In 2007, ASIL awarded fellowships to 9 outstanding students and young professionals out of a total of 42 applications from individuals throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and Eurasia, Oceania, and North and South America. Helton Fellows for 2007 are:
Ilana Bleichert, JD Candidate, University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Ilana will spend the summer interviewing internally displaced persons in the Republic of Georgia with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Her work will also involve monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of international and domestic protection programs.
Kristian J. Collins, JD Candidate, University of Alabama Law School. Kristian will travel to South Africa where she will assist the Refugee and Migrant Rights Department of Lawyers for Human Rights, a local non-governmental organization, in providing legal assistance to asylum seekers.
Lindsay M. Harris, JD Candidate, University of California Berkley School of Law. Lindsay will work with the Forced Migration Studies Program at the University of Witwatersrand and Lawyers for Human Rights to examine gender based asylum claims and to investigate border experiences of female asylum seekers crossing into South Africa from Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Mitchell T. King, JD Candidate, William Mitchell College of Law. Mitchell will spend the summer working on human trafficking prevention programs in Rwanda in association with the International Leadership Institute. Mitchell will develop a training manual that instructs students and youth groups in human rights and human trafficking risk factors through the use of interactive theatre techniques.
E. Rania Rampersad, JD Candidate, Georgetown University Law Center. Rania will assist the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Relocation Unit in Dadaab, Kenya in interviewing Somali refugees, including young single women, ethnic minorities, and the physically disabled, for purposes of relocation evaluation and fraud detection.
Jared Shepherd and Eissa Villasenor, JD Candidates, University of Minnesota. Eissa and Jared will support the international and public interest litigation work of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and participate in community outreach and human rights trainings on civil and political rights as well as the legal issues surrounding access to HIV/AIDS medication.
Wang Peipei, LL.M. Candidate, Sun Yat-sen University School of Law. Peipei will work in southern Tibet with the Women and Gender Study Center researching gender equality and providing legal assistance to local Tibetan women and refugees from Burma.
Sarah R. Weinman, JD Candidate, University of California Berkley School of Law. Sarah will travel to Iraqi Kurdistan where she will work with the Heartland Alliance and local non-governmental organizations to monitor and document detention conditions, develop training materials detention monitoring, and draft guidelines and checklists which will be used to identify and assist individuals subject to arbitrary detention.
For more information, please contact: Veronica Onorevole, ASIL Senior Programs Associate at fellowship@asil.org or + 1 202 939 6000.
