Fahamu staff
Fahamu comprises a small core of highly skilled and experienced staff based in Cape Town (South Africa), Nairobi (Kenya), Dakar (Senegal) and Oxford (UK). Our work is also made possible through the commitment of volunteers and interns.
Hakima Abbas: Executive Director
Prior to her appointment as Director, Hakima was the Policy Analyst for Fahamu's AU Monitor initiative, which aims to strengthen civil society and citizen participation with the African Union and its organs. Hakima has been active in struggles for social justice around issues of self-determination, race, class, gender and sexuality for over fifteen years. Her professional work as a human rights defender, policy analyst and researcher in civil society and the United Nations system has focused on both Africa and the Middle East. Hakima holds a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University.
Patrick Burnett: Editor, Links and Resources, Pambazuka News
Patrick Burnett has a bachelor of journalism degree from Rhodes University in South Africa. He worked for Pambazuka News between 2002 and 2007, before leaving to assist in the growth of an independent news agency, West Cape News. He has now rejoined Pambazuka News.
Judith Charlton: Design and Production, Pambazuka
Judith is a graphic designer for both print and electronic media. She has a degree in electronic publishing, and is responsible for much of Fahamu's design and production in printed and electronic formats.
Famara Diédhiou: Project Coordinator, Utetezi - We are the Solution
Famara joins Fahamu as the coordinator of the 'We are the solution' campaign to promote family farming in Africa. Famara has worked with community-based organisations on agroecology.
Alex Free: Publications Officer and Assistant Editor, Pambazuka News
Alex joined Fahamu in September 2008 after completing an African studies MSc at Oxford over the 2007–08 academic year. He has spent a year working in northern Cameroon as a sports teacher trainer at the Malima Primary School, a position organised through the British NGO Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO).
Roy Gitobu: ICT Officer
Prior to joining Fahamu, Roy worked with the Ministry of Infrastructure in Rwanda as a GIS/IT Consultant. Roy has also worked at UNEP as a Technical Developer supporting youth networks and outreach websites. Roy is a ICT specialist in Microsoft systems, social networking and using ICT for outreach, capacity building and social economic development.
Alyxandra Gomes: Editor, Pambazuka News, Portuguese language edition
Alyxandra is an Afro-Brazilian teacher and a Ph.D fellow at the Center of Afro-Oriental Studies (CEAO) in Bahia, Brazil. She has campaigned for African studies all over Brazil and believes that Portuguese is the cement which connects all the lusophone countries in Africa and the diaspora.
Hayley Herman: Programme Officer, Emerging Powers in Africa Initiative
Ms Hayley Herman is Programme Officer at Fahamu’s Emerging Powers in Africa Initiative, based in Cape Town, South Africa. She previously worked at the Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch University as Research Manager. She has co-edited and (co-) authored articles, and papers for peer-reviewed journals, book chapters and conferences on Sino-African and Indo-African relations. She holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in International Relations and Political Science from Stellenbosch University.
Hilary Isaac: Office Management
Hilary has previously worked in administration for the UK bookseller WH Smith and Helicon Publishing, a small, independent publishing company.
Molly Kane: International Outreach, Pambazuka
Molly is responsible for international outreach for Pambazuka. She was previously executive director of the Canadian international social justice organisation Inter Pares and deputy director of ETC Group. She is based in Montreal.
Winnie Kariuki: Programme Assistant
Winnie began working for Fahamu as a volunteer, assisting in the preparations for the World Social Forum in Nairobi. She has trained in management and PR and has worked mainly in the hotel industry.
Shereen Karmali: Editor, Pambazuka Press
Shereen is an editor with many years experience in the non-profit sector in the UK and Kenya. She is a director of Fahamu.
Tidiane Kassé: editor, Pambazuka News French edition
Tidiane is a Senegalese journalist. Chief editor at the Senegalese Press Group Wal Fadjri, he is also a media consultant specialising in HIV and Aids. Since 1996, he has worked as a trainer and workshop facilitator in journalism and communication related to development issues.
Carol Kulemeka: Programme and Finance Manager
Carol has joined Fahamu as the Programme and Finance manager from Malawi. Trained in Nutrition, Human rights and Social Sciences, she has previously worked as a technician, Programme Manager, advocate and activist on the right to food; climate change; disaster risk reduction; emergency response and women's land rights. She has previously worked for UN and donor agencies including WFP and DFID; NGOs including Action Aid, Emmanuel International and for university based nutrition research projects.
Henry Makori, Pambazuka News Editorial Assistant
Henry studied anthropology at the University of Nairobi and journalism at Kenya Institute of Mass Communication. He has worked as a journalist/editor at The Seed magazine (a Kenyan Catholic monthly), the Catholic Information Service for Africa (CISA, an online news service) and lately at The Media Institute, a Nairobi-based civil society organization championing media freedom, freedom of expression and excellence in journalism in East Africa.
Paul Mwangi Maina: Programme Assistant
Paul worked for Fahamu as an intern for several months under the ESJ (Education for Social Justice) programme and is currently a programme assistant in the Fahamu Kenya office. He comes to Fahamu with a background in education.
Firoze Manji: Editor in Chief, Pambazuka News and Managing Editor, Pambazuka Press
Firoze, a Kenyan, is founder and editor of Pambazuka News. He has formerly worked as programme director for the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, CEO for Aga Khan Foundation UK, and regional representative for health for IDRC's office for Eastern and Southern Africa.
Helen Mukholi: Technology Assistant, Pambazuka News
Helen has a background in education and development. She is interested social issues that relate to youth empowerment and HIV/AIDS.
George Mwai: Programme Officer, Adilisha
George is a programme officer in the Education for Social Justice programme. He brings experience of having worked with organisations that run social justice and human rights education programmes in Kenya and in East Africa. He has experience training CSOs (civil society organisations) on advocacy, human rights education, monitoring, evaluation and reporting.
Yves Niyiragira: Program Officer, Utetezi - AU Monitor
Yves is from Burundi and started working with Fahamu as a volunteer in the Nairobi office in 2006. He now works on the AU Monitor initiative.
Aaron O'Dowling-Keane, Publishing and Marketing Coordinator, Pambazuka Press
Aaron came to Fahamu after an internship with the International Labour Organization in Geneva. She spent a year working in Tanzania as a teacher before completing an MA in Publishing in 2009-2010.
Dorothy 'Daughtie' Ogutu: Programme Associate, Reclaim Initiative
Daughtie has joined us as the program associate for the Reclaim initiative working with LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) and sex worker movements. Daughtie joins us from the African Sex Worker Alliance where she was Kenya coordinator. She is a sex worker activist and one of the founders of the Kenya Sex Worker Alliance.
Awino Okech: Director, Tuliwaza
Awino is a researcher who has been involved in development work for the last 12 years in Eastern Africa, the Great lakes Region and Southern Africa. Her work has focussed on women’s rights and conflict transformation and this is informed by a diverse history which includes Doctoral studies in gender and women’s studies at the University of Cape Town’s African Gender Institute. Her research interests lie in the areas of gender, sexuality, culture and nationalisms.
Zanna Rodrigues: Assistant Editor, Pambazuka News
Zanna is a communications specialist with six years experience in research, writing and editorial on social and environmental issues for business and the not-for-profit sector in Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom. Previously she worked in corporate responsibility consulting as a researcher and as news and production editor of CSR journal Corporate Citizenship Briefing. She has a degree in anthropology and a postgraduate certificate in sustainable development.
Patita Tingoi: Programme Officer, Utetezi - Change initiative
Patita joined Fahamu after completing her postgraduate studies in public policy and advocacy at the SIT Graduate Institute, USA. She has previously worked with the Centre for Minority Rights Development, League of Pastoralist Women of Kenya and volunteered with World Learning in Washington DC.
Mohammed Umar: Sales and Rights Manager, Pambazuka Press
Mohammed is a Nigerian who has worked in the book industry for over a decade.
Rachel Wiggans: Marketing and Promotion, Pambazuka Press
Rachel has worked with refugees in Oxford, with African publishers as an advocate in the North, and as a community worker and teacher of unemployed young people in London. She spent two years working for the British Council in Cameroon. She has an MA in Rights in Education, during which she researched gender inequalities in the British aid programme.
Rebecca Williams: Deputy Director
Rebecca has worked for Save the Children Fund UK and with the resettlement of refugees in Coventry.
THE FAHAMU REFUGEE PROGRAMME (FRP)
Barbara Harrell-Bond OBE: Director
Barbara is a legal anthropologist. From 1982-96, she founded/directed the Centre for Refugee Studies, University of Oxford. From 1997-2000 she conducted research in Uganda and Kenya where she began the Refugee Law Project, Uganda. In 2000-2008 she was in Cairo where she helped begin the Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies, at the American University where she also taught and also founded a legal aid for refugees in Cairo which has become the Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA).
Martin Jones: Director, Research and Training
Martin is a lawyer and specialist on refugee law. He practiced refugee law in Canada and has taught at the Centre for Refugee Studies (Canada), the University of East London (UK), the University of Michigan (USA), the American University in Cairo (Egypt) and the University of Melbourne (Australia). He has provided training to legal aid NGOs in Egypt, Hong Kong, Jordan, Malaysia and Turkey. With Dr. Harrell-Bond, he implements the Asia Legal Aid training programme funded by USIP, the programme funded by the UN Voluntary Trust Fund on contemporary forms of Slavery for training in Egypt and Turkey, and is a Resource person for www.frlan.org .
Victoria Goodban: Secretary, SRLA Network, and Moderator, Fahamu list-serv
Vicky joined the Fahamu Refugee Programme in January 2010 after completing an LLM in international humanitarian and refugee law at Nottingham University. She has previous experience working for a national charity in London in a marketing and communications capacity and has undertaken voluntary work in the UK with the Rift Valley Institute (London) and overseas for NGOs in India (Development in Action) and Madagascar (Azafady). She has now taken up the position of Gender and Refugee Project Officer with Oxfam Cymru/Wales and continues to moderate the list-serv and serve as Secretary for the Southern Refugee Legal Aid Network.
Guglielmo Verdirame, Adviser
Guglielmo Verdirame holds a degree in Law from the University of Bologna and a PhD from the London School of Economics and is Professor of International Law at the Department of War Studies and the School of Law at King's College London. Before taking on this position, he was a Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. His main areas of research and teaching are public international law, and legal and political philosophy. His publications include: Rights in Exile , co-authored with Barbara Harrell-Bond (Berghahn Books, 2005), and The UN and Human Rights: Who Guards the Guardians? (Cambridge University Press, 2011). He practises as a Barrister from 20 Essex Street chambers. He is a trustee of two charities involved in the advancement of human rights through law: the Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance, and the Human Dignity Trust.
Merrill Smith, Adviser
Merrill Smith holds a B.A. from Columbia, a J.D. from Vanderbilt, an LL.M. from NYU, and the Diplome from the International Institute of Human Rights and is admitted to practice in the State of NY. He was the editor of the annual World Refugee Survey, (editions 2003-9), with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), and an active leader in the international civil society advocacy movement to end the human "warehousing" of refugees. He was the Washington Representative of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (2000-2), a leading lobbyist for increased appropriations to the U.S. Migration and Refugee Assistance account and for the establishment of Legal Orientation Presentations for immigration detainees. He also directed Church World Service's legal department representing Haitian asylum seekers from Guantanamo in Miami, worked as human rights observer for the UN in Haiti, and directed Haiti Advocacy in the United States. Merrill advises the Fahamu Refugee Programme on international refugee protection and advocacy.
Aziz Barez: Fahamu Refugee Programme Intern
Jackie Cartwright, Fahamu Refugee Programme Intern
Rachael Crook: Fahamu Refugee Programme Intern
Nada Elsayed, Fahamu Refugee Programme Intern
Sara Gonzalez Devant, Contributing Editor, Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter
Sara is a freelance researcher. She holds an MSc (Distinction) in Forced Migration from the University of Oxford. She has published on conflict induced displacement in Timor-Leste, and has conducted consultancy work for UNHCR. In 2009-10 she was a Sauvé Scholar in Montréal, Canada. More recently, she has worked on the theme of the intergenerational transmission of poverty for the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), UK.
M. Rebecka Jonsson, Fahamu Refugee Programme Intern
Themba Lewis: Co-editor, Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter
Themba holds a Graduate Diploma in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies from the American University in Cairo, an MSc in Forced Migration from the University of Oxford, and Level II Senior Caseworker Accreditation with the UK Legal Services Commission. He has taught on refugee rights in Bulgaria and Egypt, done casework for detained asylum seekers in the United Kingdom and is a Registered Member of the Law Society of England and Wales.
Nora Danielson: Co-editor, Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter
Nora is a DPhil Candidate at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford. She earned an MPhil (Distinction) in Migration Studies, University of Oxford. Her current research is on refugees, refugee assistance and social change in the context of the aftermath of the 2005 refugee protest in Cairo, Egypt.
Yara Romariz Maasri: Co-editor, Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter
Yara holds a First Class Honours MA in English with Linguistics from the University of St Andrews, Scotland and an MSc in Forced Migration from the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. Her editing experience includes work for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, Italy, as well as a consultancy with the US Refugee Admissions Program Resettlement Support Center in Beirut, Lebanon, where she was also a staff member for over three years.