Alumni Careers

I am currently Human Rights and Refugees Programme Assistant at the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO), a year-long position based Geneva working with the UN human rights mechanisms. In this role, I have worked on a range of issues, including migrant rights, the rights of children of prisoners and the death penalty. In particular, I have engaged heavily with the process towards the development of a major new international agreement on migration, as well as more broadly with the Human Rights Council and Treaty Bodies, particularly the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

After completing the MA, I interned with the All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group (PHRG), advertised through the MA course. Here, I assisted a group of Parliamentarians to raise international human rights issues through the UK Parliament. Based in Westminster, this role was very diverse, including managing communications and assisting with advocacy on a wide range of campaigns.

The background in international human rights law gained during the MA has given me a solid understanding of the UN structures as well as legal analysis skills which have been invaluable in my current role at QUNO. More broadly the Masters gave me the theoretical knowledge needed for work in this field, as well as an insight into a wide range of human rights topics and country-specific issues.

Both the PHRG and QUNO positions are fixed term opportunities and I would recommend both very highly as ways to learn about international human rights issues and about using political institutions to effect change.

At the start of October, I began work as Refugee Project Assistant for Refugee Services of the British Red Cross in Liverpool. My role involves the organisation of emergency provision for refugees and people seeking asylum, including the delivery of maternity packs and the development of a clothing scheme. Having been involved with the British Red Cross as a volunteer for several years I feel extremely privileged to have become a full-time member of this particular humanitarian organisation. The MA at ICS provided valuable grounding in refugee law through internal and external events which are extremely useful in understanding the challenges which individuals face in the UK in my current role. The MA has also provided opportunities for academic work beyond the scope of the course. I have co-authored an article with Damien Short on the human rights implications of hydraulic fracturing in the UK for the International Journal of Human Rights, and have plans for future articles on similar topics.

After graduating I have returned to Kyrgyzstan and started working with the public foundation for development of education in rural areas of the country.  The goal of the foundation is to provide children living in remote areas of Kyrgyzstan with high quality education with easy access to IT and foreign languages.  I am responsible for international affairs and public information.  I search for possibilities of international cooperation and joint projects with foreign educational entities.

Having MA degree in Human Rights I also have started teaching International Human Rights Law course at American University of Central Asia, located in Kyrgyzstan, where I studies before MA in London.  I am also an assistant lecturer at International Humanitarian Law course required for senior Law students at the university.  The MA has helped me in deeper understanding of human rights and my role in this field.  I have chosen to continue my career in securing rights for education in my country and my studies at the School of Advanced Study have definitely inspired and prepared me for that.

After completing the MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights and finishing my internship with Minority Rights Group International in London, I relocated to SE Asia to gain more human rights experience in the field. I started by conducting human rights trainings for Burmese students in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border and later moved to the Philippines to work as a Human Rights and Accountability Advisor for a small NGO responding to the devastating effects of Typhoon Haiyan. Afterwards, I obtained a position with EarthRights International in Chiang Mai, Thailand, as a Mekong Legal Coordinator, supporting local lawyers and civil society organisations in the Mekong region to advocate against large-scale development projects having detrimental impacts to the environment and human rights of local communities.

I am currently based in London with an international NGO ClientEarth, working as a Law and Policy Advisor in the Climate & Forests team. In this role, I focus on the issues relating to forest governance and community rights, particularly in the Republic of Congo. I support local civil society organisations to advocate for better forest governance, effective participation in decision-making processes and respect for community rights.

Having a background in law, I had some grasp of human rights issues before joining the course, however, the programme armed me with substantial additional theoretical and practical understanding of international human rights law, human rights theory, advocacy and research. It enabled me to seize very interesting job opportunities and to engage with human rights issues with confidence. The course ultimately played an important role in enabling me to shift my career and become a practicing human rights professional.

I am currently working as an Independent Consultant in advocacy, policy, campaigns, research and strategic partnerships, with a focus on girls’ and women’s empowerment, girls’ leadership and gender equality. Recent consultancy projects include youth advocacy work with Plan International, supporting the editing of Plan UK’s seminal State of Girls’ Rights in the UK report and project management for Mercy Corps Europe. 

I have been in Colombia for three years, working for PBI for just over two.  I have spent most of this time in a city in the North East of the country called Barrancabermeja, petrol capital of Colombia and centre of the social, economic and armed conflicts still raging in the country.  Now I am in a more coordinating role in Bogotá, the capital city of the country where I am involved in national advocacy with various entities of the Colombian government and armed forces, and constant dialogue with the diplomatic corps.  PBI is an international NGO that protects human rights defenders through non-violent physical and political accompaniment.  We accompany a huge range of human rights defenders throughout the country; lawyers, grass root organisations, journalists and communities resisting the armed conflict.  Despite their differences they are all at high risk because of the work they do defending human rights in the country and speaking out against state corruption and human rights abuse.  The physical accompaniment involves literally going with human rights defenders to their various activities throughout the country to show the international support they have, and the political accompaniment involves meetings at a regional, national and international level with authorities to explain the  fundamental work human rights defenders are carrying out in the country and the importance of assuring their protection.  Colombia is experiencing an historic moment as the peace agreements between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and government have just recently been passed through the Congress and are beginning to be implemented, representing the end of a war which has lasted for over 50 years.  This transition from war to peace is hugely important but very fragile, meaning the presence of international organisations observing and commentating on the situation is of vital importance.

Throughout the Masters course I interned at the PBI London offices which was a great insight into the work in the field and provided me with the contacts I needed to be able to apply to the Colombia project.  I also wrote a paper on the interaction between human rights law and International Humanitarian Law in the Colombian context which was published by the International Journal on Human Rights during the program. The range of skills I acquired during the course have been hugely useful in my work here, especially the analytical and critical capacities strengthened in the law modules, the practical skills from the securing sections and the broader insights from the case studies we analysed in the understanding lectures and seminars. The Masters course was fundamental in developing my interest and skills and providing me with useful contacts to start my career in human rights.

During the MA and with support from the lecturers, I undertook an extremely fulfilling internship with Amnesty International where I provided research support to the America’s Program on counter-terrorism, juvenile justice, and police accountability issues. Since then, I have had experience working at Integrity House as the Development Specialist, securing significant funding to support programs that included supportive housing for women and juvenile justice-related substance abuse treatment. I also worked with The Trevor Project, the leader in the US for providing suicide prevention and crisis intervention support to LGBTQ youth, as their Foundation and Corporate Relations Manager. At The Trevor Project, I was instrumental in expanding its lifesaving programs, and as a member of the design team tasked with creating the organization’s new Southern Initiative to support LGBTQ youth in the U.S South. I have also been the Senior Associate for Foundation Relations at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) where I was responsible for advancing relationships with donors like the Ford Foundation and OSF and bringing new philanthropic support to ICTJ’s work on issues such as the crisis in Syria and the Colombia peace agreement. Currently, I work for a major hospital centre in the U.S. that provides a range of medical and community support services to New Yorkers. This includes creating and funding programs for those less fortunate, and providing medical, mental health, social, and legal services for refugees who are survivors of torture.

The multidisciplinary nature of the MA allowed me to gain insight into the various career paths I could follow while still having an impact on the human rights field. The Securing Human Rights module’s funding proposal project contributed significantly to my decision to focus on development and fundraising for important causes. I appreciated my work on the funding proposal/presentation and with my project having been focused on LGBT advocacy; it was rather gratifying that I have since been able to contribute to the advancement of LGBT rights.  In addition to enjoying my work on the funding proposal and the entire MA, I gained a newfound appreciation for grant writing to support human rights and humanitarian efforts and discovered talents that I otherwise wouldn’t have known existed. I am forever grateful to the MA for helping to inspire my career.

I was able to find work quickly after graduating, starting my previous role in October of the year that I finished the course. I had an impressive CV due to the emphasis on putting study in to practice through placements, as well as by taking up one of the internships offered within the institute, at the Human Rights Consortium.

For the last year I have been working at No Second Night Out (NSNO). NSNO provides a quick exit from the streets to new rough sleepers. My role consists of assessing the needs of an extremely wide range of people, from those who are fully capable of living independently, to those who require accommodation with 24/7 staff support due to drug, alcohol, mental health, or behavioural issues. The job is very satisfying as I have the privilege of getting to know a large number of fascinating and inspiring people, and of making highly meaningful interventions in to their lives.

After graduating from ICOM in 2012 I continued working part-time for youth homelessness charity Depaul UK, as their fundraising communications assistant. I had worked in this role whilst studying part-time, and had decided by the end of my masters that I really wanted to stay in the field of child rights. A few weeks after handing in my dissertation on the right to rehabilitation for child refugees, I was delighted to get the part-time role of Youth Engagement Assistant at international children's charity Plan UK.

I combined these two part-time charity jobs with working as a self employed poet, with a focus on human rights themes. I had worked with SAS on a series of human rights poetry events at the 2012 Bloomsbury Festival and I left my job at Depaul UK to work with the Human Rights Consortium and the Keats House Poets to co-edit and launch an anthology titled 'In Protest- 150 poems for human rights.' We had over 640 entries from all around the world, and I organised a series of performances and workshops to explore human rights poetry and promote the publication.

I currently work both as a poet and for Plan UK- where I support young advocates who campaign and advise the charity. My work with Plan has taken me to Malawi to support youth groups campaigning for girls rights, and to the UN in New York where I helped youth delegates advocate for disability rights. In both of my poetry and NGO I particularly enjoy engaging young people on human rights issues and helping them raise their voice.

I work as the Coordinator for the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group, a coalition of ten leading UK anti-human trafficking organisations, which is hosted by Anti-Slavery International. I began the role in November 2013, around the time that the Home Secretary introduced a draft Modern Slavery Bill, so my work to date has focused on coordinating the lobbying activities of the coalition, drafting submissions for parliamentary committees and working with legal professionals to draft an ‘alternative’ Bill to assist MPs in the scrutiny process and provide a template for amendments. Prior to this role, immediately after I graduated from the MA, I worked for Anti-Slavery International on a European project which focused specifically on human trafficking for the purpose of criminal exploitation. I carried out desk-based research, wrote briefings and reports, and organised and facilitated training in the partner countries.

My interest in human trafficking started in my teenage years when I first read a harrowing report about how young girls were being trafficked across Europe for sexual exploitation. After my undergraduate degree, I went to work voluntarily for an anti-trafficking organisation in Northern Thailand for six months and whilst there applied to do the MA course. The course was undoubtedly the catalyst for getting my first job in the sector. The research for my dissertation included undertaking interviews with several anti-trafficking experts, some of whom are now my colleagues. For my placement, I volunteered for ECPAT UK, helping to run their youth group for girls who had been trafficked into the UK. My colleagues at ECPAT notified me of job opportunities and provided me with invaluable contacts.

I would highly recommend the MA course, both for professional and personal reasons. The teaching on the course is of the highest standards; the lecturers are all recognised experts in their fields, and a well-chosen placement can provide the stepping stone into the sector. The course attracts a wide-range of people, some of whom will no doubt become your life-long friends.

Since I graduated from the MA programme in 2010, my work has taken me around the world, with a focus to humanitarian and development work. I am currently based in Turkey, where I am the Deputy Coordinator for the ‘NGO Forum for NGOs operating in northern Syria.’ My work with the NGO Forum involves developing and implementing a joint advocacy strategy, including coordinating the Advocacy Working Group, as well as engaging with Syrian diaspora and local NGOs to ensure their particular perspective is integrated into any decisions taken by the NGO Forum, UN, Donors, etc.

I moved to Turkey from Kenya, where my work focused on programme development, donor reporting and communications with GOAL, an Irish NGO. Prior to my 18 months in Kenya, I lived for about 2 years in post-earthquake Haiti, working mostly on NGO programme monitoring & evaluation and donor reporting with World Vision and Tearfund.

The MA in Human Rights was an immense benefit to all of the work that I have been doing since 2010, particularly due its inter-disciplinary focus. Theoretical and legal knowledge provided me with a solid foundation of concepts, principles, and laws that I have been able to apply in my work in Turkey, Kenya and Haiti. The practical module, which was what initially attracted me to the MA, was particularly useful in improving my skills and abilities in fundraising, project cycle management, advocacy and the rights-based approach to development. Practical understanding of all of these topics has been essential to any success I have had in my work with humanitarian and development agencies. 

After graduating from the MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights, I worked for Alternatives to Violence Project Britain, a volunteer-run conflict transformation programme. I then spent a year at the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva working on their Human Rights and Refugees programme. I also continued to work with the Human Rights Consortium as a Research Associate, and my work has been published in The International Journal of Human Rights, The Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies and Medicine, Conflict and Survival.

When I returned from Geneva, I was a Research Assistant at the London School of Economics (LSE) Gender Institute on the Politics section of the 2015 LSE Commission on Gender Inequality and Power. I am now working as an Assistant National Officer in the Equalities directorate of UNISON, the UK’s second largest trade union.

I am extremely grateful to this MA programme for giving such an interdisciplinary approach and for all the opportunities it has opened up to me since I graduated. Human rights intersects with so many different sectors, and my subsequent peace, academic and equalities work are all heavily grounded in my human rights training gained by completing this unique MA.

I first heard about the Masters course while working for the Human Rights programme at the Quaker UN Office in Geneva. I was attracted to this course because of its practical nature and the hands-on training that it provides. My Masters dissertation focused on access to healthcare for asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants in the UK, which I was able to continue working on with Doctors of the World UK once the Masters had finished. From there I went on to work with the Race Equality Foundation in their health team looking particularly at how changes to the NHS would impact BME communities and working with the Department of Health to try and promote greater equality in the healthcare system. When this role finished I went out to Brussels to work with Friends of the Earth on corporate justice issues. I am now working for the Friends of the Earth office in London as an Activism Impact Coordinator, focusing primarily on community renewable energy projects across the UK.

I lead Freedom from Torture’s advocacy to improve legal and policy protections for torture survivors in the UK as asylum applicants and refugees. I do this by drawing on evidence from Freedom from Torture’s clinical service provision, research and legal and welfare advice service. One of the main aspects of my role is managing important relationships with the Home Office and other government departments responsible for public policy affecting torture survivors. One particularly rewarding element of my role involves working with torture survivors through a survivor-led activist network which Freedom from Torture hosts called 'Survivors Speak Out'. By drawing on their lived experience of torture and seeking protection through asylum, survivors seek to influence decision-makers and raise public awareness of the challenges facing survivors trying to rebuild their lives in the UK. Its been exciting supporting this network to develop up their ideas and provide avenues in parliament and with politicians through which they can have a voice. Without the MA I wouldn’t have been able to demonstrate the social research skills and policy understanding required for the role.

After graduating, I completed another qualification in International Conflict Resolution Skills which, like my MA, I linked to business practice and human rights. I am now in India and about to start a research job focusing on the best and worst practices of the largest infrastructure and real estate companies in India. This will lead to a report outlining the social issues (human rights, pollution etc) that they need to be cognisant of; this report would be for the international funds who enable these projects to take place.

Whilst studying at ICwS I worked on a project (Mum’s, Bumps and Babies) during an internship at the Refugee Council and identified the isolation and lack of support available to many women. Although there are many organisations that provide help and support to women; there are few that offer a space in which women can communicate and gain empowerment through effective communication, information and personal development. After completing the MA and building on what I had learnt on the course and at the Refugee Council I decided that I wanted to formalise the work I have been doing in my local community for the last five years. I have helped many marginalised women and families who are vulnerable and marginalised from a variety of different backgrounds. Therefore, in November 2010 I started my own women’s group: Linking Bridges, with a group of my fellow ICwS students and friends. Linking Bridges is committed to empowering women; encouraging diversity and envisaging integration. Thus far Linking Bridges has been funded by the NHS and successfully completed a project to raise awareness in the Urdu speaking community of the HPV vaccination to prevent cervical cancer.  Linking Bridges is now an established community group, working towards being a registered charity by the end of 2012. We are listed on Wandsworth’s Voluntary Organisation directory and are working on projects in the UK and abroad.  We are linked with a women’s group in London and are working with them on a project for a soup kitchen for homeless people in Victoria, London. We are working in conjunction with the Refugee Council on holding ‘Health and Wellbeing’ coffee mornings fortnightly for Refugee women in September 2011. We are also establishing links with a women’s group in Palestine and a women’s group and orphanage in Pakistan. In recognition of the work I have been doing on Linking Bridges and in my community I am in the process of being filmed for a television programme about inspirational Muslim women throughout history and today. 

I also work as a Project Officer for the National Deaf Children’s Society. NDCS is the leading charity dedicated to creating a world without barriers for all deaf children and young people. In the last 15 years, NDCS has run a number of time-limited projects which have sought to address the information and support needs of families of deaf children from BME communities. Whilst these different projects have been successful and achieved their aims, they have also all identified that BME families continue to face barriers in accessing NDCS’s support services. I am working on a new project across London to overcome the barriers faced by BME families and improve access to the services that NDCS provides.

I graduated from the MA in 2003 and after applying for a number of positions with London based NGOs, joined Minority Rights Group International (MRG) in 2004. MRG was an organisation I had been familiar with during the MA, as it had provided speakers for course, internships for my classmates and had staff also undertaking the program. MRG’s focus is human rights advocacy on issues related to ethnic, linguistic, religious, national and indigenous minorities.  It has a partner led approach and works through locally based organisations across the world. During my time in London I worked across a range of regional and thematic programmes: Asia, Europe, Africa, Development, Conflict and International Advocacy as a programmes assistant and later Coordinator. In 2009, I moved to Budapest, Hungary and became Managing Director of Minority Rights Group Europe an organisation established by MRG to lead and implement MRG’s work in Europe and Central Asia. In that time I have been responsible for developing MRG’s programmes predominantly in the eastern regions, with programmes currently active in the South Caucuses, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Turkey.

The MA was the crucial factor in deciding to make human rights activism my career. It contributed to building my personal confidence, establishing my personality in a genuinely multi-cultural environment and a provided broad and practically focused learning on apporaching the means to realise human rights. All of these aspects have been important in an organisation like MRG, whose work addressess a full spectrum of rights issues.

I really enjoyed the MA in Human Rights and feel fortunate to have benefited from the grounding it gave me to pursue a fascinating career path. The knowledge I gained has helped me in many ways from working in central government incorporating the Human Rights Act 1998 into asylum policy, to running the Foreign Office's Human Rights Project Fund, to an innovative research project at Goldsmiths College on human rights impact assessments, and managing a multi-million pound international human rights grant portfolio. The breadth of my professional career and rights I've worked on has had me diving back into my books every now and then. Not least when I started focusing on modern slavery almost a decade ago. I hope that the human rights movement will continue to give more attention to tackling modern slavery and not just leave this enormous challenge to the labour rights movement. For me it is the human rights lens that I look through, established by completing this MA, that has me so committed to this cause!

I am the Founding Director of the Haitian/Norwegian non-profit Prosjekt Haiti, established in October 2000. Prosjekt Haiti runs several educational programs for children and women in Haiti including social entrepreneurship, health education and a free health clinic for youth. I have worked in Haiti over several periods starting in 1997. www.prosjekthaiti.org

During 2018-2022 I worked as a project leader at the Norwegian Centre for Rural Medicine (NCRM) at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway, leading a collaboration with partners at Universidad de La Sabana and Universidad del Tolima in Colombia to develop the program Rural Health for Peace, financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Service. One aim being to develop a workable model to work systematically with recruitment and retainment of health professionals in rural and remote areas in Colombia. www.nsdm.no

I have recently joined a new social entrepreneurship foundation in Trondheim called Dype Røtter as a board member. We are working with refugees to teach practical and language skills with the focus on environmentally friendly & green farming.

Along with my MA in Human Rights from the School of Advanced Study, University of London, I also have additional training in project management, social entrepreneurship, health and human rights.

In addition, my professional background includes working as an advisor to the Mayor of the municipality of Saint Louis du Sud in Haiti, Project Manager at the Centre for International Health (UiT- The Arctic University of Norway/University Hospital North Norway), and two periods working at UN Women in Ecuador and Haiti.