Hank Hellstrom Advocates for Human Rights and the Environment

Last spring, Master of Human Rights student Hank Hellstrom (MHR ‘26) received the Sharon Grimes Human Rights Fellowship, which recognizes an MHR student with a commitment to human rights and the environment. Over the past year, Hellstrom’s study of human rights has been informed by the connection of rights to the environment. He spent the summer interning with Engineers Without Borders USA, a nonprofit organization that connects volunteer teams of engineers with underserved communities with engineering needs. Most Engineers Without Borders projects repair or develop infrastructure, such as wells or wastewater treatment, that enable communities to fulfill economic rights, like the right to clean water and sanitation, sustainably within their environment. Hank supported their branch that operates within the United States, the Community Engineering Corps, in evaluating their past decade of projects to find recommendations for improvement.

In the Fall semester, he took a class called Climate Change and Public Health, which taught him more about the connection between people’s well-being and their environment. It also highlighted the challenges to public health that the impacts of climate change on the environment are anticipated to pose. In his Global Public Policy course, he learned about global environmental governance and Elinor Ostrom’s work studying collective governance of common-pooled resources.

This Spring, his academic focus is on development as a method of building climate resilience. In climate-vulnerable areas, slow-onset climate impacts such as desertification limit people’s capacity to sustain themselves using traditional ways of interacting with their environment, which can eventually lead to a difficult decision to move. Development interventions, such as switching to climate-resilient crops, have the potential to support people with thriving in their changing environments. Hank is learning about prospects and best practices for this with Global Sustainable Development in Practice and Development Planning and Policy Analysis this Spring.

Outside of his studies, Hank recently became SCUBA certified, which has opened a new avenue for appreciating the importance of the environment below water and humanity’s global impact on it.

The Human Rights Program looks forward to continuing to follow Hellstrom’s journey advocating for human rights and for the environment that sustains us all.