A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Sarosh Syed and the Home for Human Rights (HHR)

Sarosh Syed is currently a student at Georgetown University's Master of Science in Foreign Service program. Sarosh is originally from Karachi, Pakistan. He moved to the United States in 1995 to attend Northwestern University where he received a BA in Math and Art History. After graduating from NU, Sarosh went to work for the software industry specializing in language translation and localization software. After a brief stint of traveling in Europe, he turned to the nonprofit world, working with environmental organizations such as Conservation International and the Public Interest Research Group and social justice organizations such as the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and the American Civil Liberties Union. The bulk of his experience is in marketing and communications. At Georgetown University, he is concentrating on International Development and is particularly interested in the role of NGOs in developing countries.

During his involvement in The Advocacy Project’s 2005 Summer Internship Program, Sarosh Syed worked with the Home for Human Rights (HHR) in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka.

HHR, a Colombo-based human rights NGO with branch offices in Batti, Jaffna, Vavuniya, Akkaraipattu, has spent the past twenty-eight years pressuring the government to respect all its citizens’ fundamental human rights by thoroughly documenting tens of thousands of human rights violations and by providing legal and medical aid to victims of government abuse. Recently, HHR has begun work on reconstruction projects with 171 families displaced by the tsunami in December 2004. The organization has started to provide emergency food, shelter, medicine and psychological assistance to these refugees. They are also enabling families to rebuild their lives by developing practical skills. HHR has established a sewing center where women can learn to sew and have provided startup assistance to men interested in picking up their previous lives as cobblers and fishermen. Furthermore, they are offering legal assistance to register and file claims with the government.

Sarosh focused his work on two major assignments. The first one involved a series of field trips to village communities in Batticaloa affected by the Tsunami in an effort to conduct an on-the-ground assessment of their needs. Sarosh’s findings have been essential for the selection of beneficiaries for the rehabilitation project, jointly developed by HHR and AP. Sarosh’s second task was collecting the content and creating the design for HHR’s newly launched website.

While in Sri Lanka, Sarosh posted reports online in the form of blogs. His entries detail brief, but emotional histories of the individuals dispossessed and left destitute by the ravages of the tsunami, as well as reflections on the uphill battle waged by NGOs in Sri Lanka.

• Sarosh Syed's blog