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Image 1Dr. Frances Lovemore, 2005 Oak Institute Fellow/Users/rnjacobs/Desktop/carling_thumb
2008 Oak Fellow Afsan Chowdhury 

The Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights at Colby College is delighted to welcome 2008 Oak Fellow Afsan Chowdhury of Bangladesh.

Afsan has spent more than two decades working in print media, radio, and television. He was an editor at various newspapers, and Founder and Promoter of UNB (National News Agency). He was Contributing Producer for a number of BBC World Service series, and is the author of four novels.

Learn more about Afsan here.

The 2009 Oak Fellowship:
Migration, Labor Movements, and Human Rights

Applications for 2009 will be available soon.

The Oak Institute at Colby College is will be issuing a call for nominations for the 2009 Oak Human Rights Fellowship in the near future. The Oak Institute seeks one frontline human rights practitioner working outside of the United States for residence at Colby in the fall of 2009.

Possible areas of human rights activity may include, but are not limited to: racial or ethnic discrimination; workers rights in both formal and informal markets; land and resource struggles; environmental human rights; victims of state or organized violence; gender and social exclusion; gay, lesbian, or transgender sexual discrimination; children’s rights; rights of displaced peoples and refugees; rights to religious freedom; or freedom of information.
We especially encourage applications from those who are currently
or were recently involved in on-the-ground work at some level of
personal risk and are in need of respite.

 About the Oak Fellowship:
campus sceneryThe Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights was established in 1998 by a generous grant from the Oak Foundation.  Each year, it hosts 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 one prominent practitioner in international human rights to take a sabbatical leave from front-line work to spend  the fall semester (September-December) in residence at Colby. This provides the Fellow time for respite, 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. Following the period of the fellowship, the fellow is expected to return home to continue her/his human rights work.