Human Rights in Everyday Life: Lessons Learned from Latin America
Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017
9:30 - 11 a.m.
Registration begins at 9 a.m.
Chemonics Home Office
1717 H St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20006
People often think about human rights in terms of treaties, protocols, and theoretical discussions. Despite significant efforts by the global development community to highlight threats to human rights, there are still misconceptions of how human rights violations affect day-to-day life in schools, in places of work, on public transportation, in the voting booth, on social media. Women and vulnerable groups are particularly subject to human rights violations and often lack access to quality protection services. Therefore, to ensure that human rights are protected for all people, at all times, we must step back and re-examine where violations are taking place and what measures are being taken to reduce these risks. Specifically, what can we do to address human rights in everyday life?
Please join Chemonics for a moderated panel discussion on how donors and project implementers are supporting more practical, adaptive, and effective interventions to better protect human rights in the places where people live, work, and study.
Panelists will share experiences from USAID-funded projects in Latin America to spark a conversation on what works and what doesn't work in the human rights space.
PANELISTS:
Lorri Anne Meils is the human rights division chief in USAID's Center for Excellence in Democracy, Human Rights and Governance. She specializes in indigenous peoples' rights, transitional justice, civil society, and general human rights programming and has previously served in Asia and Latin America. Ms. Meils holds an undergraduate degree in anthropology from Princeton University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Berkeley Journal of International Law.
Marino Córdoba is the founder and legal representative of the National Association of Afro-Colombian Displaced-AFRODES. He has held various position of local, regional and national leadership. After living in the United States in political asylum for 10 years, Mr. Córdoba returned to Colombia in 2012 to support the Afro-Colombian movement and was fundamental uniting ethnic groups in the peace process.
Maureen Meyer directs WOLA's Mexico program with a special focus on analyzing U.S.-Mexico security policies and their relation to organized crime-related violence, corruption, and human rights violations. She promotes justice for human rights violations in Mexico and carries out advocacy work regarding U.S. security assistance to Mexico through the Merida Initiative. Before joining WOLA, Ms. Meyer lived and worked for five years in Mexico City, primarily with the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center.
Camila Payan is a deputy senior programs director overseeing programming human rights, democracy and civil society strengthening programming for Mexico and Central America at the Pan American Development Foundation. Prior to joining PADF, Ms. Payan worked at the Georgetown University, the Organization of American States, and several nonprofits in Colombia. She holds a BSFS from Georgetown University, as well as an MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
MODERATOR:
Christina Schultz is a director in the Latin American and Caribbean region at Chemonics, where she currently manages the human rights program portfolio for Mexico and Colombia. Ms. Schultz has more than 20 years of experience in democracy and governance and conflict/post-conflict transition in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan. She holds a master's degree in international relations from SIPA/Columbia University and a bachelor's degree from UCLA in international economics.
Chemonics is pleased to make this event accessible to all participants. Accommodations will be provided upon request.