Costa Rica

Fellowship Report

Jonathan Eoloff is in his final year at the University of Minnesota Law School. He currently serves as Symposium Editor of The Journal of Law and Inequality. Jonathan has extensive experience working with human rights organizations or projects, including interning with the Asylum Law Project at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, clerking for Sandra Babcock with the Mexico Capital Legal Assistance Program, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, and Witness For Peace in Guatemala. His fellowship will take place in San Jose, Costa Rica, at the Center for Justice and International Law. Jonathan will work as a legal intern, partnering with staff attorneys on cases before the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. His work will assist him in the transition from law student to full-time advocate and attorney in the human rights arena.

Kimberly Ford
Center for Victims of Torture (CVT)
Sierra Leone and Guinea

Fellowship Report

Kimberly Ford received her Masters of Urban and Regional Planning degree in March of 2003 from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Most recently, she was admitted to the Ph.D. Program in the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota. She has worked extensively on research projects both in the United States as well as in Egypt and Nepal. For Kimberly's fellowship project, she will work in West Africa, specifically in Sierra Leone and Guinea with her host organization, Center for Victims of Torture (CVT). Initially, she will work with staff to collect existing data on their programs, assessing the dimensions of well being that the programs cover successfully, and identifying needs that have not been met. She will then develop evaluation measures and methods, and coordinate and standardize a process across CVT's West Africa programs for future evaluation. The research will provide valuable information to donors and increase the efficacy of the existing services in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Eric Gottwald
International Labour Organization's Multinational Enterprises Program (MULTI)
Geneva, Switzerland

Fellowship Report

Eric Gottwald is a second-year law student at the University of Minnesota. After receiving his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Eric worked as a legislative aide in Washington focusing on international trade and veteran’s affairs. In the summer of 2003, Eric volunteered at Oxfam-Great Britain as a Research Fellow. He conducted research in support of the Oxfam campaign on the precarious employment of women in global value chains. His fellowship in 2004 will support his internship with the International Labour Organization’s Multinational Enterprises Program (MULTI) in Geneva, Switzerland. MULTI works to bring employers, workers’ representatives, and national governments together to ensure that foreign direct investment generates employment that respects core labor standards. The work will focus primarily on preparatory work for a sub-regional meeting on multinational enterprises, FDI, and labor/employment issues in the Southern African Development Community.

Monica Haller
El Colegio
Minneapolis, MN

Fellowship Report

Monica Haller is currently a candidate for a Masters of Fine Arts in Visual Studies and Photography at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a graduate of the College of St. Benedict, where she received her B.A. in Peace Studies. Her fellowship will take place at El Colegio in Minneapolis, Minnesota. El Colegio is a charter high school with a focus in the arts, environment, and technology. The student population is primarily Latino; however, the school serves all cultures. Monica plans to work with a group of youth from Minneapolis, using photography as a medium to address the issue of denial of access to higher education for undocumented youth. She hopes the photography project will be a powerful tool in influencing the youth, the community, and legislature about the human right to education for all. Monica's goal is to create work that will be exhibited in public venues and circulated locally to promote awareness of the undocumented youth and their futures, with or without educational opportunities.

Lena Jones
Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA)
Cape Town and Pretoria, South Africa

Fellowship Report

Lena Jones received her M.A. degree in Political Science from the University of Minnesota and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the U of M. Additionally, she is an Instructor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota and at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College. She has many publications and awards for her dedicated work. Lena's fellowship with the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) will include participation in IDASA’s efforts to institute civic engagement projects in Cape Town and Pretoria. She will contribute to various applied research projects undertaken by IDASA's South African Migration Project (SAMP), a subsidiary of IDASA that promotes public awareness of the role, status, and contribution of foreign immigrants of African origin in South Africa. Lena's duties will include participating in grassroots democracy-building efforts and in research projects aimed at fighting xenophobia and discrimination. This year marks the 10th Anniversary of South Africa's first free elections. Lena plans to share her experience with her many students, African American scholars and colleagues, and the African American community at-large in the Twin Cities.

Kevin Keeley
Network of NGOs of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women
Port-of-Spain, Trinidad

Kevin Keeley is currently a candidate for a Masters of Public Policy at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. His specific concentration is Economic and Community Development with an interest in gender and development. Kevin will work with the Network of NGOs of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women in Port-of –Spain, Trinidad. He will work as a project manager, overseeing the design and launch of WomensNet T&T. WomensNet T&T is an innovative networking support program designed to enable women to use the Internet to find the people, issues, resources, and tools needed for their social action in Trinidad and Tobago. He hopes this effort will promote gender equality and women's empowerment in this part of the Caribbean. He hopes to be able to transfer this advocacy work upon his return to the Twin Cities Somali community and, in particular, with the Somali women and girls community.

Robert Lafrentz
Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP)
Crescent Valley, Nevada

Fellowship Report

Robert Lafrentz studied at the University of Minnesota at the Institute for Global Studies and received his B.A. in International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies. Presently, he is a law student at the University of St. Thomas. As a fellow with the Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) in Crescent Valley, Nevada, he will be working to reaffirm Newe (Western Shoshone) jurisdiction over Newe Sobobia (Western Shoshone homeland). He will be responsible for writing reports to the Organization of American States and to the United Nations Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination outlining the human rights violations against Western Shoshone people. He also plans to create materials for WSDP'S distribution to further awareness of human rights violations against the Newe people. Robert also will assist WSDP'S efforts in the "no Dirty Gold" campaign to stop the negative impact of gold mining on Western Shoshone land. Upon his return, Robert hopes to educate individuals about the human rights abuses against the Newe people, through undergraduate and graduate student newspaper articles and will attempt to start a human rights organization at the University of St. Thomas.

Tai Nicole Leather
Cultural Diversity Resources
Fargo-Moorhead, MN

Fellowship Report

Tai Nicole Leather is a senior at Minnesota State University in Moorhead. She has been working with Cultural Diversity Resources in Fargo-Moorhead since March and will continue through August. Tai will collaborate with Cultural Diversity Resources in the planning, implementation, and follow-up for the Human Rights Training of Trainers. Her fellowship aims to assist the cities with their goal of improving the human rights climate through the development of effective trainers. Tai hopes to acquire increased awareness of human rights so that she can serve as a human rights educator in the community.

Victoria Lichtman
Peace Now
Tel Aviv, Israel

Fellowship Report

Victoria Lichtman is a candidate for her Masters of Public Policy, with a Human Rights Minor, at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. She received her B.A. in International Relations at the University of Minnesota. Working as an intern at Peace Now in Tel Aviv, Victoria will be engaged in numerous responsibilities, including working with Peace Now’s political campaigns and outreach efforts and promoting a viable and sustainable Palestinian – Israel peace. Peace Now is a non-partisan volunteer-based movement working to revive the peace process in order to end the cycle of violence for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Robyn Linde
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, MN

Fellowship Report

Robyn Linde is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Minnesota. She received her M.A. degree from the University of Delaware in International Relations and her B.A. from Indiana University in Philosophy. Robyn’s fellowship will be with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Specifically, she will volunteer with the Women’s Program conducting research for the “Stop Violence�? website designed to combat violence against women in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS). Robyn’s experience living and working in Central and Eastern Europe for over three years, as well as her skills as an activist and researcher, will help in compiling information for the website. Robyn plans to continue her work with human rights and, in particular, her work with women’s rights issues in her home community when she returns.

Amanda Loge
Hogar de Cristo
Arequipa, Peru

Amanda Loge obtained her B.S. in Family Social Science and Spanish from the University of Minnesota and is currently working on her Masters of Social Work at the University of Minnesota. Amanda will conduct her international fellowship at Hogar de Cristo, a non-profit in Arequipa, Peru, which serves children between the ages of four to seventeen who work on the streets. She will work collaboratively with the staff psychologist and social worker, conduct home visits, and make assessments with the children’s families to help plan interventions and increase family support. She will also work with educational, psychosocial, and mental health services. Through her experience in Peru, she hopes to gain insight into ways to advocate effectively and empower those individuals with whom she will work. Amanda hopes to apply this knowledge in promoting the rights of immigrant children and their families in Minnesota upon her return.

Patrick McGroarty
University of Minnesota Human Rights Center
Minneapolis, MN

Fellowship Report

Patrick McGroarty grew up in Minnesota and is currently a sophomore at Boston College. This summer Patrick will work at the Human Rights Center, conducting interviews of past fellowship grant recipients and other associated with the history of the Human Rights Center’s different programs. These interviews will be presented as part of the Human Rights Center’s 15th Anniversary Reflection Project. Additionally, Patrick will assist with the completion of the Human Rights Education Series publications and work on promoting the Human Rights and Peace Store. He hopes this experience will help to prepare him for his life-long commitment to working with human rights and social justice issues.

Chie Michihiro
Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE)
Singapore

Fellowship Report

Chie Michihiro did her undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin and Kobe University in Hyogo, Japan, as well as Kinki University in Osaka, Japan. Currently, she is a candidate for a Masters of Public Policy at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Chie will work as a fellow at the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), a voluntary organization for women in Singapore. AWARE is committed to raising awareness of violence against women. Chie will conduct research and collect data on violence against women, the migration of women workers, and foreign victims of violence against women for their website. Chie plans to do public speaking engagements in classrooms and volunteer at Minnesota organizations that deal with violence against women when she returns.

Evangeline Nderu
Womankind Kenya
Kenya

Fellowship Report

Evangeline Nderu received her B.S. in Mathematical Sciences from Portsmouth University in England and her M.A. in Elementary Education from Western Illinois University. She is currently a candidate for her Ph.D. in Education Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota. Nderu will work at Womankind Kenya in northeast Kenya. Womankind Kenya is an NGO whose mission is to support the most vulnerable members of communities in Garissa and Ijara districts, the women, and children, poor and destitute. Nderu’s fellowship will assist in their mission by helping to strengthen the education program, particularly for women and children, with her expertise in program development. Evangeline plans to work in the non-profit work on education program development.

Juliette Onyancha
United Nations Children’s Fund
Nairobi, Kenya

Fellowship Report

Juliette Onyancha received her B.S. in Management Information Systems at Metropolitan State University and is currently working on her Masters of Public Health, and Public Health Administration. Juliette will be a fellow at the United Nations Children’s Fund in Nairobi, Kenya, on a project called Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS/People Living with Aids (PMTCT/PWLA). In the next five years, the PMTCT program will emphasize five major areas including, The Education Programme, The Nutrition and Health Programme, The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme, The Special Protection Programme and The Social Policy, Advocacy and Communications Programme. UNICEF is developing and implementing these interventions. Juliette interest and dedication to improving the health of mothers and their children, is the focus of her life work now and in the future.

Nadifa Osman
Generation for Change and Growth
Mandera, Kenya

Fellowship Report

Nadifa Osman is a native of Somalia, and attended Somali National University School of Engineering where she received her B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering. She has studied at the University of Rome, Italy, California State University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her M.S. degree in Energy Management. Since moving to Minnesota, Nadifa has done research and analysis, consulting, and volunteering throughout the Twin Cities community. Her fellowship work will take her to Mandera, Kenya, to her host organization, Generation for Change and Growth. Her intentions are to identify grass-roots leadership among the women of Mandera, Kenya, and assist them in developing a local powerbase from which they can organize on a variety of issues. For example, teaching alternative cooking methods using solar ovens so the women don’t have to travel far from home to gather firewood, making them vulnerable for rape. Education of the women is another priority of Generation for Change and Growth. Nadifi will continue her education and outreach efforts when she returns to Minnesota.

Mike Scharenbroich
Urban Coalition
St. Paul, Minnesota

Fellowship Report

Mike Scharenbroich is currently a student at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He plans to do his fellowship work at the Urban Coalition in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Urban Coalition advances systemic changes through policy and advocacy initiatives. Addressing the injustices at the intersection of race and class, the Coalition’s agenda identifies common ground among disparate interest and crafts solutions to transform the system. Mike will work as an intern there for the summer. His future plans include enrolling at the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs and continuing his work in the human rights arena.

Quy Ton
Partners in Health-Socios en Salud, Peru
Zanmi Lasante, Haiti

Fellowship Report
Additional Report 1
Additional Report 2

Quy Ton is currently a medical student at the University of Minnesota. He was the founding president of the Physicians for Human Rights Minnesota Student Chapter, the American Medical Association Student co-president, and founding member of Universities Allied for Access to Essential Medicines. Quy received his Masters in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley, and his B.A. from Carlton College in Northfield, Minnesota. For Quy’s fellowship experience, he will join the research and clinical teams of Partners in Health-Socios en Salud in Peru and Zanmi Lasante in Haiti. In Peru, he will help design, analyze, and publish patient data from the pioneering nationwide DOTS-Plus multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment program. In Haiti, he will join the clinical care team at Clinique Bon Sauveur and see patients daily in clinic implementing the HIV Equity Initiative, utilizing DOT-HAART, a community based model of treating AIDS patients in resource poor settings. Upon his return, Quy hopes to utilize his practical experience in implementing a community-based model of disease prevention and treatment. Someday, he hopes to design and implement a similar program in Vietnam and other resource-poor settings.

Asya Varbanova
United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Regional Office for Central and Eastern Europe
Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Fellowship Report

Asya Varbanova is a Masters candidate of Public Policy at the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. She did her undergraduate work at American University in Bulgaria and at the University of Maine. Asya’s fellowship will be undertaken at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Regional Office for Central and Eastern Europe, located in Bratislava in the Slovak Republic. She will be involved in supporting the development and implementation of various UNIFEM programs in the region. The three key aspects to UNIFEM’S work include women’s human rights, economic security and rights and peace and gender justice. Asya expects to be involved in all three aspects and particularly in projects for elimination of violence against women and eradication of feminized poverty. Asya’s future plans include continuing her work in the women’s human rights arena, specifically with domestic violence, rape, employment discrimination and the trafficking of women and girls for commercial sexual exploitation.

Jeff Vockrodt
International Labour Organization's Freedom of Association Branch
Geneva, Switzerland

Fellowship Report

Jeff Vockrodt is currently a student at the University of Minnesota Law School and at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. He received his B.S. in Business and Industrial Relations from the Carlson School of Management. Jeff will intern at the International Labour Organization’s Freedom of Association Branch in Geneva, Switzerland. His work will concentrate on protecting workers’ rights to organize and choose union representation. He will examine government documents and evidence of actual government practice to determine compliance or noncompliance with the terms of the ILO Freedom of Association Conventions.

Leah Marks
University of Minnesota Human Rights Center
Minneapolis, MN

Leah Marks recently moved to the Twin Cites and will work as a Human Rights Fellow at the Human Rights Center. Leah will be a part of the web team of the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library She will be responsible for maintaining the various language versions of the electronic library by posting documents and materials, including UN Treaty documents, important human rights jurisprudence, bibliographies and research guides, asylum resource and regional human rights documents. The information will provide a valuable tool to human rights activists, lawyers, researchers and students around the world.

Dayna Wolfe
Mobility International USA, The Hesperian Foundation and Whirlwind Women
Mexico

Dayna Wolfe is a physician in private practice specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation. She is also a Zen peacemaker priest in training She received her Doctor of Medicine from George Washington University D.C. She completed her residency and internship at the University of Minnesota Hospital. She received her B.A from California State University. Dayna will work in Mexico with three U.S. West-coast based disability rights organizations. The common mission is to provide health education, access to greater physical mobility and economic self-sufficiency, thereby improving the quality of life for women with impaired mobility due to disability. Mobility International USA, The Hesperian Foundation and Whirlwind Women each have a different means for implementing their mission. Dayna’s fellowship will work on behalf of the human rights and health of women with disabilities in collaboration with all three host organizations. One of the many long-term goals Dayna has, is to serve as a Medical Director of the Twin Cities first clinic for women with disabilities.

Sara Wilkinson
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, MN
Peru

Fellowship Report

Sara Wilkinson recently completed her B.A. at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts where she majored in Spanish Language and Latin American Studies. She has lived in Chile for 6 months and has spent one semester at the University of Havana, Cuba. Her work at Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights involved working with the Human Rights Monitoring Project for which she monitored the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in Peru and Sierra Leone. She also participated in MN Advocates fact-finding trip to Peru to see how the local government was implementing the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commissions recommendations. Sara helped by monitoring news from Peru, translating documents and materials, corresponding with organizations in Peru, and providing Spanish interpretation while in Peru. After graduation Sara hopes to work for a non-profit NGO in the field of social justice, and is considering continuing her education in the future.

 

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Amalia Anderson (Mansfield Fellow)

Working Group on Indigenous Populations

Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights

Geneva, Switzerland

 

Amalia Anderson was born in Guatemala, raised in Minnesota, did her undergraduate work at Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and will graduate this May from Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul. She also has been working on the Indigenous Peoples’ Project at the Human Rights Center; most recently she helped coordinate the National Youth Summit on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights hosted by Amnesty International and the Human Rights Center. Amalia will use her fellowship grant to facilitate the representation of the Indigenous Youth and Human Rights Development Program at the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva, working with the International Indian Treaty Council-Indigenous Trading Company. She will continue working with the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Geneva. Upon her return, Amalia hopes to be able to “assist Indigenous youth in learning how to link their local issues with international struggles and victories and empower them to see that they are members of a community that is both timeless and global".

 

Katherine Anderson
U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection Human Rights

Geneva, Switzerland

Katherine Anderson is a resident of Minneapolis and recent graduate of the University of Minnesota, majoring in International Development with focus on Human Rights and Political Science. Katherine plans on doing her fellowship interning with Professor Barbara Frey who is the United States Alternate Member at the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. Her work will include researching human rights topics, taking notes, and drafting speeches. Upon her return, Katherine intends to continue her research of human rights topics and hopes to attend law school or graduate school this fall.

 

David Campana
Centro de Derechos Laborales at the Resource Center of the Americas

Minneapolis, MN

David Campana is a citizen of Peru currently enrolled in a Masters in Public Policy Program at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. David’s fellowship placement will be at the Centro de Derechos Laborales (Immigrant Worker’s Rights Center) at the Resource Center of the Americas. His work will support immigrant workers from Latin America by training, advising, and organizing immigrant workers and by documenting working conditions and international human and labor rights violations in Peru and other Latin American countries. David plans to use his fellowship experience to enhance a project sponsored by Culture Corps called “Globalization and Human Rights in Latin America�?. He has been developing this project and coursework for University of Minnesota students as well as for the Chicano/Latino community in Minnesota. It was “designed to enhance the capability of the students as a way to understand and integrate their role as citizens in an increasingly diverse community.

 

Christina Clusiau (Laura Musser Fellow)
Maryknoll Missions

Chiangmai, Thailand

Christina Clusiau is a senior at St. Benedict’s University in St. Joseph, Minnesota. She will work with Maryknoll Missions in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and aid refugees that have fled the oppressive military government in Burma. She will teach English to young Shan Novice Monks and child refugees. Christina’s work has been influenced by learning about trafficking of women and children for the purpose of forced prostitution. She has focused on Burmese girls in forced prostitution fleeing to Thailand to find jobs. The Maryknoll volunteers help refugees by providing safe housing, education, and medical assistance for victims of torture, burned villages, and land mines. She hopes to work with immigrants from Thailand and Burma when they immigrate to the United States and to pursue a graduate program focusing on international relations and community development.

 

Peter Ehresmann (Laura Musser Fellow)
Chemchemi Ya Ukweli
Nairobi, Kenya

Peter Ehresmann is a senior at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He plans to conduct his fellowship at Chemchemi Ya Ukweli (CYU), which means “Wellspring of Truth.�? The focus of his work deals with reducing violence in Kenya through a constitutional review process; provide training in “Active Non-Violence,�? and promote dialogue between the Muslim and Christian communities. CYU was founded in 1997 in response to the growing violence surrounding free elections and changes in power in Kenya. A relationship has been built between the communities of St. Cloud and Kenya. Peter hopes to be able to support this relationship and learn and write about the impact the Kenyan government has on women’s rights, political voice, and land allocation issues and conflict.

Sonia Farber
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, MN

Sonia Farber grew up in Minnesota and lives there while not attending Claremont McKenna College. She will intern with Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis. She will dedicate her time to the Women’s Program that works to improve women’s lives using international human rights standards to advocate women’s rights in the United States and throughout the world. Sonia’s principal project will be to work with others to create a website for the promotion of women’s rights that provides information and help for women’s rights advocates in Eastern and Central Europe. Particularly, this project will examine the rights of women in the workforce, as well as sexual crimes committed against women. Upon completion of her fellowship, Sonia will share her experience in various ways, one of which is to write an article that will be published in the Claremont McKenna College newsletter so that students who are interested in activist work may have a clearer idea of what it entails.

 

Jennifer Fischer (Mansfield Fellow)
Midwest Center of Justice

Evanston, Illinois

Jennifer Fischer grew up in the Twin Cities, graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, and has been living and working abroad for several years, most recently in Africa. Currently, Jennifer is in her first year at the University of Minnesota Law School. Her fellowship will take place in Chicago at the Midwest Center for Justice (MCJ) where she will conduct legal research, draft appellate briefs, visit and interview clients, interview witnesses, observe arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, and participate in death penalty conferences. MCJ is a small public interest organization that represents death row prisoners from the Midwest. Jennifer would like to fight against the use of the death penalty and hopes to be able to bring her experience to the University of Minnesota law students through speaking engagements and her work with Amnesty International.

 

Eric Gottwald
Oxfam

Oxford, United Kingdom

 

Eric Gottwald was born and raised in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and conducted his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Currently he is attending Law School at the University of Minnesota. Eric’s fellowship will be with Oxfam Great Britain in Oxford, U.K. He will be doing research to support an upcoming campaign that focuses on the issue of women workers facing employment with no contract, union protection, health care coverage, maternity leave, or benefits for legal rights. Upon his return, Eric hopes to work with organizations to explore the impact of trade policies on undocumented or seasonal workers in Minnesota. He also plans to work with the International Law Association to host speakers on international trade, poverty, and human rights in the global economy.

 

Joel Grostephan
Chiapas Media Project

Chiapas, Mexico

 

Joel Grostephan grew up in the Twin Cities and recently graduated from the University of Minnesota. His fellowship project will take place in Chiapas at the Chiapas Media Project (CMP). The mission of CMP is to train Indigenous people to film and document their own stories of human rights abuses. The goal is to build an economic infrastructure, to turn over the CMP project to the Indigenous communities, and to create film documentations to distribute to NGOs as an educational tool of the different struggles within Chiapas. Thus far, CMP has trained over 200 people and their films have been shown around the world. Joel hopes to pursue working with grassroots organizations as a human rights activist and organizer as well as pursue a Masters in Latin American studies. He also hopes to be able to bring some films back to show in Minnesota communities.

 

Thomas Hauth (Laura Musser Fellow)
El Centro de la Nina Trabajadora

Quito, Ecuador

 

Thomas Hauth from the Twin Cities, is presently attending St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and will graduate this spring. Thomas will spend his fellowship at a medical clinic, El Centro de la Nina Trabajadora, in Quito, Ecuador. As a pre-med and Spanish major, Thomas will be able to assist at the clinic, teach health classes, and most specifically work with the street children to provide care and health services. He has spent time working within the Latino community here in the Twin Cities and in St. Cloud. Most recently, Thomas has taught computer skills to Latino senior citizens. He plans on attending medical school and continuing to work on human rights issues as they relate to medical care, especially within the Latino community.

 

Teresa Jacobs
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, MN

 

Teresa Jacobs is in a Masters program at the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. She did her undergraduate work at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She will work at the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights to conduct a project to explore the need for health services that address the concerns of battered immigrant and refugee women in the Twin Cities. This initiative will entail interviewing informants and focus groups, reviewing case files and medical information, and drafting the reports. Upon completion of her fellowship, Teresa plans to continue her work in the human rights field focusing on maternal and children’s health issues.

 

Andrea Jesperson
Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless
Minneapolis, MN

 

Andrea Jesperson grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota, and is currently attending Gustavus Adolphus in St. Peter, Minnesota. She will spend her summer working as an intern at the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless in Minneapolis. She will organize meetings with the Minnesota Coalition constituents and Senators Mark Dayton and Norm Coleman. She will advocate for the passage of homelessness prevention measures, living wage legislation, affordable housing, and medical health coverage. Ultimately, she would like to work with the Native American population living in North Dakota, which has the lowest per capita income of any population group in the United States, due to severe unemployment and entrenched poverty.

 

Mahmooda Khaliq (Medtronic Fellow)
MN International Health Volunteers
Minnesota, MN
Uganda

Mahmooda Khaliq was born in Pakistan and emigrated to the United States with her family. She did her undergraduate work at the University of Minnesota before studying at John Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. Mahmooda will be working with the Minnesota International Health Volunteers staff in Minneapolis as well as in Uganda. She is hoping to establish a women’s health and human rights center in rural areas of Uganda. The Center will focus on health and human rights, reproductive and sexual health, gender health, children’s health and HIV/AIDS, and its impact on discrimination, stigmatization, and denial. Upon her return, Mamooda will make recommendations to Minnesota International Health Volunteers.

 

Leslie King (Medtronic Fellow)
L’Hôpital Albert Schweitzer
Deschapelles, Haiti

Leslie King is a student at the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. She plans to work with L’Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, Haiti, this summer. Leslie’s project focuses on an institutional evaluation of health equity at L’Hôpital Albert Schweitzer. Previous data and routinely collected health information will be utilized along with key individual interviews, to identify any disparities in health status or access according to gender, socioeconomic status, and geographic location. She plans on working in the public health sector upon graduation.

 

Nicole Kubista
South African Constitutional Court
Braamfontein, South Africa

Nicole Kubista is from Roseville, Minnesota, and is currently finishing her J.D. at the University of Minnesota Law School. Nicole will spend the year working full-time as a volunteer law clerk at the South African Constitutional Court in Braamfontein, South Africa. The court is the highest court in South Africa. As a clerk, her responsibilities will include reading and analyzing briefs and other documents submitted by parties and preparing memoranda for the Court’s rulings. Nicole plans to work as a public defender upon her return and eventually work as a policy maker at the state or federal level.

 

Tricia Lund
Cultural Diversity Resources
Fargo, North Dakota

Tricia Lund is from Fargo, North Dakota, and is presently a student at Minnesota State University in Moorhead, Minnesota. Tricia’s fellowship work will take her home to Fargo where she will work with Cultural Diversity Resources (CDR). The organization represents different ethnic groups and works with the challenges and celebrates the opportunities of added diversity in the community. CDR’s programs include diversity training, community education, community interpreter services, Cultural Diversity Awareness Week, and publication of a newsletter. Tricia will work with the local coalitions.

 

Bridget Marks
U.N. Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Bridget Marks is a student at the University of Minnesota as well as the Web Coordinator and Research Assistant of the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library. Bridget will work as an intern to Professor David Weissbrodt at the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Geneva Switzerland. The Sub-Commission is engaged in norm development and studies related to such issues as the rights of non-citizens, the human rights obligations of transnational corporations, reservations to human rights treaties, and terrorism and human rights. Bridget will also participate in the Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Upon her return, Bridget will complete her undergraduate work in European Intellectual History at the University of Minnesota and will continue working on the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library.

 

Edward Peterson
Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance
Quezon City, Philippines

Edward Peterson is a human rights lawyer from Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. He was born and raised in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He has worked for the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe on land claims research as well as for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe doing legal service. Currently he works on the Human Rights Task Force at Anishinaabe Center in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, a non-profit cultural and service organization. Edward’s fellowship will be working with Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance in the Philippines. His responsibilities will include handling the legal casework of human rights violations particularly associated with involuntary disappearances. Edward hopes to be able to connect his experiences in Quezon, Philippines, to his work at the Anishinaabe Centre.

 

S. Kristjan Selvig
Center for Victims of Torture
Minneapolis, MN

S. Kristjan Selvig is a graduate of Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has been volunteering at the Center For Victims of Torture (CVT) in Minneapolis and will continue her work there full-time as a Human Rights Fellow. The CVT is an independent non-governmental organization that addresses the effects of torture on individuals and their communities and works to prevent torture condoned by governments. She plans to pursue a master’s degree in public health with an emphasis on international and community health.

 

Allison Sharkey
Sin Fronteras (Without Borders)
Colonia Roma, Mexico

Allison Sharkey grew up in Iowa and is a graduate of Carlton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She currently is an organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Allison plans on doing her fellowship at Sin Fronteras, which provides legal defense to refugees and immigrants in Mexico and throughout North and Central America. She will conduct human rights workshops for immigrants and refugees, help secure legal status for individuals, and strengthen networks throughout North and Central American advocacy organizations. She hopes to learn about defending and promoting the rights of immigrants and refugees to help her become a more effective organizer.

 

Gabriel Solomon
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights

Minneapolis, MN

Gabriel Solomon came to the United States from Sudan at the age of 14. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and will conduct his fellowship at Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He will be teaching members of the community about his experiences, as well as the experiences of other immigrant and refugee youth. His goal is to teach people from the Upper Midwest about such human rights issues. He plans to develop public speaking and educational videos for teachers, community members, lawyers, and professionals about human rights in Southern Sudan.

 

Milo Sybrant
Somali Family Care Network

Washington, D.C.

Milo Sybrant will finish his undergraduate work at the University of Minnesota this spring. His fellowship experience will take him to Washington, D.C. to work with the Somali Family Care Network (SFCN). The SFCN aims to empower Somali refugees and immigrants by supporting development, while also enhancing the capacity of community-based Somali organizations in the United States. Some of his responsibilities will include organizing, attending and reporting on refugee resettlement meetings and conferences, conducting needs assessment surveys, and participating in other activities to strengthen the resources and leadership development of Somali communities in Minnesota and throughout the United States.

 

Aaron Van Alstine
Paz y Esperanza

Lima, Peru

Aaron Van Alstine is a Refugee Resettlement Immigration Specialist at Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota. He will conduct his fellowship in Lima, Peru at Paz y Esperanza (Peace and Hope). Paz y Esperanza assists victims of human rights abuses by contributing to and overseeing the legal prosecution of violations. He will assist by gathering evidence, taking witness’ testimony, and advocating on behalf of victims’ families. Aaron will encourage state authorities to exhume the bodies of human rights victims in Peru, will provide educational workshops, and will inform victims’ families about the legal process. Upon his return, he plans to encourage church and community leaders to provide materials, technical assistance, and financial support to Paz y Esperanza so they can continue their work in Lima.

 

Jonas Walker
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees

Washington, D.C.

Jonas Walker, a University of Minnesota Law School student, is currently finishing his second year. He completed his undergraduate work at Earlham College. Jonas has accepted a position for the summer with the Legal Section of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Washington D.C. He will work with people seeking asylum or with their attorneys, analyzing proposed legislation and regulations affecting asylum seekers. He is expecting to help drafting advisory opinions regarding international law and attending Congressional hearings.

 

Lynn Wartchow (Mansfield Fellow)
Relatives for Justice

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Lynn Wartchow completed her undergraduate work in Northfield, Minnesota, at Carleton College. She will conduct her fellowship at Relatives for Justice, located in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Relatives for Justice provides support services for the victims and family members of human rights abuses in Belfast and greater Northern Ireland particularly in border communities. Some of her responsibilities will include contacting victims, assisting in the preparation of reports and witness statements, conducting legal advocacy of victim’s rights, and other programming support. She intends to further practice human rights advocacy after law school, potentially with international organizations or with the US Foreign Service.

 

Amelia Wilson
League of Human Rights

Paris, France

Amelia Wilson was born in Rochester, Minnesota, though she grew up in Winona, Minnesota. Currently, Amelia lives in Minneapolis where she attends Law School at the University of Minnesota. She will intern in the legal department at the League of Human Rights in Paris, France. She will work directly for Mr. Farid Messaoudi and assist in all legal tasks, including drafting memos, researching legal problems, and accompanying him in defending cases involving the rights of non-citizens in France. Upon her return she will be working on an article relating to the confidentiality of testimony about torture and its availability to the International Criminal Court and other human rights tribunals.

 

 

 

 

 

Colleen Beebe
Asociacion Paz y Esperanza

Lima, Peru

 

 

Angela Bortel
Stand Against Global Exploitation

San Francisco, CA US

 

 

Chantal Bostok
UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Geneva, Switzerland

 

 

Coventry Cowens
Tanzania Gender Networking Programme

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

 

 

Belma Demirovic
International Organization for Migrations (IOM)

Bosnia, Sarajevo

 

 

Intesar Elder
MIFTAH

Jerusalem, Israel

 

 

Trisha Garbe
United Nations Association

New York City-NY, US

 

 

Tahira Hashmi
Witness
New York, US

 

 

Sarah Hooker
Resource Center of the Americas

Minneapolis, MN US

 

 

Sarah Hymowitz
International Indian Treaty Council

Minneapolis-MN, US

 

 

Calyne Kamua
Tanzania Gender Networking Programme

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

 

 

Rebecca McCallister
Multi-Cultural Center of Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls-SD, US

 

 

Martha Malinski
UNESCO Centre at the University of Ulster

Coleraine, Northern Ireland

 

 

Melissa Mundt
Rethinking Tourism Project
Mexico/US

 

 

Christine Munger
Nicaragua Network

Managua, Nicaragua

 

 

Nicole Palasz
Center for Victims of Torture

Minneapolis, MN US

 

 

Elizabeth Petheo
UN Integrated Regional Information Network

Nairobi, Kenya

 

 

Lindsay Plaisted
San Lucas Health Project

San Lucas, Guatemala

 

 

Jacqueline Romano
Human Rights Resource Center

Minneapolis, MN  US

 

 

Kimberly Walsh
Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR)

Seoul, South Korea

 

 

Kathryn Weber
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Geneva, Switzerland

 

 

Ted Wissink
San Lucas Health Project

San Lucas, Guatemala

 

 

Bobbi Jo Azzouzi (Mansfield Fellow)
Center for Victims of Torture
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Teresa Belisle
Cloudforest Initiatives
Chiapas, Mexico

Conteh, Andrew (Musser Fellow)
City of Moorhead
Moorhead, Minnesota

Jonathan Eoloff
MAHR - Children's Program

Erin Gleeson (Musser Fellow)
Cambodian Institute of Human Rights
Cambodia

Amy Herbert
MN Coalition for the Homeless
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Anne Johnson
UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Katherine Jumbe
Children's Rights Alliance
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Jennifer Kittelson
Partners for Democratic Change
Pristina, Kosovo

Melanie Lahr (Musser Fellow)
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)

Belinda Lamptey (Mansfield Fellow)
Washington Office on Africa
Washington D.C., US

LaJune Thomas Lange
International Leader Institute
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Nicole Lexvold (Mansfield Fellow)
Hoste Hainse
Kathmandu, Nepal

Dechen Lhewa
NYU Program for Survivors of Torture
New York, New York

January Makamba (Musser Fellow)
UN High Commission for Refugees
Kasulu, Tanzania

Beatriz Menanteau
PROVEA
Caracas, Venzuela

Roslyn Park
Anti-Slavery International
London, England

Angela Richards
UNCHR
Ankara, Turkey

Jessica Warning
MAHR - Woman's Program
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Paul Weaver
Christian Peacemakers
Chiapas, Mexico

James Washinawatok
Indian Law Resource Cente
Helena, Montana

 

 

Santiago Carreno
Resource Center for the Americas
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Bridget Coggins
UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Julia Corneil
International Institute of Minnesota
St. Paul, Minnesota

Jean Farmakes
Women's Human Rights Program/Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Mayra Gomez
UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Siira Gunderson
International Legal Resources
Arusha, Tanzania

Consuelo Gutierrez-Crosby
Children's Human Rights Alliance
Twin Cities, Minnesota

Clarissa Jones
Center for Victims of Torture
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Kerri Kleven
Child Survival Project/Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Thomas Lockney
Norwegian Institute for Human Rights
Oslo, Norway

Paul Marincel
Gamaliel Foundation
Durban, South Africa

Kimberly Mettler-Chase
Indian Law Resources
Helena, Montana

Mona Mody
UNICEF
Thimphu, Bhutan

Jessica Munson
International Legal Resources
Arusha, Tanzania

Jo Pasqualucci
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
San Jose, Costa Rica/Washington D.C.

Patrick Plonski
Center for Promotion and Support of Agricultural Enterprise
Sandomierz, Poland

Bret Thiele
UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Paul Weaver
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Colombia

Gwen Willems
Bohemia Corps
Czech Republic

Sara Willi
Victims Survivors and Trust
Belfast, Northern Ireland

Nicole Willis-Grimes
NIS-US Women's Consortium
Kiev, Ukraine

 

 

Shelly Bertrand
Children’s Home Society

Tutova, Romania

 

Angela Carlson-Lombardi
Center of Legal and Social Studies

Argentina

 

Bryan Frantz
Environmental Health Coalition

San Diego, California

 

Mark Girouard
Human Rights in China

Hong Kong

 

Mayra Gomez
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities

Geneva, Switzerland

 

Kirsten Gullixson
Universal Declaration of Human Rights Campaign

Taipai, Taiwan

 

Dave Hartman
Nepal Rugmark Foundation

Kathmandu, Nepal

 

Isabel Hoertreiter
UN Codification Division, Legal Affairs

New York, New York

 

Katie Knight
Center for Global Education Field Office (CGE)

Windhoek, Namibia

 

Doug Olson
Human Rights and Citizenship for the Mayor’s Office of Belo Horizonte

Minas Gerais, Brasil

 

Ann Marie Schultz
Bohemia Corps

Prague, Czech Republic

 

Anar B. Shaikenova
Law and Environment Euraisa

Almaty, Kazakhstan

 

Kathleen Sullivan
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Anthony Wijesinha
Center for Victims of Torture (CVT)

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

 

 

Ohmer Ahmet Altan
Helsinki Citizens Assembly
Istanbul, Turkey

Diana Borges
Finnish League for Human Rights
Helsinki, Finland

Odul Bozkurt
Center for Victims of Torture (CVT)
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Nina Dibner
American Friends Service Committee Criminal Justice Program
Newark, New Jersey

Therese Gales
Migrationszentrum der Caritas
Berlin, Germany
Verein Projekt Integrationshaus Wien
Vienna, Austria

Shinobu Garrigues
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
Geneva, Switzerland

Anitha Gongalore
M. Venkatarangaiya Foundation
Secunderabad, India

Fumiko Hirono
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Ankara, Turkey

Chukwuemeka Nnamdi Igboeli
Ezeobi and Company
Lagos, Nigeria

Greg Mayew
Legal Aid of Cambodia & Asian Forum for Human Rights
Bangkok, Thailand

Susan Nicolai
Youth for Population Information and Communication
Kumasi, Ghana

Anne Pineda
Monteverde Institute
Costa Rica

Marie Pugliese
Parroquia of San Lucas Toliman
Guatemala

Lynn Schultz
Association for Non-Violence
Yaounde, Cameroon
 
Karla Stone
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Farhana Sultana
Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Rob Treinen
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Ashar Usman
Legal Research and Resource Center for Human Rights
Cairo, Egypt

Shahnaz Shahid Yousuf
Grameen Bank
Bangladesh

 

1995 Fellows

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Melis Ark
Mor Cati/Purple Roof Women’s Shelter
Istanbul, Turkey

Maria Baldini
Commission for the Defense of Human Rights
San Jose, Costa Rica

Johanna Bond
Human Rights Task Force
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Valerie Downing
Organisation Marocaine des Droits de l'Homme
Rabat, Morocco

Sophie Janvier
Human Rights Watch, Middle East Section
Washington, D.C.

Lisa Kois
UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
Colombo, Sri Lanka & Beijing, China

Lynette Larsen
Helsinki Committee for the Rep. of Macedonia
Skopje, Macedonia

Kirsten Parker
Committee on the Administration of Justice
Belfast, Northern Ireland

Robin Philips
Romanian Independent Society for Human Rights
Bucharest, Romania

Jennifer Prestholdt
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, Minnesota
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
Geneva, Switzerland

Michael Reed Hurtado
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Washington, D.C.

 

Paula Schwartzbauer
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Ankara, Turkey

Nadeem Ahmad Siddiq
UN Human Rights Centre
Geneva, Switzerland

John Tonsager
Commission of Solidarity and Defense of Human Rights
Chihuahua, Mexico

Germaine Tremmel
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
The Hague, The Netherlands

Jason Walsh
Center of Research and Popular Education
Bogota, Colombia

Patricia Black
Pat Fucane Centre
Derry, Ireland

Celine Fitzmaurice
Borderlinks
Tuscon, Arizona

Gregory Gisvold
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
Geneva, Switzerland

Sara Guriwitch
California Appellate Project
San Francisco, California

Stephanie Hawkinson
Association of Women for Action and Research
Singapore

Jeremy Heep
Burkinabé Movement of Human Rights
Burkina Faso

Boris Kalanj
LEX of Liberal and Democratic Initiative
Croatia

Wendy Mahling
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
Switzerland

S.R. Nithy
International Service for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Dawn Annette Pauls
Indian Social Institute
New Delhi, India

Donna & Robert Rose
Amnesty International/ Save the Children
London, U.K.

Jennifer Stohl
Center for Legal Action
Guatemala

Abigail Wertz
Center for Human Rights Tepeyac
Oaxaca, Mexico

Gwen Willems
Human Rights Centre
Sydney, Australia

 

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Vicky Coyle
Center for Victims of Torture (CVT)
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Sarah DeCosse
Haitian Center for Human Rights
Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Tony Fernandes
South African Council of Churches
Johannesburg, South Africa

Debra L. Gordon
American Refugee Committee,
Minneapolis, Minnesota and Washington, D.C.

John M. Kelly
Uganda Human Rights Activists
Kampala, Uganda

Amitava Kumar
People's Union for Civil Liberties
Bihar, India

Kiri Okamoto
Minnesota Studies in International Development Program
(Global Campus, U of M), Kenya

Ramona Price
Black Sash
Johannesburg, South Africa

Karen Reierson
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
Geneva, Switzerland

Pia Sass
Central American Resource Center
St. Paul, Minnesota

Lisa Stratton
Americas Watch
San Salvador, El Salvador

Malgorzata (Gosha) I. Wegrzyn
MN Advocates for Human Rights
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Siu Wong
International Service for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Nevidita Yawanarajah
University of Colombo School of Law Human Rights Center
Colombo, Sri Lanka

 

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Maureen Convery
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
Geneva, Switzerland

Sharla Flora
Colombian Section of the Andean Commission of Jurists
Bogota, Colombia

Hitoshi Hasegwa
International Labor Organization
Geneva, Switzerland

Kraig Larson
International Service for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Josef Ling
Central American Resource Center
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Mark P. Melchert
Uganda Human Rights Activists
Kampala, Uganda

Barbara Rossmiller
Comision Ecumenica de Derechos Humanos
Quito, Ecuador

James Shapiro
Human Rights Commission of the Lutheran Church and the Non-Governmental Human Rights Commission
El Salvador