Former RLP staff, volunteers and interns

The RLP has always benefited greatly from the contributions of those who came before, whether as full-time staff, associates or part-time volunteers. We wish to acknowledge their work and are especially grateful for all the contributions our former colleagues made through their tireless efforts during their time with us.

Former volunteers - have you previously worked at the RLP, whether full-time, as a volunteer, or an affiliated research associate? Is the information below in need of an update? If so, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us with a short biography of about 60-100 words stating when you were at RLP and what you did, a recent photograph if possible (ideally 120w x 140h pixels) and what you have done since leaving.

Directory

	Abba Anthony Mulindwa Legal Intern - Anthony served as an intern in the Legal Aid Department from September 2006 to March 2007. He was involved in activities like building client confidence and working on new cases. He is currently pursuing his post graduate studies in Law.
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Adam Weatherley Intern (Intake Officer ) - Adam interned with the Legal and Psychosocial Department from January to June 2010. Adam is a law graduate from England who volunteered with RLP as part of his gap year before starting work for a law firm in the UK. The majority of his work at RLP was as an Intake Officer, which involved the assessing the needs of clients, entering their bio-data into the Client Management System and taking their testimonies. Other work included producing an Intake Manual, producing a Police & Immigration Officer Training Manual and writing the report for the 2010 Kyaka II Refugee Settlement Field Trip.

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Ademola Jegede Intern - Ademola interned with us between October- November 2008 under the Legal & Psychosocial dept. While here, he conducted interviews on diverse human rights issues affecting asylum seekers and refugees, and assessed the complaints and claims of asylum seekers and refugees with the view of assisting with documentation. Since leaving RLP, he has been working as a consultant on human rights issues including conflict prevention, access to justice and human services

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Alex Sheff Research Associate - Alex joined RLP from July through December, 2008 on a Maguire Fellowship. His research focused on the potential roles of traditional justice practices in a national transitional justice process. The research looked particularly at the relationships between practices in the Acholi, Lango, and Teso sub-regions, and their policy implications for a national justice process.

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Aliza Cover Intern - Aliza interned with the Research & Advocacy Department from June to August 2006. Her projects included research on refugees freedom of movement, writing policy briefs based on RLP working papers, and reviewing literature on national reconciliation in Uganda. She also worked with the Legal Aid Department on an asylum appeal and taught English classes to adult refugees. At the end of the summer, she returned to her studies at Yale Law School.

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Awet Haile Volunteer - Awet was with us from May 2008 through to December 2008 as a Volunteer Lawyer, and was involved in interviewing, assessing/investigating claims, and representation of refugees & asylum seekers before authorities responsible for refugees including UNHCR. He was also involved in field research to assess refugee's human rights situation in Nakivale Refugee Settlement, and his interest lies in Human Rights Law with particular emphasis on Refugee Law and Migration.

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Balkees Jarrah R&A Volunteer - Balkees worked as a volunteer in the Research & Advocacy Department from May to August 2006. During her time here she contributed to the working paper, Invisibly Displaced Persons, and had the opportunity to attend UN humanitarian coordination meetings on behalf of the department. Balkees was also a rapporteur at the Brookings Institution conference on the implementation of Ugandas national internal displacement policy. Balkees returned to Montreal, Canada to complete her law degree at McGill University.

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Brian Bwesigye Intern - Brian joined the RLP Legal & Psychosocial department in June 2009 as an intern under the NORAD funded Democratic Governance, Constitutionalism and Human Rights Project Internship programme of the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC). While at RLP, he undertook a comparative study of laws on sexual and gender based violence in Sub Saharan Africa; participated in client intake and assessment, contributed to the work on RLP brochures. He returned to university to finish his law degree at Makerere University, and plans to pursue his interests in International Law and Human Rights law through litigation, advocacy and research.

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	Chris Hartmann Intern - Chris was an intern with Research & Advocacy at the RLP from June to October 2006. He joined the research team to Pader district and was involved with fundraising and administration, as well as monitoring the progress of discussions at the Juba Peace Talks. He returned to Germany to complete his masters in Humanitarian Assistance.
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	David Muhindo Bukenye Volunteer - David joined the education and training team in June 2008, and is actively involved in the Functional Adult Literacy program currently being run by the department.
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Emily Broyles Intern - Emily was in Uganda from August to December 2006 with the School of International Training, during which time she also interned with Research & Advocacy. At RLP, Emily was the event manager for the Beyond Juba conference and the Transitional Justice and Displacement in the Great Lakes Region workshop. After returning to the US, Emily then left for Oxford University (UK). In the future she plans to attend law school and pursue her interests in transitional justice and human rights law.

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Emmanuel Bagenda Research and Advocacy Officer - Emmanuel joined the Refugee Law Project in July 2002 as a Research & Advocacy Officer. During that time, he was involved in the design and implementation of an Advocacy Strategy, as well as the preparation of a number of working papers. He was also co-author of "Sudanese Refugees in Uganda: From one Conflict to the Next" (Forced Migration Review Jan 2003). In September 2004, Emmanuel left the RLP to pursue further studies at the University of Toronto in Canada, graduating with a Master of Law degree the following year. He is presently pursuing a doctorate in International Law and Development at Harvard Law School.

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	Fred Lulinaki LAC Volunteer - Fred has been serving at the RLP since July 2005. He has been involved with opening up cases, translation, providing social and legal advice, and securing the release of detained refugees. Over the course of the last two years, he went on field research trips to Kyaka II and Rhino Camp. He plans to get involved in publications and further studies in the future.
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Genevieve Goulding R&A Volunteer - Genevieve worked as a volunteer/intern with the Research & Advocacy Department from April through July 2006. She assisted in the transfer of documents and organisation of files during the handover of our directors, organised office and research files, assisted with French-English translation, and taught a beginners English course for Congolese refugees. She left for Virginia, USA to finish her senior year of undergraduate studies at the University of Richmond. In the future she hopes to contribute to the reform of refugee assistance at home and abroad.

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Godwin Bwire Legal Officer - Godwin first joined the Legal Aid Clinic as a legal volunteer in 2004, then returned in the same capacity in 2006 but was later promoted to Legal Fellow in 2007 and then made Legal Officer in 2008. He has a special interest in refugee issues and was involved with testimony taking, interviews, and investigations of claims. He was also involved in field researches in Kyaka II, Kyangwali, Rhino, Imvepi, Ikafe, Kyangwali, and Nakivale refugee settlements. He aspires to be a voice for the voiceless. Currently he is working with UNHCR Protection Unit in Sudan.

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Jesse Bernstein R&A Intern - Jesse worked in the research and advocacy department from July 2004 to June 2005. He researched/wrote the RLP Working Paper 16 on Urban Refugees, contributed to a few other papers, and organised the seminar series. After leaving the RLP he became a Country Analyst covering Uganda/Kenya for the IDMC in Geneva, where he coordinated an NGO advocacy group on northern Uganda, and managed a joint research project between the RLP/IDMC. Jesse is now studying for an MSc in human rights at the London School of Economics.

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	Joan Brockman E.F.A Instructor - Joan joined the team in October 2007 and has played a vital role in the establishment and management of the English For Adults Literacy classes for refugees being run under the education and traning department. She was actively involved in teaching English as well as securing resource materials for the students.
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Joel Ng Communications Officer - Joel served as Communications Officer from October 2006 to February 2007 after having joined as a volunteer in the Research & Advocacy department in October 2005. He worked on upgrading the system resources used by the RLP, training the staff on the upgraded software, and designing and coding of the preveous RLP website. He was also actively involved in proposal-writing, organising workshops and seminars, coordinating and planning fieldwork alongside field research to Adjumani, Apac, and Lira, and was a co-author on Invisibly Displaced Persons.

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John Alex Njuba (Esq) Legal Officer - John Alex was with us from 2005 - 2010, first as a Legal Fellow and eventually as a Legal Officer with keen interest in economic & socio-cultural rights. He was actively involved in numerous cases as a Legal Practitioner and Consultant. The cases ranged from legal representation of asylum seekers & refugees threatened with deportation within and outside Uganda, defense of refugees in criminal & civil cases, and inter-country tracing and research on a number of legal issues such as the Refugees Act 2006. He also rendered consultancy services to other organisations and practitioners in many countries concerning peace intiatives, forced migration, immigration, international refugee & asylum law as well as best practices. He is currently in private practice.

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Jonathan Marino Research Associate - Jonathan joined RLP in March 2008 on a 1 year US Fulbright Scholarship. His research focused on the implementation of Uganda's Peace, Recovery, and Development Plan (PRDP) for war-affected communities in northern Uganda. He also helped with field work and data entry on studies looking at refugee access to education, and the local integration of refugees in Ugandan host communities.

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	Justine Earl Intern - Justine joined the RLP in August 2008 as an intern. She spent the first couple of months assisting with editing tasks and a research trip on traditional justice, and was also part of the organising team for the Peace Film Festival in October. She is currently undertaking research on marriage patterns in refugee communities, and their impact on durable solutions for refugees.
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Kristen Rau Intern - Kristen interned with Legal Aid & Counseling from February to May 2009. Her projects included assisting in the organization of SGBV week, taking testimonies of Francophone refugee clients, and developing USAID grant applications. She was part of an assessment team that spent two weeks in the Kyaka II Refugee Settlement observing the availability, accessibility and quality of services offered to refugees in the settlement; she also composed the assessment report that resulted from the trip. At the end of her internship, she returned to complete her Master's degree at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

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Leah Bellshaw LAPVolunteer - Leah joined RLP as a volunteer with the Legal Aid & Counselling team in October 2007. While the majority of her work focused on the Urban IDPs special project, Leah also drafted and edited several other RLP publications, participated in field visits to refugee settlements, and contributed to a number of successful advocacy efforts. With the intent of continuing her involvement in refugee and human rights work, Leah is planning to attend law school, get a paid job, and hopefully return to Uganda, RLP, and her Luganda lessons in the near future.

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Leon Musafiri LAP Volunteer - His relationship with RLP started in February 2004. As a member of a refugee associaton, ASSOREF, he helped fellow refugees with language interpretation during their interviews with legal officers. In April 2007 he joined the Research & Advocacy department as an intern and then later moved to the Legal Aid & Counselling department as a volunteer performing duties such as file opening, language interpretation, document translation, client location, as well as coordinating refugees meetings with UNHCR. He was part of a team that conducted a survey on Local Integration of Refugees and the Host in Uganda.

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Lucy Hovil Senior Researcher - Dr. Lucy Hovil founded the RLP's Research and Advocacy department in October 2000, was head of the department until the end of 2006, and then Senior Research Fellow until Dec 2007. During her time at the RLP she pioneered the RLPs Working Paper series, and contributed through writing and/or editing 20 Working Papers. She developed a department that promotes innovative approaches to action-oriented research that are rooted in social-science methodologies, with a view to creating space for marginalised voices and advocating on their behalf for policy change. She developed a research agenda focusing on issues of displacement, conflict, and justice. She is now working for the International Refugee Rights Initiative as their Senior Researcher on a new research and advocacy project, carried out in conjunction with the Social Science Research Council focusing on issues of citizenship and displacement in the Great Lakes Region. She continues to be in regular contact with the RLP, and hopes to continue working with them long into the future.

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	Lynne Kisakye E&T Volunteer - Lynne first joined us in June 2005 as a volunteer, and later moved to the Education & Training Department in March 2006 where she worked until October 2007. She was involved in the planning of training programmes in Gulu and Kitgum, as well as writing reports for the department.
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Marina Sharpe LAP Volunteer - Marina was a volunteer legal advisor during the second half of 2005. After leaving the RLP, she became associated with the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York City, but returned to Uganda in 2008 to work with IRRI. Since leaving RLP, Marina has been known to show up unannounced at the Refugee Law Project to surprise her former colleagues and plans to continue doing so on a semi-regular basis.

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Moses Kambaragye Mugume Intern - Moses joined the department in August 2008 as an intern under the DANIDA funded Human Rights and Good Governance Internship programme. He contributed greatly to a research about access to education for refugees, helped in organising and facilitating Police training on the Refugee Act 2006 in and around Kampala, coordinated Human Rights and international relations programs of Respect University as well as participating in developing the "Speak your rights" curriculum for the FAL programme.

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Noah Gottschalk R&A Volunteer - One of our longest serving volunteers, Noah served as Research & Advocacy Associate between September 2005 and March 2007. His work focused on critically examining official understandings of refugee and IDP vulnerability, and he designed and led a series of research trips to western Uganda and West Nile on refugee youth and families – based on which he wrote Giving out their Daughters for their Survival – and conducted research with IDPs in Gulu and Kitgum. Noah also coordinated the departments internship programme in 2006 and is a co-author on There are No Refugees in this Area. He left RLP to work as a Project Manager with the International Rescue Committee in Southern Sudan.

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Peter Ekayu Legal Officer - Peter worked with us from March 2005 up to May 2007 as a Legal Officer in the Legal Aid Department. Among his activities, he was posted to Cairo in October 2005 to exchange ideas with AMERA Egypt. He also took part in field research to several refugee hosting districts in western Uganda, as well as presenting updates on the situation in northern Uganda at the summer EASRHA course in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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	Pierre Mulowe Interpreter - Pierre initially joined RLP in June 2008 as a volunteer instructor in the Functional Adult Literacy programme run by the department, but was recruited as an Interpreter under the Legal Aid department in October 2008. He left RLP for further education and is now a student at Mbarara University
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Sam Walker Intern - Sam Walker spent the summer of 2008 working in the LAC department. He helped counsel clients by conducting interviews, drafting appeals, and investigating claims. Sam also accompanied a Legal Aid field team to Kyangwali Refugee Settlement, and wrote a paper on the availability of Ugandan citizenship for refugees. He is currently finishing his law degree at McGill University in Montreal, but plans to be back in the neighbourhood some day.

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	Samuel Shaganya I.T. Assistant - Samuel first joined RLP in October 2007 as an I.T. Volunteer under the Beyond Juba Project, and later taking on the responsibility of I.T. Assistant. He contributed so much to the design, development and maintenance of the RLP Clients Management System till he left RLP by the end of 2009. You are greatly missed by the I.T. team
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Sarah Fick Volunteer - Sarah spent the summer working in Research & Advocacy. She perfomed research on refugee freedom of movement under Ugandan law, and taught refugee rights to clients. She also revived the English programme at RLP and taught the advanced English class. Meanwhile she worked with the Education and Training Department to develop a plan to expand the classes and services RLP can offer its clients. After leaving RLP Sarah returned to law school at New York University with a focus on immigration law. She hopes to return to Uganda soon, because it is impossible to find good matooke in New York!

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Sarah Larson Volunteer - Sarah came to RLP as a volunteer for three months from end of 2008 to beginning of 2009. She collaborated with various departments to develop a reporting matrix, compose proposals, and investigate funding possibilities. Additionally, she played a vital role in editing RLP's new website. She left to do a consultancy with War Child in northern Uganda, and hopes to have further interaction with RLP in the future.

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Sarah Nouwen Research Associate - Sarah joined RLP from August until October 2008 to study Uganda's domestic responses to the International Criminal Court(ICC). She focused on the question whether, how and why Uganda has used its primary right to investigate and prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in order to end the ICC's intervention,pursuant to the Court’s complementarity principle. Upon leaving RLP,Sarah went to Sudan to do similar research concerning Darfur. She is now back in Cambridge (UK) to complete her PhD in international law and to take up a fellowship.

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	Suzan Ombaru LAP Volunteer - Suzan volunteered with the Counselling Department between January 2006 and December 2007. She worked on networking NGOs who provide psychosocial services, assisted in the management of client appointments, as well as performing home visits and other tasks as necessary. She also participated in field research to Adjumani District.
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	Tabitha Netuwa LAP Volunteer - Tabitha Netuwa served as a Legal Volunteer from February until September 2006. She assisted the Legal Aid department in opening and following up cases, and was also involved in two research field trips to Kyangwali and Pader.
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Zachary Lomo Director - Zachary joined the RLP as director in July 2001, and stayed with us till August 2006. During his time, informed both by his own experiences as a former refugee, and by his background in human rights law, he led RLP to new heights and international recognition, including co-authoring the seminal paper Behind the Violence on the causes of the war in northern Uganda. His enduring concern for reconciliation and justice spurred the research for 'Negotiating Peace' and 'Whose Justice?'. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in International Law and Refugees at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

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