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A Voice For the Voiceless

The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. We recruit graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.

The Impact of Service "Speaking with locals and living in a country is the best way to learn about the real lives of citizens, not just the stories in the mainstream media. I will be more critical of what I read as a result of this experience. I also feel even more grateful for my education, and I feel a stronger responsibility to assist others who do not have resources or access to opportunities in their communities." Maria Skouras (New York University) volunteered in 2011 as a Peace Fellow for eHomemakers in Malaysia. For more 2011 feedback click here.

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Team

The material for this campaign is being collected by Dalit reporters, working from the districts. It is then translated and edited in Kathmandu by Prakash Mohara at the JMC office, with help from the Advocacy Project in Washington (Meggan Fitzgerald, Devin Greenleaf and Jes Therkelsen). The coordinator of the project is Suvash Darnal.

Suvash Darnal is founding chair of the Jagaran Media Center, a nongovernmental organization working to promote Dalit rights in Nepal through research and activism. He has also served as chairperson of the Collective Campaign for Peace, an umbrella human rights organization that seeks to strengthen Nepali democracy through programs advocating for accountability, peace, and human rights. Mr. Darnal has been an outspoken voice for Nepal’s Dalits, the so-called “untouchables” of traditional Hindu society who remain marginalized in Nepal today. He is the author of The Local Discourse of Reservation in Nepal (2005) and coeditor of The Politics of Affirmative Action and Special Rights in Nepal (2006). Mr. Darnal is currently serving as a Fellow at the National Endowment for democracy, in Washington, DC, where he is exploring strategies and techniques for including marginalized groups such as the Dalits. Email Suvash!


Prakash Mohara coordinates the project, and edits the JMC bulletins from the JMC headquarters in Kathmandu (profile to follow).











Devin Greenleaf is a freelance journalist living in Washington DC. He served as an AP Peace Fellow in Nepal with the Jagaran Media Center in 2007, where he helped to develop the JMC’s national network of Dalit reporters. Devin became a long-time enthusiast for combining media arts and social justice while working with documentary filmmakers and in his hometown of Salt Lake City. He holds a Masters degree in international politics from American University, focused on global human security and international communication.


Jes Therkelsen is currently a third-year MFA candidate in film and media arts at American University's School of Communication. He served as AP's Peace Fellow to JMC in 2008. Therkelsen also teaches Film and Digital Media at American University's School of Communication as an Adjunct Faculty.He is the founder of Wise Guise Productions, a Washington DC-based documentary production company.

Outreach Intern

Meggan Fitzgerald graduated from Binghamton University in 2004 with her BA in political science and history.  Later, as a graduate student at Binghamton she was a research assistant for the Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Data Project, which codes government respect of thirteen internationally recognized human rights for 195 countries from 1981 to the present. Her MA thesis quantitatively examines the relationship between women's political, economic, and social rights and sustainable development. Meggan's research interests focus on the effects of human rights, microfinance, and nongovernmental organization activity on political, economic, and social development. Email Meggan!

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