Update | Staff | Interns | Vol­un­teers

—-

Staff Update

The Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH) and IJDH’s Haiti-based affil­i­ate, the Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux (BAI) grew sig­nif­i­cantly in 2009 and 2010. This expan­sion, made pos­si­ble by our gen­er­ous donors, is ful­fill­ing our dream of cre­at­ing a corps of trained, moti­vated Hait­ian human rights lawyers and advo­cates.

Staff (IJDH and BAI)

Direc­tors

• Brian Con­can­non Jr., Esq., Direc­tor of IJDH
• Mario Joseph, Av., Man­ag­ing Attor­ney of BAI

Haiti-Based Staff

• Maria-Elena Kolovos, BAI Legal Fellow
• Ellie Hap­pel, BAI Legal Fellow
• Rose Get­chine Lima, BAI Grass­roots Groups Coordinator
• Dyliet Jean-Baptiste, BAI Staff Attorney
• Baze­lais Thevenot, Av. , BAI Staff Attorney
• Esther Val­court, Av., BAI Staff Attorney
• Meena Jagan­nath, BAI Legal Fellow
• Nathalie Nozile, Esq., Jolie-Pitt Foun­da­tion Legal Fellow

United States-Based Staff

• Tamara R. McCray, Esq., IJDH Staff Attorney
• Steve Forester, IJDH Immi­gra­tion Pol­icy Coordinator
• Andrea Jami­son, IJDH Direc­tor of Devel­op­ment and Communications
• Nicole Phillips, Esq., IJDH Staff Attorney
• Marcy Strazer, IJDH Admin­is­tra­tive Consultant

Direc­tors

Brian Con­can­non, Jr., Esq., IJDH Direc­tor, co-managed the BAI in Haiti for eight years, from 1996–2004, and worked for the United Nations as a Human Rights Offi­cer in 1995–1996. He founded IJDH, and has been the Direc­tor since 2004. He helped pre­pare the pros­e­cu­tion of the Raboteau Mas­sacre trial in 2000, one of the most sig­nif­i­cant human rights cases any­where in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. He has rep­re­sented Hait­ian polit­i­cal pris­on­ers before the Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights, and rep­re­sented the plain­tiff in Yvon Nep­tune v. Haiti, the only Haiti case ever tried before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Mr. Con­can­non has received fel­low­ships from Har­vard Law School and Bran­deis Uni­ver­sity and has trained inter­na­tional judges, U.S. asy­lum offi­cers and law stu­dents across the U.S. He is a mem­ber of the Edi­to­r­ial Board of Health and Human Rights, An Inter­na­tional Jour­nal. He speaks and writes fre­quently about human rights in Haiti. He holds an under­grad­u­ate degree from Mid­dle­bury Col­lege and JD from George­town Law. He speaks Eng­lish, Hait­ian Cre­ole and French.
Brian@ijdh.org

Mario Joseph, Av., BAI Man­ag­ing Attor­ney, has co-managed or man­aged the BAI since 1996, and has prac­ticed human rights and crim­i­nal law since 1993. The New York Times called him Haiti’s most respected human rights lawyer. He spear­headed the pros­e­cu­tion of the Raboteau Mas­sacre trial in 2000, one of the most sig­nif­i­cant human rights cases any­where in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. He has rep­re­sented dozens of jailed polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, in Hait­ian courts and in com­plaints before the Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights. In 2009, he received the Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award from the Cen­ter for Jus­tice & Account­abil­ity and the Kather­ine and George Alexan­der Human Rights Prize from the Uni­ver­sity of Santa Clara Law School. He has tes­ti­fied as an expert on Hait­ian crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and in U.S. courts, and served on the Hait­ian government’s Law Reform Commission.

Mr. Joseph is also an edu­ca­tor, and a grad­u­ate of Haiti’s Teach­ers’ Col­lege. He has exten­sive expe­ri­ence teach­ing human rights and legal issues to grass­roots advo­cacy orga­ni­za­tions, human rights groups and vic­tims’ orga­ni­za­tions. He appears fre­quently on tele­vi­sion and radio in Haiti to explain legal issues. He speaks Hait­ian Cre­ole, French and English.

Haiti-Based Staff

Maria-Elena Kolovos, BAI Legal Fel­low, recently grad­u­ated from Ford­ham Uni­ver­sity School of Law. Her expe­ri­ence lies pri­mar­ily in the enforce­ment of social and eco­nomic rights, specif­i­cally the right to health. As a Crow­ley Scholar at Fordham’s Leit­ner Cen­ter for Inter­na­tional Law and Jus­tice, Maria-Elena col­lab­o­rated with Tan­zan­ian women to inves­ti­gate and doc­u­ment the dif­fi­cul­ties they face in secur­ing the right to hous­ing in Tanzania’s urban and peri-urban areas. To help address these dif­fi­cul­ties, Maria-Elena worked closely with House of Peace, Tanzania’s only for­mal domes­tic vio­lence shel­ter, to cre­ate a Peer Edu­ca­tion Cur­ricu­lum train­ing women in domes­tic and inter­na­tional human rights. As a part of the Wal­ter Leit­ner Inter­na­tional Human Rights clinic, Maria-Elena co-authored a legal brief to assist a Malaw­ian NGO mount a pub­lic inter­est law­suit chal­leng­ing Malawi’s anti-homosexuality laws.  In New York City, she interned with the Global Jus­tice Cen­ter, devel­op­ing human­i­tar­ian law argu­ments for the pro­tec­tion of women’s and girls’ repro­duc­tive rights dur­ing armed con­flict; this work was pre­sented at the Uni­ver­sal Peri­odic Review of the United States. Maria-Elena also interned at Legal­Health, a legal-medical part­ner­ship, pro­vid­ing direct legal ser­vices to address the non-medical needs of low-income patients with seri­ous med­ical con­di­tions. Maria-Elena received a B.A. in Lit­er­a­ture, with dis­tinc­tion, and com­pleted pre-medical stud­ies at Yale Col­lege in 2003. Mariaelena@ijdh.org

Ellie Hap­pel, BAI Legal Fel­low, grad­u­ated from New York Uni­ver­sity School of Law, where she was a Root Tilden Kern pub­lic inter­est scholar. Dur­ing law school, Ellie worked with the Cen­ter for Human Rights and Global Jus­tice (CHRGJ) on a study of gender-based vio­lence and access to food and water in the IDP camps of Port-au-Prince. In addi­tion, through her clin­i­cal work with the Equal Jus­tice Ini­tia­tive, Ellie rep­re­sented an indi­vid­ual on Alabama’s Death Row in post­con­vic­tion appeals. For this work and other, Ellie received the multi-school Out­stand­ing Clin­i­cal Stu­dent Award from the Amer­i­can Clin­i­cal Legal Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion. While in law school, Ellie was also Co-Director of the Sus­pen­sion Rep­re­sen­ta­tion Project, an orga­ni­za­tion that trains law stu­dents to rep­re­sent New York City pub­lic school stu­dents and their fam­i­lies in sus­pen­sion hear­ings. Ellie spent her sum­mers work­ing with MUDHA (Move­ment of Domini­can Women of Hait­ian Descent) in Santo Domingo and as a pub­lic defender with The Defender Asso­ci­a­tion in Seat­tle. Prior to law school Ellie worked in pub­lic health and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice in Nicaragua, Bolivia, Peru, and Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and led expe­ri­en­tial edu­ca­tion pro­grams for Where There Be Drag­ons. She holds an under­grad­u­ate degree from New York Uni­ver­sity. Ellie speaks flu­ent Span­ish and is learn­ing Kreyol. Ellie@Ijdh.org

Rose Get­chine Lima, BAI Grass­roots Groups Coor­di­na­tor, was born on March 15, 1978 in the south­ern depart­ment of Haiti. She stud­ied Soci­ol­ogy and Anthro­pol­ogy at the Fac­ulty of Eth­nol­ogy at the State Uni­ver­sity of Haiti from 2004 to 2008. Her goal is to work with the most dis­ad­van­taged seg­ments of soci­ety, espe­cially women who suf­fer any form of exclu­sion and vio­lence. In March 2010, she worked as an inves­ti­ga­tor with Oxfam. From March to June 2010, she vol­un­teered as a psy­choso­cial agent with SOFA (Sol­i­darite Fanm Ayisyèn / Sol­i­dar­ity of Hait­ian Women) in order to edu­cate and moti­vate Hait­ian women against all acts of violence.

Dyliet Jean-Baptist, BAI Staff Attor­ney is a Hait­ian trained attor­ney hired in March 2011 to fill the Health and Human Rights in Prison Project staff attor­ney posi­tion in Mire­bal­ais, one of three pilot loca­tions. Dyliet stud­ied law at the Fac­ulté de Droit des Gonaïves from 1993 – 1997 and began to prac­tice law in 1997. He then did his legal Stage in 2006 in Croix des Bou­quets and Port de Paiy, Haiti. Dyliet has held a num­ber of pro­fes­sional posi­tions includ­ing: Coun­sel to the City of Bom­bar­dopo­lis, Mem­ber to the Depart­men­tal Assem­bly of the North­west, teacher at St. Ignatius High School, and mem­ber of the Me Zephirin Jean Louis and Asso­ciates firm.

Baze­lais Thévenot, Av., BAI Staff Attor­ney, is a Hait­ian trained attor­ney based in Saint Marc in the Art­i­bonite region. He joined the BAI in Octo­ber 2009 to imple­ment the Health and Human Rights in Pris­ons Project in Saint Marc, one of the three pilot loca­tions. He obtained his legal edu­ca­tion at the State Uni­ver­sity Haiti, Gonaives School of Law and Eco­nomic Sci­ences and received his license to prac­tice law in 2003. He brings nearly a decade of expe­ri­ence work­ing in the area of pol­i­tics and human rights. Mr. Thévenot has held var­i­ous posi­tions as an elec­tion observer and reporter. Since 2007, he has worked as coun­sel for the City Coun­cil of Saint Marc. And, prior to join­ing the BAI, he worked with the Office of Legal Assis­tance in Saint Marc pro­vid­ing free legal ser­vices to dis­ad­van­taged pris­on­ers and has advo­cated for reform of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Haiti. He has attended var­i­ous train­ings includ­ing sem­i­nars on the Inter-American Sys­tem of Human Rights and Human Rights and Crim­i­nal Pro­ceed­ings. He speaks Hait­ian Cre­ole and French.

Marie Esther Felix Val­court, Av., BAI Staff Attor­ney, is a lawyer who has always loved fight­ing the arbi­trary acts com­mit­ted against the most dis­en­fran­chised groups in society, especially women. It is for this rea­son that she has par­tic­i­pated in a vari­ety of legal assis­tance pro­grams that were put into place by the Bar of Port-au-Prince from 2007 until May of 2010. She entered into the inter­na­tional “toast­mas­ter” move­ment, work­ing on two dif­fer­ent aspects: com­mu­ni­ca­tion and lead­er­ship. Most recently, in August 2010 she was inte­grated into the BAI as staff lawyer for women vic­tims of sex­ual and domestic violence.

Meena Jagan­nath, BAI Legal Fel­low, has been a human rights activist for over ten years in such areas as transna­tional jus­tice, women’s rights and immi­gra­tion. While she has had the oppor­tu­nity to advo­cate at the macro-level through U.S. courts and the U.N sys­tem, she has com­ple­mented that expe­ri­ence by work­ing at the grass­roots level with orga­ni­za­tions around the world in order to increase her effec­tive­ness as an advo­cate for mar­gin­al­ized and excluded com­mu­ni­ties. Meena recently grad­u­ated from the Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton School of Law, where she was a William H. Gates Pub­lic Ser­vice Law Scholar. Prior to get­ting her J.D., she com­pleted a Master’s degree in Inter­na­tional Affairs (with a con­cen­tra­tion in Human Rights) at the School of Inter­na­tional and Pub­lic Affairs, Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity. She holds an under­grad­u­ate degree in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions and Peace and Jus­tice Stud­ies from Tufts Uni­ver­sity. Meena Jagan­nath has been a human rights activist for over ten years in such areas as transna­tional jus­tice, women’s rights and immi­gra­tion. Meena speaks Eng­lish, French, Span­ish, Tel­ugu, Hindi and Urdu, and plans to study Hait­ian Cre­ole. Meena@ijdh.org

Nathalie Nozile, Esq., Jolie-Pitt Foun­da­tion Staff Attor­ney, is a 2010 cum laude grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­sity of Florida Levin Col­lege of Law after com­plet­ing her first year of law school in the top 3% of her class at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jack­sonville, Florida. In 2009, Nathalie worked at the Law Offices of llan Kaye, P.A. as a law clerk spe­cial­iz­ing in crim­i­nal and civil lit­i­ga­tion and drafted motions that were filed in court, such as motions to sup­press, dis­miss, and motions to com­pel dis­cov­ery. She also drafted a peti­tion for habeas cor­pus to be filed in fed­eral court in addi­tion to a com­pre­hen­sive legal mem­o­ran­dum to the Attor­ney regard­ing dif­fer­ent crim­i­nal and civil issues. Nathalie also worked as a Judi­cial Intern in the Crim­i­nal Divi­sion of the Eighth Judi­cial Cir­cuit in Alachua County, Florida. She served as a Research Assis­tant in fall 2008 for Pro­fes­sor Berta Her­nan­dez, an expert on Human Rights law, and was assigned to research all per­ti­nent issues regard­ing the Cuban embargo and Pres­i­dent Bush’s 2004 reg­u­la­tion on Cuba and how they affect human rights of Cubans. She pre­pared and sub­mit­ted a com­pre­hen­sive mem­o­ran­dum on the sub­ject for a con­fer­ence. The same year, Nathalie worked on a Refugee Immi­gra­tion Project at Jack­sonville Area Legal Aid where she con­ducted client inter­views and drafted affi­davits to sub­mit with the fil­ings of immi­gra­tion papers along with trans­lat­ing pam­phlets, clients’ birth cer­tifi­cates and cor­re­spon­dences from French to Eng­lish. She is flu­ent in French, Haitian-Creole, and English.

United States-Based Staff

Tamara R. McCray, Esq., IJDH Staff Attor­ney, is a for­mer trust attor­ney with a pas­sion for inter­na­tional human rights. She is a mem­ber of the Penn­syl­va­nia Bar Asso­ci­a­tion, the Amer­i­can Bar Asso­ci­a­tion (ABA), and the Imme­di­ate Past Chair of the Delaware Bar Association’s Sec­tion of Inter­na­tional Law. Ms. McCray was appointed as a Vice Chair of the Inter­na­tional Human Rights Com­mit­tee of the Sec­tion of Inter­na­tional Law for the ABA in 2010–2011. Ms. McCray has also has been appointed to the ABA’s Haiti Task Force. Since the cat­a­strophic earth­quake in Haiti, she has joined a del­e­ga­tion of U.S. Lawyers, health pro­fes­sion­als and com­mu­nity activists to inves­ti­gate the Gender-Based Vio­lence in Haiti. Ms. McCray joined the del­e­ga­tion through the Lawyers’ Earth­quake Response Net­work (LERN). Her keen inter­est in inter­na­tional human rights has played an inte­gral role in her pro­fes­sional involve­ment and advo­cacy of women’s and children’s rights. She earned a Cer­tifi­cate in Inter­na­tional and Com­par­a­tive Human Rights Law from the Inter­na­tional Insti­tute of Human Rights in Stras­bourg, France. Tamara McCray was Law Clerk to the Hon­or­able Judith K. Fitzger­ald, United States Bank­ruptcy Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Penn­syl­va­nia. Dur­ing her clerk­ship, Ms. McCray accom­pa­nied Judge Fitzger­ald while sit­ting by des­ig­na­tion on the United States Bank­ruptcy Court for the U.S. Vir­gin Islands. She has lived and stud­ied in France and speaks French.
Tamara@ijdh.org

Steve Forester, Esq., IJDH Immi­gra­tion Pol­icy Coor­di­na­tor, leads efforts to secure prompt parole into the U.S. of 55,000 ben­e­fi­cia­ries of approved visa peti­tions to give par­ity with DHS’s ongo­ing Cuban Fam­ily Reuni­fi­ca­tion Parole Pro­gram, cre­ated in 2007, and help Haiti recover by gen­er­at­ing remit­tances to hun­dreds of thou­sands.  Since the quake he has secured eleven edi­to­ri­als urg­ing this relief in the Wash­ing­ton Post, Philadel­phia Inquirer, Boston Globe, Los Ange­les Times, San Anto­nio Express-News, Star Ledger, News­day, and Miami Her­ald, writ­ten a U.S. Con­fer­ence of May­ors res­o­lu­tion passed June 14 and an op-ed pub­lished Sep­tem­ber 8, etc. He cham­pi­oned the six month TPS fil­ing period exten­sion announced July 12 and facil­i­tates TPS coordination. Pre-quake, Forester led efforts to secure TPS due to four storms which dev­as­tated Haiti in Fall 2008, secur­ing pro-TPS edi­to­ri­als in the New York Times, Wash­ing­ton Post, Chicago Tri­bune, San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle, News­day, Orlando Sen tinel, South Florida Sun–Sen­tinel, and Miami Her­ald; let­ters from seven U.S. sen­a­tors and oth­ers; NYT and St. Peters­burg Times articles; a National Bar Asso­ci­a­tion res­o­lu­tion, etc.  In late 2009 he met with offi­cials re-granting Haitians work per­mits and the Miami Her­ald pub­lished his op-ed, “Let Haitians work in dig­nity;” his Jan­u­ary 2009 out­reach to a White House offi­cial secured the quiet halt of all non-criminal Haiti removals for­mal­ized a year later. A Hait­ian rights advo­cates since 1979, he has tes­ti­fied before the Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee and other bod­ies and in 1997 began and led the fight which secured the Hait­ian Refugee Immi­gra­tion Fair­ness Act of 1998 (HRIFA), under which 20,000 Haitians have become legal per­ma­nent res­i­dents of the U.S. IJDH has spon­sored his work since Feb­ru­ary 2009.
SteveForester@aol.com

Nicole Phillips, Esq., IJDH Staff Attor­ney, has always been pas­sion­ate about inter­na­tional human rights and was so moved  by the earth­quake in Haiti that she left her career as a union labor lawyer to join IJDH in April 2010.  Her prac­tice included ten years with Wein­berg, Roger & Rosen­feld in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area, where she served as gen­eral coun­sel to unions and employee ben­e­fit trust funds across the coun­try, arbi­trated col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing dis­putes, and man­aged a case­load in fed­eral and state courts involv­ing labor, employ­ment, health insur­ance, and envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions. Ms. Phillips has served since 2000 as a Mem­ber of the Board of Direc­tors of Human Rights Advo­cates, an NGO based in Cal­i­for­nia with con­sul­ta­tive sta­tus to the United Nations and has appeared before the UN Human Rights Com­mit­tee, Com­mit­tee on the Elim­i­na­tion of all Forms of Dis­crim­i­na­tion and Com­mis­sion on the Sta­tus of Women on var­i­ous human rights issues. She first worked with IJDH in 2006 while direct­ing the Uni­ver­sity of San Fran­cisco, School of Law, Cen­ter for Law and Global Jus­tice, Haiti and Domini­can Repub­lic human rights pro­grams, which she con­tin­ues to do. Ms. Phillips earner her B.A. from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence with a con­cen­tra­tion in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions, and her JD from the Uni­ver­sity of San Fran­cisco, School of law. She has lived and stud­ied in France and Mex­ico and speaks French and Span­ish (and is learn­ing Kreyol).
Nicole@ijdh.org

Marcy Strazer, IJDH Admin­is­tra­tive Con­sul­tant, has worked with IJDH since 2005 help­ing with news briefs, finan­cial man­age­ment, devel­op­ment, fundrais­ing and var­i­ous admin­is­tra­tive tasks. She lived and worked in Haiti for six years. She was the Oxfam GB (Great Britain) Haiti Direc­tor from 1997–2000 and had been a Human Rights Observer with the OAS/UN Mis­sion in Haiti from 1993–1996. Prior, she served as a Peace Corps Vol­un­teer work­ing with fish farm­ers in the Demo­c­ra­tic Repub­lic of the Congo (for­merly Zaire) from 1989–1991. Marcy holds a Mas­ters degree in Applied Eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan and a B.S. from Uni­ver­sity of Ore­gon in eco­nom­ics and his­tory. She speaks Hait­ian Cre­ole, French and Kikongo (cen­tral Africa).

Interns

Boston Office Interns: 2012

Ronald Bernard, IJDH Trans­la­tion and Pol­icy Intern, is a grad­u­ate stu­dent at The Heller School for Social and Pol­icy Man­age­ment at Bran­deis Uni­ver­sity. His last work was as a vol­un­teer inter­preter and trans­la­tor for an Amer­i­can med­ical doc­tor in Haiti. In this posi­tion at the Saint Rock Haiti Foun­da­tion, he assisted in pro­vid­ing health care, spon­sor­ing children’s edu­ca­tion and work­ing with the com­mu­nity in the devel­op­ment of self-sustaining pro­grams. Addi­tion­ally, he acted as a liai­son between US-based admin­is­tra­tors and com­mu­nity mem­ber to address issues related to cul­tur­ally sen­si­tive and local demands. Finally, he assisted in coor­di­nat­ing sen­si­tiz­ing pro­grams about HIV/AIDS and other sex­u­ally trans­mit­ted dis­eases for young peo­ple to reduce the ration of infected young peo­ple related to those dis­eases. He taught Eng­lish as a sec­ond lan­guage and assisted in the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign 2006 in Haiti as an elected observer. Ronald received his BA in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions from the Acad­e­mie National Diplo­ma­tique et Con­sulaire in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Ronald@ijdh.org

April Byrne, Vol­un­teer Coor­di­na­tor Intern, grad­u­ated this past May from the Uni­ver­sity of Geor­gia with a degree in Social Work and Span­ish. She was an intern for Clarke County’s School Sys­tem, pro­vid­ing assis­tance and edu­ca­tional mate­ri­als to lower-income fam­i­lies and recently immi­grated fam­i­lies. April also vol­un­teered as a trans­la­tor and a social ser­vices worker at a local non-profit health clinic. She hopes to obtain her Master’s in Human­i­tar­ian Aid and is inter­ested in any kind of inter­na­tional social work, from human rights to non-profit man­age­ment. April@ijdh.org        

Jae­won Lee, Devel­op­ment and Admin­is­tra­tion Intern, is a junior at Han­kuk Uni­ver­sity of For­eign Stud­ies in South Korea pur­su­ing a bachelor’s degree in law. While plan­ning and devel­op­ing sev­eral 100^th anniver­sary high school events as a pres­i­dent of stu­dent coun­cil, she became inter­ested in the orga­ni­za­tional man­age­ment. Over three years, she has grad­u­ally estab­lished com­pre­hen­sive under­stand­ing of legal struc­ture by closely study­ing con­sti­tu­tional law and work­ing at her university’s law school as an assis­tant who researched legal prece­dents and com­piled rel­e­vant case infor­ma­tion for the pro­fes­sors. She plans to attend law school when going back to Korea, but before that, she has decided to take a year off to acquire prac­ti­cal knowl­edge of human rights and learn how a NGO works on the ground to accom­plish its mis­sion. She looks for­wards to work­ing at IJDH where all team­mates have strong pas­sion about human rights. Jaewon@ijdh.org

Lau­ren Piette, Devel­op­ment Intern, is a recent grad­u­ate from the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa, where she received her degree in Inter­na­tional Stud­ies. After com­plet­ing her senior the­sis on the Iraqi Refugee Cri­sis, Lau­ren was able to bet­ter under­stand the chal­lenges that arise in sit­u­a­tions of wide­spread human rights abuse and envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion. She was frus­trated by the many bureau­cratic bar­ri­ers and long delays that often pre­vented peo­ple from get­ting the assis­tance they need. Because of this, Lau­ren is excited to assist with IJDH and its more direct, grass­roots efforts in Haiti. She is cur­rently work­ing towards flu­ency in French and hopes to learn some Hait­ian Cre­ole as well. Lauren@ijdh.org

Kelly Geoghe­gan, Legal Intern, grad­u­ated from New York Uni­ver­sity School of Law where she was a Thur­good Mar­shall scholar focus­ing on human rights, human­i­tar­ian law, and inter­na­tional crim­i­nal law.  Dur­ing law school she interned at the Bosn­ian War Crimes Tri­bunal, and led the Dar­fur Vic­tims Project, in which law stu­dents assisted an NGO rep­re­sent­ing Dar­furi vic­tims before the Inter­na­tional Crim­i­nal Court.  She also interned at the United Nations for UNICEF.  How­ever, it was her expe­ri­ence in the Global Jus­tice Clinic, work­ing on a study of gender-based vio­lence in Haiti’s dis­place­ment camps, which spurred her pas­sion for Hait­ian rights.  Prior to attend­ing NYU, Kelly grad­u­ated summa cum laude from the Uni­ver­sity of North Car­olina – Chapel Hill, where she was a Robert­son Scholar. She also earned an LL.M. in Human Rights and Crim­i­nal Jus­tice (Cross-Border) through a joint pro­gram with the Irish Cen­tre for Human Rights in Gal­way, Ire­land, and Queen’s Uni­ver­sity in Belfast, North­ern Ire­land.

Port-au-Prince Office Interns: 2012

Nick Strat­ton, BAI Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Intern, recently grad­u­ated from Tufts Uni­ver­sity in the Boston area with a degree in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions and a con­cen­tra­tion on Global Health. His work focused on the effects of sociopo­lit­i­cal deter­mi­nants — includ­ing stigma­ti­za­tion, mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion, poverty and inequal­ity — on the health of his­tor­i­cally mar­gin­al­ized pop­u­la­tions, such as Haitians liv­ing in IDP camps and Gazans. Dur­ing his time at Tufts, Nick was a Sigma lota Rho National Hon­ors Soci­ety for Inter­na­tional Stud­ies scholar, a Synap­tic Scholar of the Insti­tute for Global Lead­er­ship, a mem­ber of the year-long Edu­ca­tion for Pub­lic Inquiry and Inter­na­tional Cit­i­zen­ship (EPIIC) col­lo­quium on cities of the Global South, and a mem­ber of Stu­dents Active For End­ing Rape (SAFER) who reformed the university’s inad­e­quate sex­ual assault and harass­ment pol­icy in 2010. Prior to arriv­ing in Haiti, Nick was an intern at the William J. Clin­ton Foun­da­tion, a vol­un­teer at Hous­ing Works in NYC who worked wit HIV+ trans­gen­der home­less clients, and a research assis­tant at I’Agence Regionale de Sante, lle-de-France in Paris where he worked on the imple­men­ta­tion of the national health plan for youth (ages 15–24). He is an author of an arti­cle on media cov­er­age of US for­eign pol­icy in Haiti pub­lished in Nar­coNews, and a co-author of the 2011 white paper on MINUSTAH’s human rights record enti­tled “Keep­ing the Peace, or Con­spir­ing Against It?” pub­lished by the Har­vard School of Pub­lic Health. In addi­tion to his projects at BAI, Nick also works with Physi­cians for Haiti and with the first LGBT rights asso­ci­a­tion in Haiti, Mou­vman Asosy­atif pou Dwa Nou Tout (MADWAT) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Haiti’s only les­bian orga­ni­za­tion, Femmes en Action Con­tre la Stig­ma­ti­sa­tion et la Dis­crim­i­na­tion Sex­uelle (FACSDIS). He is flu­ent in French and is cur­rently study­ing Hait­ian Cre­ole. Nick@ijdh.org

Other IJDH-BAI Interns