Samita Pradhan is Executive Director of the Centre for Agro-Ecology and Development, Kathmandu (CAED), a founding member and secretary of the UP Alliance and long-time advocate for women’s rights in Nepal. Samita has a B.Com from North Bengal University, India and an MA in sociology from Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu. She has worked on women’s development in Nepal since 1990, and served in Laos on several UN-supported projects between 2001 and 2004. She is the author of several manuals, and many articles on UP. Email Samita!

2007 & 2008 AP Peace Fellow

Nicole Farkouh returned to Nepal during the summer of 2008 as a Fellow with Nepal’s Uterine Prolapse Alliance (UPA).  Nicole was a 2007 Peace Fellow in Nepal with COCAP, another AP partner, and extended her fellowship throughout the fall 2007, staying in Nepal to help support the Constitutional Assembly Election. Nicole came to the Advocacy Project from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley where she is completing a Master of Public Policy degree. Nicole spent this past semester conducting an extensive analysis of many facets of involved in bringing attention to and dealing with Nepal’s uterine prolapse crisis. Nicole graduated from Smith College with a BA in cultural anthropology and holds a Master of Education from the University of New Orleans. Her professional background is in education where she has worked as a teacher, administrator and consultant. Email Nicole!

2008 AP Peace Fellow

Libby Abbott volunteered in 2008 with two UPA member organizations – the Center for Agro-Ecology and Development (CAED) and the Women's Reproductive Rights Program (WRRP) – as a Peace Fellow in Nepal. Before her departure, Libby interned with The Advocacy Project in Washington where she served as a liaison between the UPA and the international community. Libby's initial experience of South Asian development came when she interned with an Indian NGO in Varanasi, North India, working on reproductive health programs for girls living in slums (2004-2005). In 2007, after graduating from Brown University, Libby worked in Chennai, India as a research assistant where she led a pilot study investigating community-based possibilities for tuberculosis treatment. Email Libby!
 

Outreach Intern

Meggan Fitzgerald joined The Advocacy Project in September 2008. She graduated from Binghamton University in 2004 with her BA in political science and history. This led to graduate work in political science at Binghamton University. As a graduate student she was a research assistant for the Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Data Project, which codes government respect of thirteen internationally recognized human rights for 195 countries from 1981 to the present. Her MA thesis quantitatively examines the relationship between women's political, economic, and social rights and sustainable development. Meggan's research interests focus on the effects of human rights, microfinance, and nongovernmental organization activity on political, economic, and social development. Email Meggan!