Focus: Human Rights
Rayhan Asat
Rayhan Asat is an Uyghur human rights attorney. A graduate of Harvard Law School and former anti-corruption attorney at a major U.S. law firm, Rayhan specializes in international human rights law and compliance with best business practices. Her legal and policy work centers around enforcing international human rights norms, civil liberties, curtailing forced labor, and promoting corporate accountability. She advised the World Bank and OECD to design Human-Centered Business Integrity Principles. She works with civil society, diplomats, lawmakers, and businesses to address human rights concerns, especially the atrocities in Xinjiang including her own brother Ekpar Asat’s enforced disappearance. She has been featured in various media outlets including The New York…
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Wanjiru Mukoma
Wanjiru Mukoma has spent most of her career working to improve health and wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in HIV prevention and care, and cross-cutting issues of human rights, sexual, and gender-based violence. She was formerly Executive Director of LVCT Health, a Kenyan NGO and one of the country’s leading implementers of HIV and gender-based violence programs. A researcher, program implementer, and advocate, she has worked in academia and the non-profit sector for the past 15 years. Wanjiru is as comfortable working at the grassroots community level as she is in policy advocacy, championing the rights of the vulnerable and marginalized, especially children, adolescents, young women, and sexual minorities. She…
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Lorna Solis
Lorna Solis is Founder & CEO of Elevate, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing continued education at world-leading universities to young women who have either been forced from their homes by conflict or climate change or are working in industries affected by climate change and looking to further education so that they can use every tool possible to stay in their country of origin. Lorna created Project SHEro as an extension of her nonprofit’s work offering scholarships to refugees – including climate refugees. Project SHEro is a global climate activism documentary series that raises awareness not only about challenges but also solutions. It explores issues such as climate adaptation, climate justice,…
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Oyungerel "Oyuna" Tsedevdamba
Oyungerel "Oyuna" Tsedevdamba is an author, public speaker, and human rights activist based in Mongolia. She formerly served as Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism for Mongolia and served as president of the Democratic Women's Union of Mongolia and as non-staff advisor to Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia. During her 15 years in public service, she has worked on the country’s privatization efforts and social insurance reform, and served as advisor to the prime minister and a member of parliament. As the co-founder and Executive Director of the Liberty Center, a human rights watchdog, Oyuna has developed a reputation as a tireless advocate for democracy and gender equality in Mongolia. As the…
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Azizullah "Aziz" Royesh
Azizullah "Aziz" Royesh is a leading advocate for equal access to primary and secondary education and Founder of Marefat High School for Afghan refugees in Pakistan. With a focus on critical thinking and human rights, the school flourished and eventually moved to Afghanistan in 2002, where it now teaches more than 3500 Afghan students, about half of whom are girls. Marefat High School has become a highly respected and well-known model for a new approach to community-building in Afghanistan. Aziz has written textbooks on humanism, human rights, democracy, social studies, and Quranic interpretation and is a frequent speaker on the concept of a tolerant community. Aziz and his colleagues established…
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Kamala Chandrakirana
Kamala Chandrakirana is a human rights activist and currently a member of the UN Human Rights Council’s working group on laws and practices which discriminate against women and the UN Social and Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. In 2009, she was part of a group of activists, academics, and religious scholars who founded Musawah, a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. In Indonesia, since completing her 6-year term as Chairperson of the National Commission on Violence Against Women in 2009, she has been active in various civil society organizations, including serving as coordinator of a national coalition…
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Nikita Lalwani
Nikita Lalwani is a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. She previously served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. At Yale Law School, from which she graduated in 2020, she was the Yale Law Journal's Executive Editor for Articles & Essays and helped advocate for a fairer census as a team leader in the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic. She was also the co-president of the Yale Law National Security Group, co-director of the Yale chapter of the International Refugee Assistance Project, and a Kerry Fellow at the Jackson…
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Brian Kagoro
Brian Kagoro is the Programme Support Division Director of the Africa Regional Office (AfRO) of the Open Society Foundations (OSF). Prior to that he was Founder and Executive Director of UHAI Africa Group, a governance and development consulting firm with operations in Johannesburg, Harare, and Nairobi. Brian is a Pan Africanist and a constitutional and economic relations lawyer. Prior to establishing UHAI Africa Group, Brian was the Regional Programme Advisor for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Africa Governance and Public Administration Program, where he also led the UNDP Africa Governance Team within the Regional Service Centre for Africa. Prior to joining the UNDP, Brian served as Pan African Head…
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Hauwa Ibrahim
Hauwa Ibrahim, J.D., S.J.D., M.L., is an internationally known human rights lawyer, currently serving as President of The Peace Institute, who was awarded the European Parliament Sakharov Prize for freedom of thoughts in 2005. She has defended over 150 cases involving women sentenced to death by stoning and children sentenced to amputation of limbs under Shariah law. Brought up in a small village in northern Nigeria, Hauwa was born into a culture that did not encourage schooling for girls beyond elementary school. Through sheer persistence and the gracious support of others, she attended teachers’ high school for women, the local university in Jos, Nigeria and continued to law school. Prior…
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Nandita Das
Nandita Das is a filmmaker, actor, and social advocate. She has acted in more than 40 feature films in 10 different languages. Her directorial debut feature film, Firaaq, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2008 and has travelled to over 50 festivals and won more than 20 awards. Nandita was a member of the main jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 and 2013 and the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2007 amongst others. She also wrote, directed and acted in the play, Between the Lines, in 2012, that dealt with the subtle gender inequalities that exist amongst the affluent, educated, and urban couples. Nandita's second directorial…
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