Nico Ramos Flores, a Spanish and Portuguese Studies Ph.D. candidate, is writing his dissertation on Afro-Caribbean/Afro-Latino literature. Yet, Nico recently crossed into a new disciplinary field to work with Professor Greta Friedemann-Sanchez on her project, “Family Commissioners: Fostering Justice, Security and Peace in Colombian Families in the Post-Conflict Era” (COLPAZ).

The passage of legislation and the enforcement of legislation are far from one and the same. This is seen starkly in Colombia with respect to violence against women – 2017 Human Rights Initiative grantee Greta Friedemann-Sánchez is determined to find out why.

Marina Kelly is part of the inaugural Master of Human Rights cohort, and recipient of the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship funded by the US Department of State, named for career diplomat Thomas Pickering.

Professor Patrick McNamara formulated his Human Rights Initiative Grant-funded project, “From IDPs to Refugees: Forced Migration in El Salvador," to investigate the issue of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in El Salvador. Rampant gang violence, endemic poverty, lack of a proper social safety net, and the constant risk of natural disaster threatens to drastically raise the number of internally displaced persons, which already sits in the tens of thousands.