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A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

About The Advocac... > Who We Are

Who We Are

Employees

Executive Director

Iain Guest has an extensive background in information and working with civil society in countries in conflict. He was a Geneva-based correspondent for the London-based Guardian and International Herald Tribune (1976-1987); authored a book on the disappearances in Argentina; fronted several BBC documentaries; served as spokesperson for the UNHCR operation in Cambodia (1992) and the UN humanitarian operation in Haiti (2004); served as a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace (1996-7); and conducted missions to Rwanda and Bosnia for the UN, USAID and UNHCR. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, where he teaches human rights. Email Iain!

Director, Africa Programs

Mendi Njonjo is the Director of the Africa Programs. Before joining The Advocacy Project, Mendi was a founder of FAWERS – a network of African Women who are engaged in post conflict reconstruction and committed to ending the use of gender based violence as a tactic of war. Prior to that, she worked for the International Federation of the Red Cross in Nairobi, Kenya and The Center for the Prevention of Genocide in Arlington, Virginia.

She brings to The Advocacy Project her experience administering disaster mental health programs, human rights violations monitoring and her financial and administrative skills. She has a Master’s degree in conflict resolution from the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She is fluent in English, Swahili and Kikuyu. She has written various papers on the impact of humanitarian aid on conflict resolution; the influence of women’s rights in post-conflict resolution in Africa and a number of short articles mainly on post conflict-resolution and women’s issues. Email Mendi!

Fellowship & Internship Manager

Tassos Coulaloglou joined the Advocacy Project in July 2008. Born and raised in New Jersey, Tassos received his BS in political science from the University of Wisconsin in 2001. In his final year at UW, Tassos spent one year studying abroad at Utrecht University in Holland. After graduating, Tassos moved to Lithuania to become a freelance journalist. While there he also taught high-school history and English as a second language. In 2004, he returned to the States to work as a team leader with the League of Conservation's Envirovictory political campaign in Milwaukee. He returned to Eastern Europe the following year and resumed writing before beginning graduate school.

Tassos received his master's degree in international relations and diplomacy offered jointly by Leiden University and the Clingendael in Holland.  In 2007, Tassos was an AP Peace Fellow in Nepal with the Collective Campaign for Peace. Email Tassos!

Administrative and Outreach Coordinator

Marina Krikorian received her MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University of Beirut in June 2007. Her research interests include diasporas, genocide, conflict resolution and transnational identity. Her MA thesis was on the relationship between the Armenian diaspora in Lebanon and the Armenian homeland. She joined The Advocacy Project as a Diaspora Outreach Intern, investigating the role that diasporas can play to promote human rights in their homelands and has now taken on the role of Administrator.

Marina is from California. She received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley in 2003 with a major in political science and a minor in middle eastern studies. Email Marina!

Information Coordinator

Erin Lapham joined The Advocacy Project in January 2008 and has since completed her undergraduate degree in international studies with a focus on international communication at American University . She also recieved a minor in Spanish and a certificate in women, policy, and political leadership.

In 2007, she studied in Madrid, Spain for five months and in January 2008, Erin traveled to Colombia with a group of American University students to study conflict and US/Colombian relations. Email Erin!

Writer and Editor

Danielle Zielinski joined The Advocacy Project in May 2008 as a writer and editor. She comes to the organization from the world of newspapers, where she worked for five years as a reporter covering crime and justice, government, and health care. Most recently, Danielle worked at the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., and the St. Joseph News-Press in St. Joseph, Mo. Danielle holds a masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.,and a bachelor's degree in journalism and international studies, also from Northwestern. She is a native of Long Island, NY. Email Danielle!

Office Interns

Fellowship Intern

Natasha Chokhani graduated from the University of California in June 2006 with a BA in international studies and political science. In winter '06 -'07, she volunteered in Tanzania, working as a teacher and clinic assistant. She comes to The Advocacy Project as a networking intern after working at Voice of America as well as the Levantine Cultural Center.

Natasha will be attending law school in the fall where she would like to focus on human rights law. Email Natasha!

Partnership Intern

Dana Burns joined The Advocacy Project as the partnership intern in January 2008. She is an undergraduate at American University majoring in international studies with a focus in conflict resolution. She is also working toward a minor in religion. On campus, she is involved with the Student Honors Board and the Community Action and Social Justice Coalition.

In the fall of 2007, Dana facilitated a course in human rights for DC public high school students, and she will study abroad in Turkey next year. Email Dana!

Nepal Outreach Intern

Mary Adair McGrath is a rising senior at Georgetown University, majoring in government with a concentration in international relations, and a minor in justice and peace studies. A four-month stint in Asia after high school inspired Mary Adair to pursue the international field, particularly development and post-conflict reconstruction. Last summer, Mary Adair was a communications intern in the AP office, and is thrilled to return this summer to support the team of Peace Fellows in Nepal.Email Mary!

Communications Intern

Leslie Gordon is a senior at Georgetown University, majoring in French, with a minor in Italian and a certificate of african studies.  In the fall of 2007, Leslie worked at the Advocacy Project as the Partnership Intern, and she is returning to work for the summer as a Communications Intern. Last summer, Leslie studied abroad in Mwanza and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she learned Kiswahili and studied the ecology of Lake Victoria and the Serengeti ecosystem.  She spent the Spring of 2008 in Brussels, Belgium, where she was enrolled at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

Communications Intern

Margot van der Vossen graduated in May 2007 from the University of Maryland – College Park with a BA in psychology and minor degrees in French and international development and conflict management.  At UMD she was also involved in the Honors program and the University Student Judiciary.  Email Margot!

Having spent significant portions of her life living in Europe and the United States, she nowadays is living in the Netherlands during the school year and pursuing an MA in International Relations and Diplomacy through a program offered jointly by Leiden University and the Clingendael Institute of International Relations, located in Leiden and The Hague, respectively. 

Networking Intern

Pooja Gupta is a rising senior at the College of William & Mary, double-majoring in international relations & economics, with a focus on domestic infrastructure and immigration in post-colonized and colonizer states. On campus, she serves as a section editor for the school newspaper, is the RA in charge of campus diversity housing, tutors at a local school, and is an editor and international interviewer for the undergraduate journal of international affairs.

Most recently she received a research grant to study immigration and refugee populations in France and is planning on using this research to write her thesis on immigration and religious rights in colonizer nations. After graduation, she hopes to pursue international human rights law. 

Outreach Intern

Heba Al-Adawy is a rising junior at Mount Holyoke College, pursuing a major in International Relations and a minor in Creative Writing. Within International Relations, she intends to focus on the role Humanitarian Law in Ethno-religious conflicts and the re-integration of displaced persons. Her current research interests include the interplay of 'secularism' and 'nationalism' as exhibited in the study of conflict resolution, as well as immigrant rights in France and Germany.

Last summer, Heba travelled to the Disputed region of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and prepared a two-hour documentary for the Five College Culture Program in the University of Massachusetts. The project entailed interviewing people in refugee camps, universities, marketplaces in order to understand the Kashmir Dispute through the perceptions of the natives.  Her hometown is Karachi, Pakistan. Email Heba!

Outreach Intern

Jessie Schwartz is a recent graduate of Virginia Tech with a BA in public and urban affairs and a BA in history with minors in environmental policy and planning and international studies.  Her undergraduate thesis focused on the community and environmental effects of strip mining in southwest Virginia, and she participated in organizations on campus focused on global poverty and environmental awareness.

She has spent time interning at the American Red Cross and World Resources Institute and hopes to attend law school in the future.  Jessie joins the Advocacy Project as an outreach intern.  Email Jessie!

Bosnian Outreach Intern

Alison Sluiter graduated from Georgetown University in May 2008 with a BS in Foreign Service.  While at Georgetown, she majored in Russian, Central Asian, and East European Studies and received a certificate in Justice and Peace Studies.  She spent her junior year studying abroad in Warsaw and Berlin.  She will be working with the Advocacy Project as an outreach intern, focusing on the Srebrenica quilt campaign.  Alison hopes to pursue a degree in conflict resolution in 2009 and will volunteer in Uganda this fall.  Email Alison!

Sri Lanka Outreach Intern

Erdem Ilgi Akter joined the Advocacy Project as a Sri Lanka Outreach Intern in June 2008. She holds BS and MS in Political Science from the Middle East Technical University, Turkey. She also has an MA in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights as a Chevening scholar from the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, where she was awarded with an Honourable Mention for the Deborah Fitzmaurice Prize in 2005.

Erdem has been working with vulnerable populations (like child laborers, torture survivors, people living with HIV/AIDS) and at various aspects of project/program management in Turkey since 2001. Most recently, she has worked as a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for the Global Fund HIV/AIDS Prevention and Support Program at the Ministry of Health, Turkey.  Email Erdem!

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