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“Personally I have prior experience in refugee law and practice but the training I received from AMERA is the best that a lawyer can get from an NGO. The training covered all aspects of refugee law and practice in Cairo, including solutions for refugees in need of material assistance and psychosocial assistance. We also learnt about the office mandate, the different teams, access and usage of the database as well as access to the Abacus Law program”. John Alex Njuba, Uganda (February 2006) “I have found the time I have spent with AMERA to be quite wonderful. It has given me the opportunity to see what international NGO work experience is like and I can definitely state that the experience is very fulfilling and exciting. AMERA is, in my opinion, a very well-organized NGO, which from what I can gather, really helps people with their cases and offers them much needed information.” Peter Shams, Canada (February 2006) “I liked having a structured and formal-type training. You just don't get that kind of training in most other NGOs.” Hala Rashed, Canada (July 2005) “I had an amazing experience at AMERA-Egypt and one I would recommend to absolutely anyone interested in the field. It was such a great feeling to work with people who were passionate about what they were doing, were there for all the right reasons and were focused on the achievement of their aims because it was such a tight timeframe to work within. I particularly appreciated the dual purposes of the service – the individual casework and the commitment to systems advocacy - both of which have very sound rationales and strengthen each other.” Sophie Redmond, Australia (May 2005) AMERA ALUMNI Since the summer of 2000 the Refugee Legal Aid Project (now AMERA) has received, self-funded volunteers from Egypt and many other countries in the world. They have worked in a number of capacities: taking refugees’ testimonies, building legal submissions, representing refugees at UNHCR, conducting research on various aspects of the refugee situation in Egypt, conducting country of origin and legal research, and since 2004, serving the social and psychological needs of refugees. Argentina Andres Zenarruza - After finishing my internship with Legal Aid in Cairo I returned to Argentina. Since then I have been practicing banking law working as in house counsel in Citibank N.A. in Buenos Aires and doing pro bono legal work. Looking back to it with perspective I have to say Legal Aid was an incredible experience - perhaps one of the most important of my life - which helped me realize the level of complexity of international affairs and the need to have a broad network of NGOs and governmental agencies working together assisting the people in need. Australia Heather Gillies - Served the Refugee Law Project in Cairo as a trainer for six months. She is now in charge of the outreach programme at the Department of Politics at the American University in Cairo, providing training in human rights issues for Egyptian NGOs. She acts as an external evaluator of cases for AMERA-Egypt. Kirsten Hagon - I first heard about AMERA (and its predecessors) in 2002 when I was volunteering with refugees and asylum seekers in Australia (coordinating a Refugee Legal Aid Project) and Mark Pallis contacted me for assistance regarding resettlement. It took another three years, an LLM in International law and an internship with UNHCR Geneva before I finally made it to Cairo in January 2005. At AMERA I was part of the RSD team and head of the minors team and I really loved my work. Working with children was a rewarding and inspiring experience and every asylum seeker I met taught me something new. It was also wonderful to work with such committed, talented and innovative people as the staff and volunteers at AMERA. I left in April 2005 to take up a post with UNHCR Regional Office Cairo as a reporting officer and hope to undertake fieldwork when this post is complete. Nesya
Hughes Sophia Redmond - I interned as a Legal Advisor at AMERA from September 2004 to May 2005 after working as a lawyer in Australia. After finishing my AMERA internship, I began working at Article 19, Global Campaign for Free Expression, based in London. I am part of the legal programme at Article 19, whose work includes advising on draft laws affecting freedom of expression; strategic litigation; contributing to policy development and international standard setting through human rights monitoring mechanisms. Some of my recent work includes strategic litigation against Zimbabwe at the African Commission for Human and Peoples Rights, the development of new media policy in Iraq, challenging criminal defamation provisions in Central Asia, working on anti-corruption measures in the BMENA region and advocating for freedom of information laws in the Middle East. Katalin Virag - I interned at RLAP for six months from September 2003 until March 2004. Since leaving, I have been working as an appeals representative with the Immigration Advisory Service, London. I prepare and lodge asylum and immigration appeals and advocate in court before the Immigration Appellate Authority (IAA), a tribunal that hears appeals against decisions by the Home Secretary (and delegated officials) in asylum and immigration matters. In April 2005, the IAA will be abolished and replaced by the new Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT). Later this year I will return to law school (this time in the UK and not Australia where I completed my Masters in International Law). In the meantime, I am brushing up on my Hungarian and French. Natasha Yacoub- I started working as the lawyer in the early days of the Legal Aid Project, after Mark Pallis left, and with Gina Bekker. I worked initially in the cramped little Office of African Studies, and then in the "Space Ship" of Professor Harrell-Bond's home office. One of my first tasks was writing legal submissions for the Liberian caseload, who were eventually resettled as a group to the USA. This group affected my life, and I stay in contact with many of them. I moved on in late 2001 to work with UNHCR, coordinating refugee status determination in Cairo, training in refugee law in Ireland and doing protection work in Australia and the Pacific thereafter. Nothing compares to the days on the Legal Aid Project in Cairo. Austria Gudrun Kroner - After working at the Refugee Legal Aid Project I was an intern at UNHCR Cairo. Then I left Cairo in order to conduct fieldwork for my PhD in Gaza. After the end of my scholarship, I was employed by the Commission for Social Anthropology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Besides conducting research in Refugee Studies I wrote a funding proposal for a project in Palestine (CASOP Capacity Building in Social Science Methodology for Palestine), which was fortunately accepted by the EU. I am based in Vienna, but some months of the year I conduct fieldwork on Palestine from Egypt. Florian Razesberger - I left Cairo in May 2005, after working for five months on the RSD and the research teams. Currently I am working for the OSCE in Macedonia/Skopje as a rule of law officer, focusing on judicial reform, judicial monitoring, institution and capacity building and trafficking in women. Belgium Lotte
Lenears Charlotte Van Dyke - I worked with the Refugee Legal Aid Project (RLAP) in Cairo from January to June 2002. The work turned out to be a rewarding intellectual and personal challenge that raised as many new questions as I learned new insights and skills. Working with the RLAP had fired a new interest, and so I started an MA in Conflict and Sustainable Peace, at the University of Leuven, Belgium in August 2002. Although the Master’s program itself had some serious flaws, I used this opportunity to get better acquainted with the scene of international politics, conflicts and refugee situations and finished with a paper on the evolution of the discourse on ‘durable solutions’ for refugee situations in conflict regions. Since I finished this MA at the end of 2003, I have been working for the Flemish Refugee Council in Brussels. My work consists of studying integration policies, developing and executing new methods for refugee integration, advocating our findings to influence Belgian/Flemish policies, providing training for organisations who work with refugees, etc. I find this work a rewarding way to gain insight in refugee-related policies, practices and experiences in my ‘home’ environment. However, I feel that my interest lies in another place and at the moment I am looking to return to work around refugee and human rights issues or development and reconstruction in the Middle East or Africa. Britain Sam Allen - I joined AMERA-Egypt in January 2005 to work as a psychosocial worker and stayed until the end of the year. Since working at AMERA I have acquired a deep interest in refugee and immigrant issues, particularly the social and psychological side. Dealing with individual cases at AMERA has led me to realize certain gaps and problems with the provision of social services. This, coupled with the inspiring atmosphere of AMERA, has spurred me to take initiative and try addressing some of these issues where possible. Working with another former interns we have created an NGO that provides funding for surgeries for Sudanese refugees who are not being processed by the UNHCR. We are also in the process of establishing a diabetes clinic in reaction to the large number of refugees who are unable to control their diabetes because of economic constraints. I am currently planning to work in D.C. as a social worker with a resettlement agency. Afsana Akhtar- I was an intern at AMERA from January 2004 - July 2004. Prior to completing the internship I was working in an immigration law firm in London. Although I had experience dealing with asylum seekers and refugees my experience in Cairo was unique. The problems facing asylum seekers in Cairo were much more horrific. After returning from Egypt I work with another immigration law firm and the skills I learnt at AMERA proved very useful especially when interviewing clients and researching country of origin information. Joshua Craze - After returning from Cairo, I graduated with a 1:1 in Anthropology from the University of Oxford. I moved to Paris, where I am presently living. I decided I did not want to go straight back into education, but would rather take some time to read and explore projects that I have always wanted to do. At the moment I am working on an essay I was commissioned to do for a book on the biggest fallacies in political science, drawing broader theoretical conclusions from the problems political science has had in understanding West African politics. I have just finished a script for a short film that will be shot by a Belgian production company in the autumn. I am continuing with my reading and interest in Sierra Leone, and will return there. To make enough money to eat and to save for Sierra Leone, I am teaching English and writing articles. Apart from that, I am learning French and reading a lot of philosophy. I should be here for three years or so, until my French is proficient, and then I will go back into education, either at the University of Amsterdam or at LEHESS here in Paris. I still think a lot about Cairo and my experience there, and would love to return. Claire Darwin - After leaving Cairo in January 2003, I returned to London where I completed the Law Conversion Course. I am currently taking the Bar Vocational Course alongside other former RLAP interns, and also work part-time tutoring. I will be starting work as a barrister (pupilage) as of October 2005. Back in the UK I have continued to be involved in both human rights and international law projects. I was a member of the Inner Temple team which was selected to represent the UK at the international final of the Jessup Public International Law Moot Competition, held in Washington in March 2005. Alex el-Jundi - After leaving Refugee Legal Aid in Cairo, I did a Masters in International Law at the University of London, taking and passing the New York state bar shortly after. In May 2003 I began an internship with the office of the Prosecution for the Special Court in Sierra Leone where I was eventually granted a short-term contract as a legal consultant. I left Sierra Leone in December 2004 and came to Liberia in January 2005. I am now working with the Legal and Judicial Department of the United Nations Mission in Liberia- helping the Liberians to reform and rebuild their judicial system. I am now living in the flat next to Alex Loden, another Refugee Legal Aid Alumni. Bilqees
Esmail Andrew Gardner - Before coming to Cairo in December 2003 to be a legal advisor I had previously worked for the Istanbul Interparish Migrants’ Programme. I worked (with, among others, Helen Bartlett and Pilar Dutch who also came to Cairo) on providing educational and medical services to refugees and others. The intention in coming to Cairo was always to start a program of legal aid for refugees in Turkey. After I returned from Cairo in July 2004 that is what I have done along with Helen and Pilar and other international and Turkish human rights advocates. In addition to having started the first program of legal aid for refugees in Turkey, the Refugee Committee of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly is also advocating for the rights of refugees with the government and the UNHCR and working for the better portrayal of refugees in the media, increasing the capacity of other NGO’s to work on refugee issues and assisting refugee groups in advocating for their own rights. In addition to working as a legal officer I have worked on an interpreters’ course with Daniele Calvani (also from Cairo), press advocacy, an international conference on Turkey’s emerging refugee laws and a seminar series to enable lawyers and NGO workers to get involved on projects for refugees. Rachel
Grant Richard Grindell - After working at the Refugee Legal Aid Project from August 2002 to June 2003, I went on to do research at AUC FMRS into refugees' experiences of detention in Egypt. Then I joined UNHCR through a USRP internship in Cairo, writing refugee resettlement submissions. I was deployed by the International Catholic Migration Commission, doing resettlement work for UNHCR in Delhi, India. In 2005 I began a master’s at Essex University in human rights law. Gemma Humphrey - I was an administrative officer at the Afghan Association of London, a refugee community organisation providing advice and assistance with integration. I am now an outreach project worker at Migrant Helpline assisting newly arrived asylum seekers in the UK. Ratna Jhaven - After leaving AMERA in May 2005 I am now working as a UNV child protection officer with the UN Mission in Sudan, and am based in Juba, Southern Sudan. Zane Kanderian - After working at the Refugee Legal Aid Project I worked for a year at a London-based think-tank on a programme of research and events on political reform in the Middle East (www.civility.org.uk). Following that I developed The Reform Agenda (www.reform-agenda.org) a web-based resource for information on political reform in the Middle East with a team of young writers from the Middle East. I then worked as deputy editor of Middle East International (www.meionline.com), a fortnightly news and analysis magazine on the Middle East. I am now working in Baghdad for the British Council as the manager of a fund dedicated to improving political participation in Iraq. Hema
Kotecha Benedetta Lacey - I am currently training as a barrister in London. As of September 2005, I will be undertaking pupilage with the Treasury Solicitor’s Department in the UK Government Legal Service. This work will involve a mix of government litigation and advisory work with time also spent in chambers. I continue to be involved in a number of human rights related projects and have most recently carried out research into corporate misconduct in the Congo. Alex Loden - On leaving the Refugee Legal Aid Project in Cairo I undertook an MA in human rights at Essex University. After completing my course I did a six-month internship at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. When my internship was over I worked for several months as a legal assistant to one of the Court's defense teams based at Doughty Street Chambers in London. I am presently a UNV human rights officer at the Human Rights and Protection section of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). loden@un.org. Laura
Maxwell - I left the Refugee Legal Aid Project in 2002, but remained in Cairo working at an educational project for young Liberian and Sierra Leonean
refugees. I was involved in writing a report on the insecurity of the
Liberians and after some time, most have been resettled and the Sierra Leonean
community has taken over the running of the project. During 2003-4 I was a
researcher at the Department of Forced Migration at the AUC, which resulted in
the publication of a working paper on the experiences of separated refugee
children in Cairo. I am currently working for a local human rights NGO,
the Arab Programme for Human Rights. Kirsten
Melling - After leaving Cairo I did an LL.M in International Human Rights
Law in Essex University (2002-2003). I was then seconded by the UK
Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the OSCE (Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe) Mission in Serbia and Montenegro - Human Rights/Rule of
Law Department (Sep 2003-Dec 2004). I am currently working as lawyer in
the UK Alex
Moorehead Caroline Moorehead - A writer who came to Cairo in 2001 with Lyndall Passerini to interview Liberians for the Refugee Legal Aid Project. As a result, they became interested in the refugee situation in general and Caroline wrote a book, Human Cargo: Travels Among Refugees, that begins in Cairo. She later became a founding Board Member of AMERA-UK in 2003. Mark Pallis - After leaving Cairo, the first time in October 2000 and then again for the summer of 2001, I completed a Masters in International Law at Cambridge, qualified as a barrister and then was a visiting research fellow at New York University's Institute of International Law and Justice. Whilst in NY I also worked part time for Amnesty International at the General Assembly and was an adjunct member of the New York Bar's Immigration Law Committee. I returned to the UK to take up the position of Policy Director of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention, where I work advising UK Parliamentarians on issues relating to Rwanda, Congo and Burundi and Genocide Prevention (www.appggreatlakes.org). I also teach International Refugee Law part time at London South Bank University and will start work as a barrister. I was also a founding member of the AMERA-UK Board. Wendy Pettifer - Since I left Cairo in March 2002 I returned to private practice as a human rights lawyer in the UK working with asylum seekers and refugees on homelessness issues. Together with other lawyers, I issued many high court applications which resulted in loosening the definition of applying for asylum in the UK as soon as reasonably practicable from on arrival at the port of entry to within 72 hours. I also completed my MA in Refugee Studies at the University of East London in May 2003. This included a dissertation on the secondary migration of Somali women. I left private practice in January 2004 to work as a clinical educator with law students and trainees in the Legal Advice Centre of the College of Law in London. I have expanded the practice to include human rights work with asylum seekers and refugees as well as other social welfare clients, and encouraged several trainees to continue their pro bono work whilst in private practice. Mark Richardson - After finishing at AMERA in January 2004 I taught English as a foreign language in London for several months. Then I worked in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for a national human rights organisation called LICADHO. I was researching and writing reports on threats to human rights defenders and restrictions to freedom of assembly. In January 2005 I joined the UK Department for International Development (DFID) on their graduate recruitment scheme which means I move jobs each year for the next few years, rotating between the main areas of corporate, regional/country desks, international (UN,EU etc.) and policy, building up experience in different parts of the organisation. Wendy
Saunders Abigail Schaeffer - After leaving Legal Aid in Cairo, I went on to complete the Bar Vocational Course. I am currently studying for an LLM. I am also Chair of the Free Representation Unit, a legal charity based in London that provides tribunal representation in about 800 cases per year for those who could not otherwise afford it. I will be completing qualification as a barrister at Cloisters in Temple, London. Melanie Vilarasau - Since my time in Cairo I have joined Allen and Overy LLP as a trainee solicitor and am currently one year into my training contract. The work is mainly in the area of commercial law but there are also a number of opportunities for participating in pro-bono schemes. These include assisting associations to register as charities, evening sessions at a Citizen's Advice Bureau and a recently developed link with Liberty, advising on human rights issues through their letter-writing clinic. I am looking to qualify as a solicitor in March 2006. Hester Waddams - On leaving Cairo I worked for several weeks on an emergency humanitarian law project in the West Bank. I then carried out an internship at Interights during the summer of 2002. In September 2002 I started my pupillage at a Chambers in London, 3 Raymond Buildings, specialising in public law, extradition and crime. I worked as a barrister for two years, and in October 2004 returned to University to take the LLM in International Human Rights Law at Essex. I now have a job at the Special Court in Sierra Leone. Julia Faire Walker - After completing a three-month internship at the Legal Aid Project in the summer of 2002, I started a law conversion course (PGDL) at City University in London. On completing the PGDL, I went to bar school for a year. Since October 2004 I have been doing a pupillage at 3 Raymond Buildings in Gray's Inn, London. There, barristers specialise in areas including criminal law, extradition, mutual assistance and licensing. I have done a few voluntary cases with the Free Representation Unit in London, of which Abigail Schaffer, also a former intern, is chairman. Clare Walter - I arrived at AMERA as a volunteer legal advisor, hoping to gain some hands-on experience to compliment the MA in Refugee Studies I’d completed at the University of East London. When I left, in June 2005, after a truly inspiring nine months, it was with the conviction that I really needed to take steps to qualify as a lawyer. In September 2005 I started the law conversion course (GDL) at the London branch of the College of Law with a view to working, eventually, in the area of human rights and refugee law. Canada Omar Aboud - Following my work in Cairo in the summer of 2002, I moved back to Canada where I completed my work with the Canadian Military. Following that, I worked briefly with UNDP in Syria on an environmental project. A few months before the war on Iraq in 2003, I was tasked to establish and later manage a sub-office near the Syrian-Iraqi border in preparation/anticipation of the possible influx of refugees. The office was assisting in the running of a refugee camp called Al Hol, as well as other cross/trans border operations into Iraq. When the emergency was declared over in August 03, the office was shutdown and I moved into Iraq where I worked for almost a year on a local governance project. As a team leader, most of my time in Iraq was spent between Baghdad and Baquba although I managed to visit and spend time in all the provinces. Presently, I am the security advisor for the UN’s Iraq Support Centre in Amman where I get to go on missions mostly to Iraq but also elsewhere such as Sudan. Please stay in touch, below please find my coordinates: Jordan: +962-79-692-6185; Syria: + 963-93-449-677; Montreal: +1-514-898-0711; Fax and Voicemail: +1-514-221-3158; omar_aboud@hotmail.com. Gallit Dobner Rana Kasafi - I joined the Legal Aid Office (AMERA) in September 2002 on an internship program funded by Foreign Affairs Canada. In 2003, I completed the second part of my internship with UNHCR Cairo screening appeal cases; it was very interesting to have worked with asylum seekers/refugees through AMERA and then work with them through UNHCR. It gave me a good perspective of the different ends of the spectrum. After completing my MSc in Social Policy and Planning in Developing Countries from LSE in 2004 I worked at the King Hussein Foundation-Information and Research Center in Amman, Jordan and then went back to UNHCR and worked with UNHCR Jordan as a protection officer and SGBV focal point in their field office in Ruwayshid. I am currently still with UNHCR Jordan. In all honesty, working with AMERA gave me the ability to really work one-on-one with asylum seekers and refugees and made me see that they are not just a file number but also a life. This has definitely helped me with my work with the UN and I am glad I was able to work with AMERA before getting into the UN system. At the end of the day, we must all realize that many of us may one day, go from being a protection officer to being stateless, seeking asylum, displaced, or a refugee. For old colleagues who wish to stay in touch, please do so on ksaifi@unhcr.org or rana_ksaifi@hotmail.com All the best to everyone. Augusta Lokhorst - In the spring of 2003, I finished my MSW thesis exploring refugee experience and the organization of the Canadian refugee determination system. Seeing that Canada’s borders are increasingly closed to forced migrants, I wanted to extend my social work practice to refugees in a country of first asylum. From October 2003 until April 2004, I forged the position of social worker-counselor with the Cairo Refugee Legal Aid Project. To this effort, I brought a background in crisis intervention with women who had been violated, somato-emotional work with survivors of torture, and experience as a hospital social worker. Perhaps the greatest reward for this work in Cairo was the distinction of being considered as “mother” by many clients. I have taken this honor to heart and, since my return, have maintained contact with as many clients as possible as they continue their struggle in Cairo or in resettlement to the US or Canada. In doing so, I have come to realize how vital this continuity of contact can be for many. Recently I have also sought out contacts for AMERA that could facilitate private sponsorship to Canada. I have returned to a position as a hospital social worker in Vancouver and am active on the board of an NGO working with inland refugees. I continue to integrate my experience with AMERA and investigate how my practice with refugees will next unfold. Anne-Marie Loong - After pursuing an internship with AMERA in the summer of 2004, I returned to McGill University Faculty of Law to complete two semesters. During my internship I wrote a research paper on early-warning signs of genocidal conflict and Darfurian refugee movements. The paper is based on interviews with refugees from Darfur in Egypt and several Sudanese Organization Against Torture (SOAT) files to which I had access. During the summer of 2005, I briefly returned to Cairo to conduct further interviews with Darfurian refugees and employees of the UNHCR. I spent the rest of the 2005 summer working for Stikeman Elliott LLP in Montreal, Canada. Delphine Lourtau - I worked as a legal
advisor at AMERA from May to August 2005. This summer, having
finished my second year of law school at McGill University, I am
working as a legal intern at the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. Starting in the fall, I will be
volunteering with Comité Action Refugiés, a Montreal-based
organisation which provides legal assistance to asylum Lucas Lung - After leaving Cairo in 2003, I returned to the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law and continued my studies. I became involved with the law school’s poverty clinic where I handled refugee and criminal cases, as well as a number of other human rights working groups. I have also been involved with the law school’s International Human Rights Clinic, which recently intervened at the Canadian Supreme Court in Mugesera v. Canada. Recently, several classmates and I have been speaking before groups of high school students on the subject of international human rights law. I spent the summer of 2004 working at the Toronto office of McCarthy Tétrault LLP and will return there to article after completion of the Ontario bar admission course. Dustin Okazaki Hala Rashed - After completing my bar requirements in Canada, I worked half time at AMERA from September 2004 to April 2005 while I clerked at the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt. My work at AMERA led me to participate in an Amnesty International field mission to Rwanda in May 2005, the aim of which was to assess the reintegration of repatriated Rwandan refugees into Rwandan society, and the human rights situation of refugees living in Rwanda. I recently began working as a legal advisor to the Palestinian authorities on permanent status negotiations in Ramallah, West Bank. Michael Sanderson - Following my time at Legal Aid I returned to London to take up a lectureship in human rights law at the University of London. Since then I have published research articles on European human rights law in the King’s College Law Journal and the European Human Rights Law Review, as well as book reviews and case comments in the Modern Law Review and the American Journal of International Law. I have now left teaching and since the autumn of 2004 I have been in private practice as a barrister based in the Temple, London. I specialise in housing law with an emphasis on the judicial review of state housing allocations. At the time of writing (February 2005), I am on a two-month sabbatical in Brazil where I am learning how to surf. Marina Sharpe - Since volunteering with AMERA in Cairo, I've completed three more semesters of law school at McGill in Montreal, and am currently completing my final semester on exchange at the National University of Singapore. I spent last summer working in corporate law at Cravath, Swaine and Moore LLP in New York. This summer, I will write the New York bar exams, and then spend some time volunteering with the Refugee Law Project in Kampala, before returning to Cravath in January of 2006. Julia Smith - Since leaving Cairo in 2004, I have been working on my MA in Immigration and Settlement Studies at Ryerson University in Toronto. In December 2004 I went to Ukraine as a Short Term International Observer of the Repest Second Round of the Presidential Elections. I am also on the board of directors for an NGO, Multilingual Community Interpeter Services. MCIS provides interpreting services for immigrant women who are survivors of domestic violence both within the justice system and the immigration system. Rana Taher - I interned at Legal Aid for six months from September 2003 until end February 2004. I then spent some time working on my thesis that reflected my experience in Cairo. After that, I worked in Canada with the government. I was a special assistant to a Member of Parliament in Pierrefonds, Quebec, where I practiced the role of community coordinator and liaison between the government and citizens of the riding. I left the post to return to the Middle East. Rana interned again with AMERA and then went to work at the Frontiers Centre, a refugee legal aid NGO in Lebanon. Paulina Wyrzykowski - I was among the first batch of interns to work on the project, back in 2000, when it was still being run out of Professor Harrell-Bond’s apartment in Garden City. In my first year of law at the time, I found it an overwhelming experience. I came back the following summer to work for Musa’adeen, a grassroots refugee organization, and left feeling marginally more competent. The third time around, in the summer of 2003, I worked for the Sudanese Organization Against Torture (SOAT). In between those summers, I completed my law degree and a Masters of Social Work, and interned at the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture (CCVT). These days I practice refugee and immigration law in Toronto. The people and stories I encountered that first summer cling to my skin and pull me back towards Africa. I know I know it’s only a matter of time before I follow the pull. Chad Abdel bassit Djazouli - My internship period was from May - October 2004. I now do graduate studies in mass communications at the Arab Center for Research and Studies, affiliated with the League of Arab States, here in Cairo. My thesis is on how to deal with the tarnished image and stereotypes pertaining to African refugees. Is there a room for promoting the idea of partnerships? The internship I have had with AMERA’s wonderful team has broadened my scope of refugee work. Also, I want to express my gratitude to you for keeping me informed of issues concerning fellow refugees and organisations working for their welfare. Czech Republic Petra
Nohavicova Denmark Janice Granados - After supporting the Refugee Legal Aid Project as a volunteer during 2000-2002, I left Cairo to do the European Master in Human Rights and Democratization (E.MA) - partly at the University of Padua (Italy), partly at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Assistance, University of Lund (Sweden). In 2003 I left for Ghana together with my family, but returned to Denmark soon after in 2004. I am now a member of the Emergency Roster of the Danish Refugee Council. Since September 1, 2005, I am working at IRCT (International Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture) as a Personnel Assistant to Inge Genefke, who started this pioneer work in Copenhagen in the 1970's. We are not working directly with rehabilitation (others in the national branch of the organisation are) but with international issues, ending impunity being one of them. Tanja Roug - After leaving Cairo in 2003, I worked for four months for the Refugee Law Project in Kampala, Uganda where I was involved in interviewing and screening refugee resettlement cases. Subsequent to this, I worked one year for a human rights lawyer in Copenhagen, Denmark defending refugees who were due to be sent back to their countries of origin after having served prison terms in Denmark, as well as for the Danish Ministry for Integration. However, my interest in Africa brought me back to Cape Town, which I now consider my permanent home. After a period working for a Cape Town based German legal consultancy firm specialising in immigration, I proceeded to become the managing director of European Travel Insurance’s regional Africa office. I negotiate and liaise with healthcare providers around Africa in order to ensure good conditions and swift assistance for policyholders living and travelling in Africa. Egypt Wesal Afifi - I worked at the Refugee Legal Aid Project from June 2001-May 2002. I spent the summer in Warsaw, Poland working at a drug rehabilitation centre, and then returned to Egypt and completed the Graduate Diploma in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at AUC whilst conducting research on educational opportunities for refugee children in Cairo. I went back to Poland and taught at the Callan School of English in Krakow, and studied Polish for nearly a year. Returning to Egypt in August 2004, I began work at Catholic Relief Services on an educational grants programme for refugees, and conducted research with FMRS on the Africa Citizenship and Discrimination Audit on behalf of the Open Society Justice Initiative. I hope that I'll be in the UK in September 2005 or 2006 to pursue an LLM, and hope to be fluent in Polish in a few years time. Aya El Hilaly - I was an intern with the Legal Aid Project from December 2001 to October 2002. I became a research assistant at the political science department at the American University in Cairo from September 2002 to December 2003. I also worked as a student technology assistant at the American University in Cairo for two semesters. I worked as a part-time researcher with the FMRS from February - May 2003 and as a full-time researcher from June-September 2003. Since September 2003 I have been employed by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights as a Health and Human Rights Program Officer. I've also been studying at the American University in Cairo for an M.A. in International Human Rights Law, and am currently writing my thesis. Aya has now been employed by AMERA as our Minors lawyer. Sanaa El Hakim - After leaving legal aid in June 2003, I worked in UNHCR Sudan for a year and a half, first for a year in Eastern Sudan as an eligibility officer on the Eritrean RSD project, then as a protection officer in Darfur (on the protection of the internally displaced). In February 2005 I began a diploma that targets "international legal field officers" (juriste internationaliste de terrain) and a certificate in humanitarian assistance in the University of Aix-Marseille III, France. I have spoken about AMERA to a few of my classmates who had expressed their interest in applying for an internship with the organization. Atef El Marakby - I interned at the RLAP for seven months in 2003/04, at the time the project was under the EOHR umbrella. At RLAP, I provided legal assistance to refugees and asylum seekers, prepared submissions to UHNCR on their behalf, accompanied them to their RSD interviews, provided verbal and written statements on the application of the law. Later, I undertook an internship at UNHCR Cairo, where I worked in the Protection Unit for four months. Currently, I am undertaking research on the implementation of the Convention against Torture (CAT) in Arabic-speaking countries and the practice of the Committee against Torture. This is part of my legal intern placement with Redress in London. Lately, I helped Redress with its recent project of drafting a handbook for Sudanese Lawyers for national and international remedies for torture. It can be found at www.redress.org/publications/Sudan05.pdf I am sure it could be a useful reference to AMERA’s work with Sudanese Refugees in Cairo. In June 2005, I attended the Summer Refugee Course at York University in Toronto. Following the course, I am due to participate in the Law Programme with Article 19 in London for nine weeks. Atef has since returned to AMERA to work on our RSD cases.Mohammed El-Messiry - Mohammed is a bar-certified lawyer who worked for 13 months as a trainee at AMERA and has been employed as of March 2006 as a legal officer. Sherifa Shafie - I volunteered at AMERA from June 2004 to January 2005. After I left AMERA, I continued the courses for the MA in Political Science at AUC and in December 2005, I submitted my thesis entitled “The Politics of the Conflict in Darfur.” In February 2006, I enrolled in the MA in Refugee Studies at the University of East London. Sherif El Sayed-Ali - After working with the Refugee Legal Aid Project in 2002, I worked with a development NGO in Cairo for nine months. I then joined Amnesty International in London in April 2003, which brought me back to the refugee field. I have since been working on refugee and migrants’ rights in the Middle East and North Africa region. I keep contact with AMERA and several colleagues from the Refugee Legal Aid Project. Now I am a member of AMERA UK’s Board. Sahar Mansour - I spent two and a half months training at the AMERA office in 2004. I then left to work as a coordinator in a project on disabled children in Upper Egypt. I am now not working for health reasons. Ashraf Ruxi Milad George Milad - George is a bar-certified lawyer who worked as a trainee at AMERA for thirteen months and, as of March 2006, has been appointed as a legal officer. Sohair Razek - After moving to London, I volunteered with the Refugee Council for five months. I worked on two projects: the second version of their Quality Assurance Manual for Refugee organisations which I co-edited and designed, and their National Conference "Refugee Integration and Cohesive Communities" which I organised. I started volunteering for the British Red Cross in March 2005 and I am now an active member of their Tracing and Messaging service and I take part in general fundraising activities for the organisation. Naureen Tadros - I worked as an intern for AMERA-Egypt and helping with accounting systems and writing funding proposals. France Claire McGregor - After volunteering with AMERA (from September 04 to June 05), I enrolled at the London School of Economics for a one year LLM in Public International Law. Annabel Masquefa Mercuri - After leaving Cairo, I completed my master’s degree in development studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia where I did an ethnographic study on the occupational mobility of skilled Sudanese refugee entrants. Since then I have been working at Mexico’s largest ICT (Information Communication Technology) development project with the ministries of development (SEDESOL), education (SEP) and one of Mexico’s leading academic institutions. The study of how a community evolves and changes with the advent of the computer is what I have been doing for the last year. At the beginning of April, I will be working as a part-time researcher for the project which will give me more freedom to move around Mexico and Latin America. I intend to visit some of the refugee communities in Chiapas, at the Guatemalan border focusing on health related issues. Aurelia Perrier - After interning with Legal Aid in 2001-2002, I returned to the University of Virginia where I finished my BA degree in philosophy. I then completed the year-long CASA program (Center for Arabic Studies Abroad) at AUC. In 2003 I started a Masters in Arab Studies at Georgetown University and am now about to start my PhD in Middle East history at Georgetown, where I hope to concentrate on social history, Islamic law and gender. I have spent a summer in Yemen interning for a French research institute (CEFAS) and have worked with Saad Eddin Ibrahim in Washington on his next book on democratization in the Middle East. Germany Max Bonneman - I was interning with the Legal Aid from January- April 2002 and since my return to Berlin I have continued my studies in Political and Islamic Science. I have been interning for a German Newswire Service reporting from the Middle East in March and April 2003 and have been working for the Arabic Section of the Deutsche Welle Radio one year later. Currently, I am writing my thesis on the Arab coverage of the 2003 Iraq War. Guyana Auro Fraser - is from Guyana. He graduated with a first class honours in International Relations with Spanish from the University of Birmingham. After leaving the Refugee Project in Egypt, he was a human rights advisor to Human Rights Monitor, a leading NGO in Nigeria. He is completing an LLM in international Human Rights Law from the University of Essex and is currently a UNV human rights officer in the field of security at the new UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala. He has a specific interest in human rights in the Commonwealth Caribbean, on which he has been published in leading journals. He can be contacted at mrfraser1@yahoo.com. Iran Hani Mansourian - Leaving Cairo in the hot summer of 2001, I promised myself to get the most out of the short but unique experience I had with AMERA. Back home, I started building upon it by expanding my knowledge and expertise on human rights and refugee law as my permanent, side activity. Beginning with a research on Refugee Dispute Settlement Committees in Iran which was published in Forced Migration Review, I continued by becoming a trainer on Human Rights, including Refugee and IDPs as a major part of my activities, since summer 2002, I tried to keep my moral commitment. In the other part of my life, the famous so called ‘professional life,’ I continued working with an Iranian NGO, Society for Protection and Assistance to Socially Disadvantaged Individuals, with a mandate focusing on sex work, drug abuse and HIV/AIDS, till May 2003 (some months after the famous Bam earthquake). The earthquake of Bam dragged me not only to this area of Iran but also to the field of tracing and family reunification for separated children (which is always a major issue in displacement contexts). I am currently working with UNICEF as a child protection officer, specializing in tracing and family reunification. Ireland Helen
Bartlett Italy Francesca Bombi - After leaving the RLAP in Cairo in September 2003, I did an internship with UNHCR in Costa Rica, conducting pre-screening resettlement interviews with Colombian Refugees for five months. Since May 2004 I work as associate protection officer (UNV) with UNHCR in Afghanistan, Herat. The 'protection work' in Afghanistan is linked with the massive repatriation of Afghan returnees from Iran and Pakistan and is proving extremely challenging in a context where security and rule of law are still very much 'under construction'. Personally I have been in charge of training implementing partners (usually local NGOs) and government counterparts (particularly the Minister of Repatriation and Refugees and the Minister of Women Affairs) on Human Rights and Protection; of 'human rights monitoring' in the field, with a specific focus on women's rights, and of the 'extremely vulnerable individuals', identification and assistance among the returnees at the border, with a specific focus on unaccompanied women (UNHCR runs a shelter for Unaccompanied women mainly because there is no other place where they can stay) and unaccompanied minors. The main problem at the moment remains intervention and assistance, once the several 'protection issues' have been identified, especially since UN agencies and NGOs are witnessing a decrease of funds and the government counterparts do not seem ready to take the lead in addressing problematic issues. On the positive side, the effort to create efficient coordination mechanisms among different actors (UN, NGOs, and government) has started giving some results. I will probably end my contract in August 2005, more than anything to preserve my mental sanity. Daniele Calvani – After leaving the Refugee Legal Aid Project – where I interned from September 2001 to May 2002 – I have been coordinating the FMRS Cairo Community Interpreters Project at the AUC (www.aucegypt.edu/academic/fmrs/interpreters) focusing on the development of training courses for refugee interpreters and multi-lingual and culture-specific dictionaries. I conceived the project as a base for research on linguistic diversity among refugee communities. This led me to publish the working paper Initial Overview of the Linguistic Diversity of Refugee Communities in Cairo (http://www.aucegypt.edu/fmrs/Reports/reports.html) in 2003, and initiate a co-operation with the English Language Institute at the AUC, where the Cairo Refugee Language Project was officially born as a permanent and on-going study of languages and language issues among refugees in Cairo. Professor Robert Williams (ELI) and I are now working on the drawing of a sociolinguistic map of Cairo in co-operation with the Department of Linguistics-Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. We are also planning to conduct fieldwork on endangered languages in Ethiopia. Recently, I was in Istanbul for a month, where Pilar Duch, Helen Bartlett, Andrew Gardner (former RLAP interns), some colleagues of theirs, and I began to work on the setting-up of an Istanbul Community Interpreters Project. It was a great experience, which I would gladly repeat wherever the need for such projects exists. Since November 2004, I am on an Arabic (very) intensive course with a view to resume my doctoral work on female literary. Although I enjoy travelling quite a lot, I do not seem to be able to leave Cairo, where – time permitting – I also intend to promote education for children, write a number of articles on literary analysis of novels produced by immigrants, acquire more knowledge of Islamic philosophy, and possibly settle down. I came to Cairo by chance, joined the RLAP by chance, and… Riccardo Clerici - I interned at the Refugee Legal Aid Project (RLAP) from September 2003 to March 2004. I then completed my Masters in Development Studies at Brandeis University. I did a short experience in Lebanon with a human rights organization in October 2004. I attended a two-week training course with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in March 2005 and for the following three months I will be "on call" with them to leave for the first six-month mission. MSF Holland has a position as Humanitarian Affairs Officer, but because of my limited experience, I might be employed as logistic-administrator. In the meantime, I am improving my French because of MSF's presence mostly in francophone countries and studying in detail humanitarian law and humanitarian relief operations. I am also informally collaborating with an interdisciplinary group of development consultants for a post-tsunami reconstruction project in Sri Lanka. Lyndall Passerini - Lyndall came to Cairo in 2001 with Caroline Moorehead to interview Liberians. They have been coming to Cairo annually since that time and she accompanied Caroline on many trips for the book, Human Cargo. Lyndall was a founding board member of AMERA-UK and wrote up her series of lectures on Italy which she presents to academics who visit Italy for publication and sale to raise funds for refugees. Irene Raciti - I was a Legal Aid Intern from September 2003 till March 2004. I am currently undertaking a Masters Degree in International Humanitarian Assistance at University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain and volunteering for CEAR Bilbao (Refugee's Legal Service). Japan Lynn Yoshikawa - After I worked on the Southern Sudanese Student group that got group resettlement, I went to Thailand and volunteered with Jesuit Refugee Service assessing the problems of asylum seekers on the Thai-Burma border after the UNHCR suddenly suspended RSD with no notice in early 2004. After I completed my research I started coordinating a field program to provide primary relief, advocacy and legal assistance to asylum seekers. After over a year in limbo, the UNHCR and the Thai authorities still have not set up any mechanism for asylum seekers to access protection despite our lobbying efforts. Jordan Ayman
Halasa Kenya Monica Mbaru - I am a legal practitioner from Kenya with a background in working with human rights organisations on public interest cases and paralegal training with rural communities and prisons. My internship with AMERA was part of my training at the American University in Cairo one of the partner universities with the Centre for Human Rights based at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. While there I was also undertaking a Masters Course in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (LLM). The course brings together lawyers from all over Africa. My presence in Egypt included a course in International Comparative Law together with my dissertation focused on the rights of women with disabilities in the contest of their right to work in dignity. I returned to Kenya in December 2005. Netherlands Esther Dingemans - Although I was never actively involved in the Legal Aid Project itself, the foundations for the work that I am presently involved were laid in there, where I undertook a study into refugee children's wellbeing and their right to education. Ever since my departure, I have been working in the area of child protection in emergency contexts, working on various topics related to child rights and the exploitation and abuse of children. I have spent the past few years working for various INGOs in Guinea, Ivory Coast and Sudan (Darfur) managing child protection programs. I am presently doing freelance work and am about to embark on a new assignment to Darfur to assess and help strengthen Save the Children US's response to the wide range of Gender Based Violence issues in that region. Christian Mommers - After leaving AMERA and Egypt in August 2004, I moved to Bratislava, Slovakia, from where I am finishing a MA degree in organisational anthropology with a thesis on partnerships between UNHCR and NGOs in northern Uganda. Since February 2005 I have also been acting as a consultant on an integration project for refugees conducted by a Slovak NGO, Clovek v Ohrozeni (People in Peril). In April, I will start giving a series of guest lectures at the Faculty of Law, Trnava University, comparing the Dutch, Ugandan and Egyptian reception and status determination procedures. Dr. Katinka Ridderbos - I was in Cairo from May to October 2004. From November 2004 until January 2005 I worked at the Legal Resources Centre in Cape Town, South Africa. From February until August 2005 I am based at the Refugee Law Project in Kampala, Uganda to do a research project on access to justice for the refugees in the camps in Uganda. Judith Smeets - While I was in Cairo, I was writing my thesis on human rights organisations in Egypt. I cooperated with Dr. Harrell-Bond in providing profiles of each organisation I interviewed which was important basic work for both refugee legal aid, which was just beginning, and for the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Programme which was also in its infancy. After I left I began work with the Dutch Refugee Council researching country of origin information and, as such, I had to follow up the developments in Egypt. I do have at this point a rather updated database of articles on the developments of the Egyptian human rights organizations and the newly formed Kifaya movement. I am currently studying law at the Free University of Brussels. New Zealand Tze Ming Mok - I interned at RLAP for four months in the first half of 2004, having previously been a refugee status determination officer for the New Zealand government. Upon returning to New Zealand I was involved in activism surrounding a prominent Security-Certificate refugee detention case (see www.freezaoui.org.nz), and I currently work for the New Zealand Human Rights Commission (see www.hrc.co.nz). I am also a literary writer. One day I will get a law degree and be of some use to someone, somewhere, preferably (in my dreams) the International Criminal Court. Kathryn Paton - After spending six months in Cairo in 2003 working with RLAP I returned to New Zealand to complete my legal professionals course. I then began work as a ministerial advisor to the New Zealand Minister of Immigration. Eight months later I was seconded to work as a legal associate with two immigration appeals bodies in New Zealand. I will now begin work as a policy analyst with the Office of the Voluntary and Community Sector which looks to strengthen the relationship between government and the community sector. During this time I have also been working as a crisis support worker for the HELP Sexual Abuse Foundation, and I have volunteered as an area coordinator for the Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer Street Appeal. I hope to complete a Masters in Development Studies in the near future. Larissa Wakim - Since working at the Refugee Legal Aid Project, May-August 2003, I completed my LLM at the University of Michigan and then spent a year working at the Law School as a visiting research scholar in the Program in Refugee and Asylum Law with Professor James Hathaway. During my time at Michigan, I also interned with the UNHCR in Washington, DC, the AIRE Centre in London, and was a legal investigator with a US Department of State team sent to the Chad/Sudan border to interview refugees to assess whether genocide had occurred in Darfur. In July 2005, I started work as an assistant investigator with the International Criminal Court. Norway Gry Ballestad - I was working with the Legal Aid Project in Cairo during the fall/early winter 2001/2002 after which I spent one and a half years working with the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), first as an observer and then as a research officer. After completing my contract I worked three months as an information officer with a Norwegian NGO (NPA) in Gaza, then I moved to a six months secondment as a research officer with UNRWA, and currently I am working as a JPO with UNDP - also in Gaza. Russia Kirill Konne - After leaving Cairo in August 2003, I went back to Bangkok, Thailand to continue working on a refugee education project, getting scholarships for children of refugees from Burma, Congo, Palestine, Sri Lanka to study at international schools in Bangkok. Another former AMERA friend, Lynn Yoshikawa and I started, and now moderate the yahoo group for AMERA alumni: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/refugeelegalaidnetwork/ Right now there are 75 people who are a part of this network. Currently I work as an Eligibility Officer at the UNHCR/Phnom Penh, Cambodia with Montagnards from Vietnam. I am also organizing the first Refugee Film Festival in South East Asia. Singapore Dave Sivaprasad - After leaving Cairo in Jan 2003, I started work with a consulting firm, Mckinsey and Co, based in Singapore. I’ve been working on projects with various companies, primarily in energy and industrial products. I am looking for opportunities to contribute to any initiatives focused on education or economic development. Slovakia Daniela Raiman - I worked for the Refugee Legal Aid Project first as a volunteer, then from September 2002 to February 2004 as the Senior Legal Officer. I left RLAP for UNHCR Cairo office, where I was responsible for all training and learning–related activities, including administration of the internship scheme. I left Egypt in December 2004 to Chad and I have stayed there since, working as Protection Officer (UNHCR/IRC Surge Protection Capacity Project) in the refugee camp of Farchana on the eastern border with Darfur, Sudan. South Africa Gina Bekker - I was involved in the provision of legal aid to refugees in Cairo from 2000-2002, initially, working out of Barbara’s apartment alongside Mark Pallis before the formalisation of the Refugee Legal Aid Project, which I directed for a year. I left Cairo in October 2002 to take up a Commonwealth Scholarship in the UK. I am currently in the process of finalising my PhD thesis, the topic of which is the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Spain Pilar
Duch Elena Fiddian Mendez - Since leaving Cairo in mid-August 2004, I have written two articles for publication: one on the impact of protracted exile on Saharawi gender relations (for a book on Gender and Islam in Africa), and one on asylum in Cairo (for the Inverventions Journal in Postcolonial Studies). From April-August 2005 I worked as a law clerk at the International Criminal Court, focusing entirely on the Darfur referral. I then completed a short-term consultancy for the University of Oxford, interviewing refugee children aged 8-13, and will start my doctoral work on gender and exile at Oxford in October 2005. Once I complete a nine-month Arabic language course (probably in Lebanon) I am planning to complete fieldwork in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria, and to work with Saharawi refugees based in Cuba. AMERA is well represented at Queen Elizabeth House with this year's new students: three of us who are new to QEH have interned with AMERA in Cairo! Roz (Rosalind Evans) and myself are doctoral students (Roz had previously completed the MSc in Forced Migration), and there's an American girl doing the MPhil. Sudan Abu Assal Ahmed Abu Assal - I first heard of AMERA when Professor Barbara Harrell-Bond and another staff member came to discuss donations from Sudan Organization against Torture (SOAT-Cairo) to AMERA in December 2003. I had to represent SOAT at that meeting. I had known of RLAP before, though. A month later I joined AMERA as a community interpreter. From February 2004 to June 2005 I worked at AMERA as a receptionist. It was the richest work period in my career as I worked with highly knowledgeable and committed staff and volunteer personnel. I helped with seeing to clients, referring them to focal points, interpreting for them and training new interns. My SOAT experience added a lot to my work with AMERA. I left Cairo for the US where I work now as a free contractor interpreter with an office that hires interpreters for different institutions. I am now applying for an International Criminal Court (ICC) interpreter post thanks to the recommendation by Professor Barbara. Sweden Alex R. Moradi - After the completion of my internship at the Legal Aid Project in Cairo, I went back to my institution (Brandeis University) USA, and finished my M.A. in Sustainable International Development in May 2002. I decided then to pursue another MA in International Humanitarian Assistance at Uppsala University. This program is offered by five European Universities collaboratively. I finished my studies in January 2004. I am now in the United States, and have been working with a few short-term projects in the field of gender issues, development and human rights journalism. I have been offered a position at an international consultancy firm in D.C. By the way, I got married to Laura Liptak (now officially Moradi) in April 2004. My e-mail: alexis_moradi@hotmail.com. Javieria Rizvi – After leaving Cairo in 2002, Javieria completed an MA in Human Rights at Gothenburg University, Sweden and also received her Certificate in Press and Journalism from the Poppius School of Journalism, Sweden. Since September 2003, Javieria has been the Youth Project manager at TERRAFEM, a women’s support network in Stockholm. Switzerland Linda Signer - I was an intern in 2001 whilst I was studying for my degree in Psychology and Philosophy at the London School of Economics. Since I left I completed my Bachelors and an MA in International Relations, Management and Economics in St. Andrews. The coming year I am having a break since I am expecting a baby but I hope to be back on track soon. Turkey Deniz Gokalp - I worked for the RLAP (Refugee Legal Aid Project) between May 2003 and August 2003 as a full-time volunteer intern. After a precious experience at the RLAP office, I left Cairo. After a six months fieldwork in Eastern Turkey during the end of the year 2004, I am back in Austin, Texas, where I study Sociology at the University of Texas. I am currently writing my dissertation on displacement of Kurds and armed conflict in Southeastern Turkey, which I expect to complete in 2006. Uganda Jimmy Obomba - After one year (2000-01) of volunteer work at the Legal Aid Project, I went and did three-month internship in Lebanon with the Ad-hoc Committee for the Support of Non-Palestinian Refugees [now Frontiers Centre] in Lebanon. During the internship I trained members of the committee on refugee law and individual case work. Thereafter, I traveled back to Uganda and volunteered for two local human rights NGO’s; Sudan Human Rights Association and Foundation for Human Rights Initiative before joining Amnesty International Africa Regional Office in Kampala – Uganda. At Amnesty, I was a focal person monitoring refugee trends in the region (Africa) as well as giving support to the researches based at the regional office. It was quite an interesting job that enabled me to understand forced migration trends in the region. Currently I am a United Nations Volunteer working with UNHCR as a field officer in Kyaka II Refugee Settlement with the refugee population of over 15,000. Before the field officer position, I participated in the repatriation of Rwandans. I must say that the volunteer work at the Refugee Legal Aid Project and the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Programme, at the American University in Cairo are experiences I will continue to value and refer to in my work. Moses Chrispus Okello - I joined AMERA-Egypt in October 2004 as a recommendee of the Department of Political Science at the American University in Cairo. The department of Political Science runs a program, which permits graduate students to take a practicum with an organisation in Egypt and obtain credit for it, rather than do the ordinary courses work. Such was my relationship with AMERA. I have, since leaving AMERA, returned to Uganda to work in the research and advocacy department of the Refugee Law Project (www.refugeelawproject.org), at the Faculty of Law, Makerere University. At the RLP my duties range from conducting field research, speaking at national and international conferences and with different media houses, to defending RLP positions regarding the protection of refugees and internally displaced people in Uganda. In a different sense, this means a lot of travelling around Uganda, and sometimes to very dangerous parts of the country. Overall, I enjoy my work. Namusobya Salima
USA Lisa Weinberg - After spending January - July 2005 volunteering for AMERA, I returned to the US. I am currently working four days a week at the International Institute of Boston as a political asylum and human trafficking attorney. I am also working as a consultant one day a week at the Worcester Massachusetts Asylum Legal Assistance Project of Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Services, a project that I helped co-found in 2001. I was recently appointed co-vice chair of the Refugee Law Subcommittee of the Human Rights Committee of the American Bar Association. I am currently working on an article about the unique challenges illiterate asylum seekers face in every juncture of the legal process. Since December 30 I have also been leading a lobbying effort advocating for the US Congress to aid the Sudanese in Cairo. Karen Alderman - I arrived in Cairo having completed the Legal Practice Course in London. I am now back in London and have started my two-year training at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which is a corporate law firm. There is opportunity to do pro bono work and I have completed a report for Reprieve (an American NGO working towards the abolition of the death penalty). I also volunteer at a Citizens Advice Bureau. Perveen Ali - After working for the Refugee Legal Aid Project on the Ethiopian reopening cases from 2001-2002, I returned to Seattle where I completed law school at the University of Washington and worked as a research assistant for Professor Joan Fitzpatrick until spring 2003, preparing publications on the impact of the war on terrorism on the human rights, humanitarian, and refugee legal regimes. I then moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where I completed a short course on international and comparative law and worked as an intern for the Administrative and Refugee Justice project of the Legal Resources Centre. At the end of 2003, I was invited to return to Egypt to direct the Refugee Legal Aid Project under its new incarnation as AMERA-Egypt, where I am working at present. (Perveen ended her time at AMERA in November 2005.) Samar Al-Bulushi - Upon my return to New York from Cairo in May 2003, I accepted a position with Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) in their International Law and Human Rights Program. The primary focus of the program’s work is assisting legislators in the preparation and adoption of effective national legislation to ratify and implement the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in national systems. I have just returned from Cairo, where we organized a regional parliamentary conference in the Parliament of Egypt on the Rule of Law and Protection of Civilians: the Role of Legislators. Our website: www.pgaction.org. Ramsey Al-Rikabi - After nine months at AMERA, I began working in September 2003 as an editor at Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo. I wrote stories for that newspaper from Baghdad between February and April of 2004. I returned to the United States in the summer of 2004 and am now working for a daily called the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, New York. Emily E. Arnold-Fernández - I interned at the Refugee Legal Aid Project in Cairo in 2002. I am currently the Ruth Chance Law Fellow at Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), a women's rights impact litigation organization in San Francisco, California, USA. Outside of work, I serve on the Immigration Committee of the National Lawyers Guild (San Francisco chapter), advocating for immigrant and refugee rights. I am part of a group of former interns and lawyers currently starting a US nonprofit to raise funds to support refugee legal aid in Cairo and elsewhere. Before joining ERA, I chaired Georgetown University Law Center's Equal Justice Foundation, raising over $250,000 annually to support student public interest legal work throughout the world. Negar Azimi - Since leaving the Refugee Legal Aid Project (where I worked from September 2001-June 2002) I have continued to write about refugee and human rights related issues both in the greater Middle East and beyond. After leaving my full-time position at the Project, I continued to work with a number of my refugee clients, following up on their pending cases at the UNHCR. In addition, I set up a number of arts workshops at the Townhouse Gallery of contemporary art, www.thetownhousegallery.com, which exists to this day where I worked as the curatorial assistant. I am currently in a masters-doctorate program at Harvard where I head the Human Rights Public Interest Council and am working on projects related to Palestinian refugees as well as refugee resettlement programs in the United States. My experience in Cairo has been invaluable, particularly in enlightening me as to the nuanced politics of forced migration issues at large; the Project's bottom-up approach has served as a model. I continue to work as a curator in the arts and an editor of upstart magazine BIDOUN (www.bidoun.com) based out of New York City. Suzanne Bach - I interned in Cairo from August 2002 to September 2003 and also directed the Liberian Center (the refugee education project at AUC) from April to September 2003. I was recently selected as the John Ben Snow Fellow in Nonprofit Management at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where I will begin my MPA this coming July. I am currently the development and public education consultant for the OneVoice Movement at the Peaceworks Foundation, a US-based nonprofit working to empower moderate Israeli and Palestinian citizens in the Mid East peace process. I am primarily in-charge of mobilizing and expanding the fundraising base on the West Coast (US) and cultivating organizational relationships with major foundations and potential large donors. After leaving Cairo, I worked for the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) where I developed a nonprofit/for-profit joint venture business plan for integrated legal and social services training, implemented a city-wide legal education program targeting New York City at-risk youth, and handled fundraising efforts for legal services projects involving special needs populations. Jesse Bernstein - After leaving Cairo in February 2003, I returned to the University of Cape Town to become a visiting researcher at the Centre for Social Science Research. My time there resulted in the publication of a working paper on refugees working in the informal economy within Cape Town's city centre. I then returned to New York to finish a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where I wrote my senior thesis on UNHCR's cessation declaration for Eritrean refugees. I now work as a researcher at the Refugee Law Project in Kampala, along with Dr. Katinka Ridderbos and Moses Chrispus Okello, both former interns in Cairo. Jessebernstein@fastmail.us Neil Brown - After Cairo, Sean Riordan, Marina Sharpe and I published an article on the situation of Ethiopians and Eritreans in Cairo with the IJRL. We hope that as it circulates we may get some traction on that issue with resettlement governments and UNHCR. I am now finishing a Masters degree at Oxford in politics, writing on refugee well being and statelessness. I am not sure what comes next. Michael Heller Chu - Last AMERA knew he was in Darfur working for OCHA. Laura Clauson - I worked with Refugee Legal Aid from February - May 2001. The crash course and work changed my life and interests. I keep in touch with several Rwandan refugees who I interviewed at the Clinic and were subsequently resettled to Canada. They always thank me, but I think I got more out of the experience than I put in. Since I have returned to the United States, I have been the Executive Producer on a documentary about the Rwandan genocide (A Mother’s Love), which tells the story of Rwanda through an American woman's, Roz Carr, 50+ years of experience there. It is currently making the rounds looking for a buyer. For the past two and a half years I have worked as the Director of Operations for Isee Systems, Inc., a systems thinking software company. Although this has been a rewarding position, I realize that I only live once and must pursue my passion. Accordingly, I have just quit my job and will be returning to Africa - possibly Sudan, Uganda or Rwanda. I am looking for interesting opportunities in refugee education, "bridging the digital divide," or poverty alleviation in general. John-Paul DeRosa - Since leaving Cairo in 2002 and finishing my internship with an immigrant legal services office in Portland, Maine, I have worked with children of refugee families both in the school system and housing project study centers as a tutor, mentor and career exploration teacher. Many of my students have spent time in Cairo and some were helped by EOHR. I don't know what comes next, but the example set by the leaders and the volunteers at the Legal Aid Project in Cairo is always on my mind as a high water mark for what humans can be and do. Mauro
De Lorenzo Deedee Fitzpatrick - I was only with the project a short time in 2003-- I left because I was pregnant and ordered to take bed rest! My husband and I moved back to Washington, D.C. where I am practicing labor and employment law on behalf of unions and employees. I've got a beautiful daughter who is almost two years old and a son on the way. Anthony Fontes - After spending seven months with Legal Aid from July 2002-January 2003 I returned to Stanford University to finish an individually designed major in Migration and Refugee Studies in June 2003. I then co-directed and acted in a film/documentary in South America covering the 30th Anniversary of Pinochet's coup in Chile with Iris Productions. I returned to Cairo in January 2004 to do freelance journalism with various local papers until moving to San Francisco, California and taking a position as an Immigrant/Refugee Legal Caseworker with the International Institute (a nonprofit legal advocacy group for immigrants and refugees) where I am now. Lisa Gans - After I left Cairo, I joined the International Rescue Committee and worked with them in Afghanistan and Pakistan on repatriation of refugees from Pakistan and Iran to Afghanistan. I designed training materials based on Islamic law for members of the government ministry in Kabul responsible for repatriation. Since September, I have been working in sub-Saharan Africa in Swaziland, the last absolute monarchy on the continent. I have been assisting in the drafting of a new Constitution and advising various NGOs, diplomatic missions and the Law Society on constitutional, human rights and rule of law issues. It's been challenging to say the least, as absolute monarchs are not generally known for their eagerness to relinquish power. While I have taken a temporary break from refugee issues, I find that I am still using skills and drawing on lessons learned at the Refugee Legal Aid Project here in Swaziland. Noah Gottschalk -After working at the Refugee Legal Aid Project between August 2002 and June 2003, I took some time off at home in Florida, then started an MA at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in International and Comparative Legal Studies, focusing on human rights law. Among other topics, I researched the relationship between the repatriation of Southern Sudanese refugees and long-term peace building and reconciliation. My dissertation critically examined the common tendency of lumping together women and children refugees in policy and practice to determine when the best interests of each group would be better served by independent consideration from the other group. I am currently in the process of searching for a job, preferably in East Africa. In the meantime, I will be a member of a panel on Victims of Trafficking at the Network for European Women’s Rights Conference over the summer, presenting a paper entitled "Towards a Multilateral Legal Basis for the Sustainable Repatriation of Trafficked Persons." Another piece I wrote was just published in the Spring Edition of the Postgraduate Refugee Studies Newsletter. Amalia Greenberg - After volunteering for AMERA in Cairo in 2003 for seven months, I went on to provide legal assistance to asylum seekers in Turkey and to explore the opportunities of opening a legal aid office in Istanbul. I left after three months to work with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in Quito, Ecuador. There I conducted an investigation on the living conditions of Colombian asylum seekers and refugees. The results and contacts developed through the investigation aided in opening a JRS office in Quito. JRS-Quito aims to accompany refugees in their process of local integration. After a year in Ecuador, I have returned to Turkey to work in the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly Refugee Legal Aid Project- which is the result of the work of a group of people including two other AMERA volunteers - Helen Bartlett, Andrew Gardner and a lawyer, Pilar Duch, who attended AMERA’s training, as well as my initial efforts in 2003. We are currently advising and accompanying the most vulnerable of asylum seekers through the RSD process as well as working together with asylum seekers in advocacy and community building. Tom Isherwood - I came to AMERA in May 2005 after spending the spring as Barbara Harrell-Bond’s research assistant. I spent three months at AMERA as a legal advisor and headed up the access to education team. When I left AMERA, I returned to the University of Delaware to finish the last year of my Masters in International Relations. Don Kahaian - I volunteered as an intern at the Refugee Legal Aid Project from December 2001 through March 2002. Since leaving Egypt, I have been teaching English in China and Russia. Claire Johnson - I was working in Cairo
from January-June, 2005 as a social worker, researcher, and
temporary co-head of the minor's team. After leaving Cairo in
July 2005, I spent the rest of the summer traveling and then
returned to Middlebury College in the fall. I am currently
working to finish my undergraduate degree in International Politics
and Economics with a focus on Arabic and the Middle East.
While working for AMERA, my family and I started a non-profit
organization, Americans Aiding Refugees (AAR), to help provide
medical care to refugees that are not eligible to receive assistance
from organizations in Cairo. At present, we are working with Refuge
Egypt to fund expensive medical care that Refuge Egypt does not have
the funding for. This summer I will be biking from Texas to
Alaska to raise money for the American Cancer Society. I am
planning to work for a couple of years before returning to graduate
school, and am now interviewing for jobs. Matthew Lehrfeld - I volunteered with the Refugee Legal Aid Project from around October of 2001 till May of 2002. When I left Cairo, I moved to Washington DC and began working for the Foreign Service of the State Department. After nearly a year of training, mostly a painful period of Arabic language study, I started work at the US Embassy in Damascus, Syria. For the first year I worked in the political office on issues of human rights, civil society, and international organizations. My second year is in the consular office and deals with visas, immigration, US citizens’ services, etc. In October 2004, I got married to Lotte Lenears, another Legal Aid volunteer, and we’ll be moving to Washington in the summer of 2005. Lee Jackson - After leaving Refugee Legal Aid in Cairo in 2002, I moved to the UK and worked as an assistant editor for the NHS Health Development Agency, until I found myself on the wrong side of a departmental downsizing. I then spent several months in Greece, applying for a variety of positions in both the humanitarian aid and teaching sectors, before moving to Poland, where I have been teaching English for the past two years in the Silesian city of Gliwice. I will be moving to nearby Wrocaaw, where I will continue teaching for the same language school while working towards a Master's degree in Education. Ani
Mason - Before heading to Cairo, I had worked in research and
advocacy on migrants’ rights issues with Human Rights Watch in
Washington and Save the Children and UNHCR in Madrid. I was drawn to
AMERA by the opportunity it provided recent graduates to work
directly, in a legal capacity, with asylum seekers, something that
would have been impossible in the US without a law degree. I knew at
the time that I was interested in law school, but before committing
to the investment, I wanted to get Jerome Mayer-Cantu - I worked with AMERA from May to September 2005. I was on the research team, the COI team, and I also worked with minors. I am currently working with the Danish Refugee Council in Beirut, as well as interning with the UNRWA in Beirut. Sean Riordan - In Cairo I conducted research in the Ethiopian and Eritrean community and helped out with UNHCR appeals. Since then I've studied Arabic in Morocco and begun law school at UCLA in the Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. As part of a student-run asylum clinic I've been representing a Kenyan asylum seeker and this summer will work at the ACLU on immigration and national security-related litigation. I'm also doing some research on Islamic law under Khaled Abou El Fadl. Eloisa Rivera - I am happy to report that I have survived my first semester of law school. I am feeling really bogged down because of the amount of work, the pressure to find a job this summer, and the cutthroat atmosphere here. I have started to collect and post articles about people making a difference to motivate me. What really keeps me going is that this degree carries power to effectuate change from within a system . . . a real asset considering that racism hides behind codes and regulations. Back at the Refugee Legal Aid Project, I always had Wesal Afifi, Gina Bekker, and Mike Kagan to be my sources of support and guidance. More than ever I want to do something hands-on and closer to the people. Jill Schnoebelen - After my time at the RLAP (January-July 2003), I spent a year in Malaysia on a Fulbright Grant, researching the collection and distribution of zakat (Islamic tithe) and its potential for helping to eradicate poverty. I came to Ghana in February 2005 to volunteer with a local NGO called Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF). I then had a short stint here in Accra as projects coordinator with Orphanage Africa. I am currently waiting to begin work at Overseas Processing Entity (OPE), an NGO that does case prep work for refugee resettlement to the US from West Africa. jill.schnoebelen@aya.yale.edu. Frederick Sheffield - I left Cairo in the spring of 2005 after completing my Masters in International Human Rights Law and Diploma in Refugee Studies at AUC. More school looms ahead. In the fall of 2005, I will start at the University of Miami School of Law. I’m excited to be going to Miami, which besides being a hotbed for human rights and immigration issues… is, after all, Miami. While there I’m hoping to learn as much about refugee and immigration issues as I did during my time at AMERA but with a focus on US policy. Aryah
Somers David Willey - I volunteered with AMERA from late January 2002 to May 2002. Afterwards, I worked in Washington, DC. I just entered the University of Pittsburgh School of Law where I expect to graduate in 2008. I will be pursuing a certificate in International and Comparative Law as a part of my legal studies. With any luck, I will be able to come back to the Middle East, if not Egypt to work in some legal capacity. I will encourage my colleagues to pursue non-traditional legal work such as this. Melody Woolford - I graduated from SAIS Johns Hopkins in 2003 with a Masters in International Relations and concentration in Conflict Management. I accepted a job in the Middle East Affairs Office, Asia Near East Bureau, at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). I’ve been working on the Egypt and Yemen Desks in Washington and frequently travel out to our missions in the field. I will actually be working in Cairo for a couple months this spring in the USAID/Egypt Democracy and Governance Office. I need to get out of Washington for a little while. The following have not kept AMERA up to date with their subsequent activities –or are too modest to tell of their accomplishments since leaving. Andrea Nannipieri - Australia Mi Zhou - Australia 2005 Christopher Benn - UK 2002 Claire Bruce-Burgess - UK 2003 Duncan Fyfe - UK 2001 Dulani Kulasinghe - UK 2002 Sofia Shakir - UK 2004 Augusta Lockhurst - Canada Andre Grenier - Canada 2005 Rosemary John - Canada 2002 Paola Assanelli - Italy 2005 Mahmoud Ahmed - Egypt 2002 Asmaa El Toby - Egypt 2002 Mohamed Fareed - Egypt 2002 Eman Kaptan - Egypt 2002 Khalid Mansour - Egypt 2005 Sherifa el Shafie - Egypt 2002 Soha El Laithy - Germany 2001 Arndt Michael - Germany 2002 Judith Nischan - Germany 2004 Lucrezia Botton - Italy 2001 Sahalia Benatmach - Netherlands 2001 Charlotte Feijter - New Zealand 2001 Nicholas Stivang - Norway 2001 Elizabeth Candler - USA 2003 Justin Conlon - USA 2001 Jose Dayton - USA 2005 Bridget Haas - USA 2001 Bobi Morris - USA 2005 Ksacred Kelly - USA 2005-6 Melissa McAdam - Australia 2005-6 Michael Timmins - New Zealand 2005-6 Said Laziz - Canada 2006 Rebecca Mikhail – Australia - 2005/6 Deborah Thackray – UK - 2005/6 Peter Shams – Canada - 2005/6 Leanne McKay – New Zealand – 2005/6 Laura Stone – 2005/6 Andrea Gomez Jaramillo – Colombia – 2005/6 Andrew Legg – UK - 2005/6 Emmanuelle Diehl – French/American - 2005/6 Mireia Cano – Spain - 2005/6 Hannah Ester Legg – UK - 2005/6 Samah Mahmoud Kenawy – Egypt - 2005/6 Jennifer Renquist – USA - 2005/6 James Pearce – USA – 2005/6 Simon Charters – UK - 2005/6 Dalia Malek – USA - 2007 John Parc Dube – Canada - 2007 Shahin salam – new York - 2007 Helen gobin – france - 2007 Giulio Enea – Italy - 2007 Senait Kristine Checole – US - 2007 Tahmid chowdhury – US - 2007 Kay Lynn Schwader – US - 2007 Gwendolyn Roeske – US - 2007 Josie Dayler - US - 2007 Catherine Marie Schell – US - 2007 Aleah Rebecca Houze – US - 2007 Rachid Andrew knight – UK - 2007 Nishani Balendra – UK - 2007 Anthony George Leone - UK - 2007 Nishani Balendra – UK - 2007 Konul Rachid Qizi Zamanova – Azerbaijan - 2007 May Amr Abdel Mohsen Taha- Egypt - 2007 Isabelle Geb. Borchers - Germany - 2007 Fatma Hassan - Canada - 2007 Susan Jean Coleman – US - 2007 Sybil Sakle Thompson – Canada - 2007 Stephanie Esther Jones – Canada - 2007 Kathleen Hadekel – Canada - 2007 Maha Mubashar Hussain – Canada - 2007 Michael Oskin – US - 2007 Silse Ustad - Norway - 2007 Lauren Holmes Torbett – US - 2007 Caterina Spissu – Italy - 2007 Akino Kowashi - Japan - 2008 Anna Frader - US - 2008 Natalie Young - Australia - 2008 Carolyn Bancroft - USA - 2008 Nicholas Vogel - US - 2008 Rebecca Ernst - US - 2008 Catherine Hamilton - US - 2008 Rike Wiens - Germany - 2008 Charlotte Allan - England - 2008 Saba Ahmed - US - 2008 Cristina Shepherd - US - 2008 Senait Kassahun - US - 2008 Simon Olsen - Switzerland - 2008 Emma Borland - Scotland - 2008 Suchitra Vijayan - India - 2008 Emily Hay - Australia - 2008 Susannah Cunningham - US - 2008 Erica Pilcher - US - 2008 Traci Massey - US - 2008 Jennifer Ismat - US - 2008 Mallory Wankel - US - 2008 Karim Medhat Ennarah - Egypt - 2008 Martina Gerber - Switzerland - 2008 Mahmoud Farag -Egypt - 2008 Mijke de Jong - the Netherlands - 2008
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