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particpants
The Participants
The thirty (30) participants in the Third Orientation Course
were from the countries of South Asia, with four joining from countries
from outside the region, namely, Canada, Italy, United States, and Thailand.
The participants came with diverse backgrounds and from various places
spanning the entire region, from Kohima to Quetta, from Srinagar to Colombo,
from refugee camp to research institute, and battle-scarred places to
centres of learning. They were:
Hari Prasad Adhikari is an Advocacy and Campaign
Co-ordinator in the Centre for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights
based in the Bhutanese Refugee Camp in Eastern Nepal. He is involved in
the welfare activities for the refugee community, and has taken active
part in the peace movement for the restoration of human rights and establishment
of democratic culture in Bhutan.
Senthivel Arulselvan is teaching Journalism at the
Department of Communication, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli,
India. Earlier he served in Dinamalar, the second largest selling
Tamil newspaper of India. He had been in the team that made a documentary
film on the massacre of 17 dalit workers in 1999, and he led a team to
rescue school children from the contractors who had planned to take them
as bonded labourers. He has also served as a joint coordinator for the
human rights education programme organised by People's Watch among the
school children of Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.
Nadia Maleeha Asaad did her masters from Quaid e
Azam University in Economics in 2000. She is currently working on gender
and development as a research assistant in Sustainable Development Policy
Institute. She has worked on a number of projects dealing with issues
of violence, livelihoods, poverty and the politics of sustainable development
in Pakistan. Her next work would be on participation of women in peace
movement in Pakistan.
Shafat A Basu is a final year student of law in the
Kashmir University. He is the coordinator of a human rights group called
the Law Ring, at present working on human rights documentation. He was
involved previously in two projects - one relating to orphans in valley
whose parents had been killed in armed conflict, and the other relating
to the condition of under trials in Kashmir, sponsored by British Council.
At present he is involved in working with OXFAM in establishing a legal
aid and a documentation centre on human rights issues in Jammu and Kashmir.
Khotuo Angami Belho is presently serving as the Deputy
Speaker of the Naga Students' Federation, the apex students' organisation
of all Naga Students. Also he is an Executive Member of the Naga Peoples
Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR).
Thomas Benedikter is an economist and social researcher
from Bozen, South Tyrol, Italy. He has been active for last 20 years in
various peace, human rights and international solidarity initiatives in
Italy and Germany. For six years he ran the Italian section of the International
Society for Threatened Peoples, which is the second most important human
rights organization in the German spoken area of Italy. He worked in humanitarian
projects in Latin America and on the Balkans and, besides his journalistic
activities he has published several books on issues of minority rights,
nationality conflicts and human rights.
Anand Chand is an officer in the protection division
at the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal. His main responsibilities
are complaint handling, investigation, and monitoring human rights situation
in the country. He has a master's degree in science and a PG Diploma in
human rights.
Rezaul Hayat Chowdhury is a programme coordinator
at the Association for Realization of Basic Needs, Dhaka, and works with
the slum dwellers of the city, and interacts on their behalf with concerned
government authorities, such as the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority,
the Dhaka City Corporation, and the Housing and Settlement Department.
He concentrates on the legal aspects of the right to safe water and right
to housing.
Bidhayak Das is a journalist working in the areas
of political and social conflicts in the northeast. Besides being a journalist
he has taken a keen following to issues confronting the civil society
in the North East. He is based in Shillong and works for The Telegraph,
an Indian daily published from Calcutta.
Iqbal Detho joined Amnesty International in Pakistan
in 1993. In 1994 he became secretary of Shikarpur Group to become later
on the national human rights education coordinator of Amnesty International
in Pakistan. In 2001 he became the Secretary General of Amnesty Pakistan.
He did his masters in physics and is now a lecturer in Shikarpur College,
Sindh. He is also an active member of the Coalition against Child Labour,
Pakistan.
Amy P. Etherington, a recent Sociology graduate from
Canada interested in participatory approaches to empowerment and peace
building, has been travelling and volunteering in South Asia over the
last year. She has been volunteering with community development projects,
most recently working with Tamil plantation labour communities in Sri
Lanka's hill country.
Ajay Gandhi, an Indo-Canadian social anthropologist
by training, has been based at the International Development Research
Centre (IDRC)'s South Asia office in Delhi since September 2001. His personal
research experience in India has concentrated on social movements, development
conflicts, and adivasi rights. His diverse research projects at IDRC have
included focusing on regional mountain communities and environments, NGO
and donor partnerships, and human rights and peace-building.
Sanjay V. Gathia from India works as the South Asia
Coordinator for Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
in Bangkok, Thailand. He has been engaged in facilitating programmes in
the South Asian region on the protection of human rights through cooperation
and sharing of information among human rights organizations through training,
publication and fact finding missions. He specializes in human resource
development and information technology and also holds a master's degree
in human rights. His main focus is on trans-national corporations and
economic, social and cultural rights.
Sajad Ahmad Gelani is presently a final year student
of law in the University of Kashmir. He is also a member of a group called
the Law Ring, which is working for human rights and other social and legal
aspects of life. He has been a member of the NSS (National Service Scheme)
for the last 6 years. He has worked as a block coordinator of NYK (Nehrue
Yuva Kendra), and has worked on a project with British Council on custodial
violence on the under trials. He has also participated in legal literacy
programmes.
Sanjana Hattotuwa is the editor of Peace Monitor,
a bi-monthly magazine published by the Centre for Policy Alternatives
dealing with issues related to the ethno-political conflict, including,
but not limited to, issues of human rights, conflict transformation, gender,
conflict resolution, theatre and arts. He is also the principal Track
Two Conflict Transformation researcher at the Centre, and deals with the
comparative and critical examination of ethno-political conflicts and
conflict transformation processes (processes of negotiation, dispute resolution,
constitutional reform, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions etc) in countries
and regions other than Sri Lanka.
Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal is the Executive Editor of
Kashmir Times, the largest circulated English daily in Jammu and
Kashmir and has extensively worked on human rights, Kashmir conflict and
India-Pakistan border conflict. She is also associated with Women of Ladakh,
Kashmir and Jammu, a group engaged in peace activism among women.
Fr. Francis Jayakody is presently the Director of
the Centre for Justice, Peace and Human Development in the Archdiocese
of Colombo in Sri Lanka. The Centre besides working for peace in the war-torn
country has been involved in addressing issues of human rights and other
social concerns in the Sri Lankan society. Personally, he is involved
in the resettlement programmes relating to families displaced due to war.
Manish K Jha is working as a lecturer in the Department
of Social Work, University of Delhi. He takes courses on Social Acton
and Development of Weaker Sections which are directly linked with issues
of human rights and peace. He has done research on the structure and strategy
of human rights organizations of Delhi and presently pursuing his doctoral
work on human rights violations in Bihar.
Salina Joshi is a Program Officer in the Forum for
Women, Law and Development (FWLD), Nepal. FWLD works on human rights of
women and children through public education, public interest litigation
and advocacy. Currently she is involved in research on trafficking in
women and children in Nepal, sexual harassment in workplace in Nepal,
and on SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women
and Children for Prostitution.
Saraswatee Karmacharya is a young journalist from
Nepal, working in the Himalaya Times Daily, published from Kathmandu.
She did her masters in business administration, and now reports on various
social issues and issues relating to foreign affairs.
Rifat Nazir Kawos is a final year student of the
Law University in Jammu and Kashmir. She is currently a member of Law
Ring - a group formed for the promotion of human rights activism and related
documentation. She has recently worked on a project sponsored by the British
Council on the theme of custodial violence on under trials in Jammu and
Kashmir and she seeks involvement in public interest legal activism.
Furrukh Khan is an Assistant Professor in English
and Post-Colonial Literature at the Lahore University of Management Sciences
in Pakistan. He also teaches English as a Foreign Language in the UK during
the summers. His research interests include, Post-Colonial Literature,
Shakespeare, Modern Literary Theory, and South Asian and African Literatures.
His publications have appeared among others in Index on Censorship,
and International Journal of Punjab Studies. He has contributed
a chapter in The Novels of Bapsi Sidhwa, edited by R.K. Dhawan
and Novy Kapadia.
Ayesha Khurshid is working as a research assistant
in the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, Pakistan.
Currently she is involved with work on poverty assessment study, intergenerational
mobility of Christian community in Pakistan, and Partition Memories. She
is also a member of Citizen Peace Committee, which is working on several
peace campaigns at the moment. Her educational background is MSc Economics
from Quaid e Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Dolly Kikon, a Naga human rights activist, is based
in Guahati, India. Besides working for the human rights of the Naga people,
she works in particular on gender rights. In her work, she interacts closely
with the human rights communities in the north east, particular Assam,
and is a member of the Naga People's Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR).
At present she is mobilizing a campaign for the "Oinam Case"
- a case of massive human rights abuse, in which the human rights activists
challenge the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in India also.
Mir Attaqui Masruruzzaman is Associate Director (training),
Mass-Line Media Centre, Bangladesh, and facilitates training for media
professionals on issues of human rights and participation of women in
journalism. He has worked as a journalist and his core area of experience
and expertise includes working for victims of violence, women's rights,
child rights, health and nutrition, law reform, education, land rights
of landless, violence against domestic workers and minority groups.
Nasrullah, a human right activist, is working as
programme coordinator with Centre for Peace and Development, Balochistan,
a province of Pakistan. He got his masters degree in Rural Development
from Wye College, London, and his graduate degree in Law from the University
of Balochistan. He is deeply involved in women rights movement, and has
published many articles in national journals on human rights situation
of Pakistan.
Zulfiqar Shah, a young journalist from Karachi is
working with The News as a feature writer. He has been extensively
writing on social, civic and environmental issues and human rights including
women and children rights for last several years. Besides his responsibilities
at The News, he has also been contributing articles and features
to different magazines and feature services. He has recently done a research
study on sectarian violence in Pakistan for Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan. ZulfiqurShah has done his masters in International Relations
from University of Sindh, Hyderabad.
Abha Shrestha is presently working at the Human Rights
Commission of Nepal. She is the focal point in Commission's work on gender
rights. Her main work is to promote the concept of gender rights through
various activities such as training, workshop and bringing women in organized
institutional activities. She holds a master's degree in science and has
a diploma certificate in Women's Studies from Padma Kanya Campus, Kathamndu.
Ranjana Thapa is working at the Informal Service
Sector Centre (INSEC), one of the most well known human rights institutions
in Nepal, as a coordinator of its human rights treaty monitoring programme.
She is also active in the National Coalition for the International Criminal
Court (ICC). She works on international instruments on human rights, particularly
gender rights, and their implementation. She has published. several articles
in the journal of INSEC on ICC.
Joseph Thavaraja from Colombo works as a research
manager in the Social Indicator of Centre for Policy Alternatives at Colombo,
Sri Lanka. His subject is social surveys and opinion polls. He has been
a journalist for last three years, and has specialized in Internet Research,
Web Surveys, and International Relations.
Asma Yaqoob is an M. Phil student of International
Relations at the University of Karachi. She has worked as a research assistant
under the peace program of US Institute of Peace at the same department.
She has taken part in preparing a chronology of conflict resolution in
South Asia, a directory of institutes on conflict resolution and peace
studies, and chronological data on refugees and displaced people in Pakistan.
As part of M. Phil studies, she is currently working on children's rights
and refugee children in Pakistan.
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