After being selected as an Oslo Scholar through the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL), I began interning in June at the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) under Serbian human rights activist Srdja Popovich.
Helping organize, create and eventually participating in the CANVAS Summer Academy was the most meaningful part of my experience with CANVAS, an organization focused on promoting and teaching non-violence globally.
Two weeks ago, I began my remote work as an Oslo Scholar with the Albert Einstein Institution (AEI). AEI is a nonprofit that specializes in the study of strategic nonviolent action and communicates nonviolent methodology to movements and activists around the world.
Working with CANVAS, a non-violence training center based in Serbia, has given me the opportunity to work on a breadth of issues that relate to activism in the world today, while understanding the impact of the pandemic. Every week, I work on reports that discuss current human rights abuses and protests around the world.
“There isn’t an avenue to address your qualm and it’s by design. The system was not intended for that, there was never a democratic rule of law. Anyone can be arrested, and you don’t have the right to advocate for your child or family. That’s how they always meant for it to function.”
It is mid-July, and I have been working remotely with Courage Fund Cambodia (CFC) for approximately six weeks. With every week that passes, I learn more about not only those I am working with, and CFC as an organization, but also about what it takes to run an organization with a noble mission such as that of CFC.
This summer I am interning with One Day Seyoum (ODS), a youth-led organization dedicated to publicizing human rights violations in Eritrea and to speaking out against the current regime.
This week marks my tenth and final week at the Albert Einstein Institution (AEI). My time spent working with Executive Director and nonviolent resistance scholar Jamila Raqib has been truly wonderful.
