2011 Human Rights Fellow: Fatima Burnad of India
The Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights at Colby College is pleased to announce its selection of Fatima Burnad of India as our 2011 Oak fellow. Ms. Burnad is the founder and president of the Society for Rural Education and Development (SRED), and has been working among the Dalit (untouchable) community in that country for the past 35 years. In India, she has become a national leader in the social movement seeking greater economic opportunity and political influence for these largely landless and poor people and has been especially active in organizing Dalit women. SRED, under her leadership, documents human rights abuses: from police brutality to the assassination of Dalit women leaders; from social and economic exclusion to abject poverty. In addition, the organization trains Dalit women on their legal rights and how to document these abuses and campaign on their own behalf. This work puts Ms. Burnad at great personal risk as she is frequently working in direct opposition to police and other authorities. Indeed, she has been detained, arrested and threatened on several occasions. Outside India, Ms. Burnad has become an international leader in the effort to end institutionalized discrimination against the world’s most socially marginalized citizens.
To learn more about Fatima Burnad and her work, please click here.
About the Oak Fellowship
Each year, the Oak Institute brings an Oak Human Rights Fellow to teach and conduct research while residing at the College. The Institute organizes lectures and other events centered around the fellow’s area of expertise. The purpose of the fellowship is to offer an opportunity for prominent practitioners in international human rights to take a sabbatical leave from their work and spend as long as a semester as a scholar-in-residence at the College. This provides the Fellow time for reflection, research, and writing.
While all human rights practitioners are eligible, we especially encourage applications from those who are currently or were recently involved in “on-the-ground” work at some level of personal risk. The Oak Fellow’s responsibilities include regular meetings with students either through formal classes or informal discussion groups and assistance in shaping a lecture series or symposium associated with the particular aspect of human rights of interest to the fellow. The fellow also is expected to participate in the intellectual life of the campus and enable our students to work or study with a professional in the human rights field.
The Fellow will receive a stipend and College fringe benefits, plus round-trip transportation from the fellow’s home site, private housing near campus, use of a car, and meals on campus. The Fellow will also receive research support, including office space, secretarial support, computer and library facilities, and a student assistant. The Fellowship is awarded for the fall semester (September through December) each year. Following the period of the award, the fellow is expected to return to her or his human rights work.
If you wish to be contacted each year when we begin our annual search process, please join our electronic mailing list at: www.colby.edu/academics_cs/goldfarb/oak/mail.cfm or email the Oak Institute at: oakhr@colby.edu
For more information on the 2012 Oak Fellowship please view our brochure.