In 2011, ASIL awarded fellowships to 9 outstanding students and young professionals from over 50 applications received from individuals throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. We are pleased to introduce the 2011 Helton Fellows as follows:
Allison Davidian LLM Graduate, Harvard Law School. Allison will assist in strengthening the capacity of women’s rights organizations and other civil society groups in Eastern Congo with the Gender Justice Unit of the Interna- tional Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). She will provide input and advocate on the adoption and implementation of a legal framework that addresses impunity for grave violations of international criminal and human rights law.
Anne Leddin Gell Juris Doctor Graduate, Columbia University School of Law.
Anne will work as a Lawyers’ Earthquake Response Network (LERN) Fellow with the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Bureau des Avocats Interna- tionaux (BAI). Specifically, she will be the coordinator for the Rape Accountability and Prevention Project, BAI’s response to gender-based violence in post-earthquake Haiti.
Sasha Hart Juris Doctor Candidate, McGill University School of Law.
Sasha will be conducting field work and legal research relating to the Equality Effect (formerly known as the African and Canadian Women's Human Rights Project) "160 Girls" project in Kenya this summer. This is a legal initiative that aims to achieve im- mediate justice for 160 girls (between the ages of 2 and 17 years old) in eastern Kenya who have been raped, as well as long-term justice for all girls in Kenya who are too often victimized by sexual violence. Program Reflections
Alexander Lewis, Juris Doctor Candidate, Rutgers University-Newark, School of Law.
Alexander will suport Akany Avoko, a children’s home and school in Madagascar that takes in abandoned children, orphans, teenage mothers, and children facing indefinite detention while they await trial for petty crimes. He will develop a human rights curriculum that will be delivered to the children, their parents, and the staff at their homes. Program Reflections
Katerina Novotna, Ph.D. candidate, Faculty of Law, Masaryk University.
Katerina will participate in an ongoing project run by La Strada, an NGO working in the field of trafficking in human beings, in the Czech Republic. Katerina will be in- volved with prevention and education work for trafficked persons, groups at risk, and the wider public, as well as with providing legal assistance to victims housed in La Strada’s crisis shelter.
Aminta Ossum, Juris Doctor Graduate, Harvard Law School.
Aminta will support Amnesty International’s “No Safe Haven” project seeking domes- tic accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity. She will be working with local civil society groups in Sierra Leone to gather legislation, jurisprudence and other materials to outline Sierra Leone’s relevant legal framework, obstacles to pros- ecution and the exercise of jurisdiction, procedures for extradition and mutual legal assistance and state practice regarding immigration, police and prosecutors.
Daniel G. Thiemann, Juris Doctor Candidate, Indiana University Maurer School of Law.
Daniel will support the Arias Foundation based in San Jose, Costa Rica, by conduct- ing research and field work related to international human rightslaw and conflict resolution mechanisms in the Americas. He will assist the Arias Foundation in the implementation of an Interamerican Development Bank project to conceptually de- sign the “Regional Mechanism for Peace and Conflict Resolution.”
Kathleen Thomas, Juris Doctor Candidate, The City University of New York School of Law.
Kathleen will work with the ongoing efforts of the Saheli Sangh, a sex workers’ collective with the goal of enhancing and enabling greater levels of self-protection among sex workers. Kathleen will be based in Pune, India, and will conduct research into which bodies of law afford the greatest protections for sex workers and victims of human trafficking. Program Reflections
Sanjula Weerasinghe, LLM Graduate, Georgetown University Law Center.
Sanjula will conduct research on the protection gaps facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) refugees in South Africa. She will be working for ORAM, a US-based NGO, with support from Lawyers for Human Rights. She will develop an interview questionnaire to evaluate, inter alia, the services currently available to LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers, their protection concerns and needs, the responsiveness of NGOs and other agencies and the practical application of South Africa’s progressive legal guarantees.
The Helton Fellowship Program is administered by ASIL through its Career Development Program with the cooperation and support of ASIL members. To support the Helton Fellowship Program, please send you contribution by check or money order made payable to ASIL with “Helton Fellowship” in the note area to:
ASIL P.O. Box 79516 Baltimore, MD 21279-0516
For more information, please visit our website at www.asil.org or contact: Veronica Onorevole, ASIL Executive Office & Programs Manager at fellowship@asil.org or + 1 202 939 6666.
