CGHR Practitioner Series: Lent 2018
For those hoping to pursue a career in the ‘Third Sector’, especially amidst a broad range of organisations and agencies whose mandates can be loosely collected under the umbrella headings of ‘Human Rights and Social Justice’, ‘Conflict and Security’ or ‘Development and Humanitarian Aid,’ the terrain can be difficult to navigate. A sound academic training, the kind provided by Cambridge University, is important but certainly not enough to prepare students for the transition into working in this sector. Through a mixture of substantive discussion, personal reflection and practical advice, the CGHR Practitioner Series brings together high‐level experts working in these fields and creates a forum in which students and researchers can listen and ask questions about what this work actually involves, seek out reflections from experience on the dilemmas and challenges faced, and probe the skill set and experience needed to forge a career in these fields.
31st January: Alix Dunn, The Engine Room
Alix Dunn is a specialist in organisational development and strategy, and technology for social change. She advises partners on how to use data and technology effectively, responsibly and impactfully. She is a leading trainer and advisor in data and technology for partners ranging from activists to international and local CSOs to foundations. Alix is the Executive Director and a co-founder of The Engine Room and sits on the Advisory Council of Open Technology Fund, the board of Open Data Kosovo, and the Advisory Board for Circle of 6. She was formerly on the Technology Advisory Council of Amnesty International and the board of directors for HURIDO Cs. She holds an M.A. in Media Studies from University of Oslo and a B.A. from Colorado College.
14th February: Andrea Coomber, JUSTICE
Andrea Coomber has been Director of JUSTICE since February 2013. Between 2002 and 2013 she was Equality Lawyer and then Legal Director at INTERIGHTS (the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights) where she litigated key cases before the European Court of Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
For a decade, Andrea trained lawyers and judges on international law and equality law in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. Before joining INTERIGHTS , she worked at the International Service for Human Rights in Geneva and at the South Asia Documentation Centre in New Delhi.
She is qualified as a barrister and solicitor in Australia. Andrea has a BA/LLB (Vons) from the University of Western Australia and an LLM (Dist.) from the London School of Economics, where she was awarded the Rosalyn Higgins Prize for topping public international law. She sits on the litigation advisory panels of a number of international human rights organisations and lectures regularly on international litigation and equality law. Andrea signs and is a trustee of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and of BAILII (British and Irish Legal Information Institute). Andrea is an Honorary Master of the Bench of Middle Temple.
28th February: Sharath Srinivasan, Africa's Voices
As Co-Director of the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge, Sharath conceived of Africa’s Voices within a larger research programme and developed it into an independent charity. How can citizens, writ large, better influence social and political change in Africa? His research is firmly grounded in a career prior to academia in international aid. With Africa’s Voices, he marries this with skills developed as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co. Initially trained in Law, he holds an MPhil and DPhil from Oxford University and is a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Sharath is currently based in Nairobi.
Africa’s Voices emerged out of four years of research at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Governance and Human Rights (CGHR), on Politics and Interactive Media in Africa. With strong interest from initial collaborators, in 2014 Africa’s Voices launched as an independent, non-profit research organisation and registered UK charity. Find out more about Africa’s Voices
14th March:Elizabeth Davies, BBC World Service
Elizabeth Davies is a Senior Broadcast Journalist at the BBC World Service. She began her BBC career in the Washington, DC bureau and since then has worked everywhere from Brazil to Estonia. Elizabeth’s main job is as a producer on the daily Newshour programme, but she’s now branched out into making documentaries and longer-form radio programmes. Before she started with the BBC , Elizabeth worked for Channel 4 News, CNN and even the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She studied Social and Political Sciences at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and got her Master’s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.