IHP: Human Rights: Foundations, Challenges, and

Advocacy
Investigate the historical and social contexts of human rights movements,
including the roles of culture, identity, political economy, and international law in
four different countries.
On this program, human rights serves as an
entry point to frame a broader inquiry into the
nature of dehumanization, oppression, and life
affirming movements for justice. You will
examine how the rhetoric and reality of human
rights varies in four different locales by
examining relevant and timely human rights
issues such as transitional justice, gender equity,
the geopolitics of conflict, and the rights of
refugees, migrants, and indigenous peoples.

Key questions include:

What are the root causes that incite struggles

for human rights in different locations?
How did the UN human rights framework
come to be? What opportunities and
challenges do rights discourse pose for the
actualization of human rights for all?

How does the international human rights

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regime differ from and relate to the broad array of bottom-up human rights
movements in existence today and throughout history?

What is the relationship between human rights, activism, and popular mobilization?

What strategies of individual and collective action are utilized to advance human rights
in different locales?

- Sites

Please note that in order to take advantage of dynamic learning opportunities,

program excursions may occasionally vary.

Human Rights Contexts in the Countries to Be Visited

United States: New York

(2 weeks)
The program launches in New York City in order to critically examine the United States
relationship to human rights. New York City is an ideal launch site for the program, as it
is home to many of the largest international human rights bodies, from the United
Nations to Amnesty International. Visits to such agencies offer both historical
perspectives on human rights and insights into the contemporary practice of human
rights organizations internationally. The program also meets with a diversity of
community organizers, city officials, and activists working to advance human rights
causes in New York City, such as the right to housing, immigrant rights, anti-racism in
the criminal justice system, workers rights, and LGBTQ rights.

Nepal: Kathmandu
(4 weeks)

Nepal emerged in 2006 as a parliamentary democracy after a decade of armed conflict

pitting Maoist rebels against a long-standing Hindu monarchy. It officially became a
republic in 2008. The nation-building process has been long, and you will be exposed to
its intricacies, from developing a viable constitution that guarantees equal rights in a
multi-ethnic country to confrontations with impunity for wartime abuses, including

enforced disappearances, rape, torture, and extrajudicial executions. In Kathmandu, you

will meet with lawyers and activists who are working to ensure a more just future in
Nepal. Your study will also extend to the complicated politics of the everyday. You will
meet grassroots organizers for issues as wide-ranging as urban squatters rights, the
precarious livelihoods of Tibetan refugees, the labor struggles of domestic workers, and
the work of organizations working for LGBTQ rights. The program also spends one week
on a rural excursion in the south of Nepal, visiting indigenous communities involved in
struggles for land, resources, and political representation.

Jordan: Amman
(4 weeks)
Jordan is
a safe
haven in
the
Middle
East and,
as such, is
an

At a refugee camp in Jordan

appropriate locale to inquire into the array of human rights violations arising from
geopolitical conflicts afflicting the region. For decades, Jordan has received thousands of
Palestinian, Iraqi, and Syrian refugees. The program probes the historical and
contemporary origins of Jordans refugee populations by visiting with refugee
communities and refugee-focused NGOs living and working both inside and outside

refugee camps. The program also has a strong emphasis on gender rights, meeting with
an array of scholars and womens rights organizations with differing interpretations of
Islamic feminism. During the programs stay in Amman, you will meet with members of
Parliament, and international agencies such as the UN and get multi-layered
perspectives on pathways utilized to enact human rightsbased change. Additionally,
you will go on excursions to historic sites such as Petra, the Dead Sea, and Aqaba, and
you will go camping in the desert sands of Wadi Rum.

Chile: Santiago
(5 weeks)

The rich political history of Chile provides fertile ground for analyses of human rights
struggles. After the end of the Pinochet dictatorship, a transition to democracy has been
entwined with both the reconciliation of history and the continuation of neoliberal
policies that make Chile a profoundly unequal society. You will spend half of your stay in
Santiago and visit sites such as the Museum of Memory and Human Rights and Villa
Grimaldi. You will also meet with feminist leaders, historians, student activists leading

the cause for equal access to education, and officials from the UN and multiple NGOs.
The second component takes place in the Mapuche territories of southern Chile on farms
in the Andes. You will be immersed in indigenous communities that negotiate the
challenges of large-scale natural resource extraction, dam-building, and industrial
agriculture, along with racial discrimination. The program concludes in Chile with a
student retreat near the oceanfront residence of poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda.

+ Coursework

Prerequisites:
Coursework in social sciences,such as anthropology, history, economics, sociology,
and/or political science. Humanities coursework (philosophy, religion, and/or ethics) is
also recommended.

Access virtual library guide. (http://libguides.sit.edu/hrc)

The program takes a holistic, interdisciplinary view of academic topics, drawing not only
on articles and faculty lectures, but also student observations, guest lectures, and
homestay interviews to facilitate learning. Assignments could involve written essays, oral
presentations, and/or more creative projects such as posters and photo stories.
Students enrolled in this program take all courses listed below for a total of 16 credits.
The following syllabi are either from a recent session of this program or for an upcoming
session. Because courses develop and change over time to take advantage of dynamic
learning opportunities, actual course content will vary from term to term.
The syllabi can be useful for students, faculty, and study abroad offices in assessing
credit transfer. Read more about credit transfer. (/how-to-apply/credittransfer/)
Foundations and Framework of Human Rights syllabus
(/documents/studyabroad/2016SFA-HRC-HMRT3000.pdf)
(HMRT3000 / 4 credits / 60 class hours)

The United Nations articulated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Using
that historic moment as a point of departure, this course employs the UN framework as a
preliminary lens to examine and understand how basic social and economic rights are
contested globally. International safeguards for rights embodied in supranational
organizations and national legal systems are discussed. Current human rights conditions,
threats, and protections will be examined in each country studied. The meaning of a human
rights discourse in the political economy of development, as well as in defining the role of
the security state, is foregrounded at each field site. This course is taught by traveling
faculty.
Comparative Issues in Human Rights syllabus
(/documents/studyabroad/2016SFA-HRC-HMRT3500.pdf)
(HMRT3500 / 4 credits / 60 class hours)
Through selected readings, focused discussions, and case studies, this course critically
considers an array of current human rights challenges. Among them are the conflicts
between national sovereignty and human rights, such as international humanitarian
interventions; how universal rights are imbricated with the nuances of culture, ethnicity,
and religion; and how national governments affirm and protect human rights in written
law, yet simultaneously compromise rights in the realm of politics, economics, media, and
social well-being. Human rights questions involving labor conditions, migration,
environmental crises, freedom of the media, and the accountability of multinational
corporations are explored comparatively within and across program sites. This course is
taught by locally based faculty.
The Role of Civil Society: Grassroots Movements and Nongovernmental
Organization syllabus (/documents/studyabroad/2016SFA-HRCSDIS3320.pdf)
(SDIS3320 / 4 credits / 60 class hours)
This course focuses on the practical aspects of advocacy and the protection of human rights
by nongovernmental organizations and grassroots, popular movements. Through case
studies, interviews, and visits to local organizers of advocacy groups, students learn how
popular movements are launched and developed, as well as strategies to navigate legal,
political, and public arenas. The course contrasts the role, agendas, and effectiveness of
grassroots organizations with those of governmental, private sector, and supranational
stakeholders. Students meet with local activists and officials who advocate for various
human rights agendas to learn about successful and unsuccessful campaigns and to
evaluate the use of inquiries, documentation, public outreach, legal action, and other
approaches to protecting rights. This course is taught by locally based faculty.
Fieldwork Ethics and Comparative Research Methods syllabus
(/documents/studyabroad/2016SFA-HRC-ANTH3500.pdf)
(ANTH3500 / 4 credits / 60 class hours)
This course provides students with the theoretical, conceptual, and practical knowledge for

gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information from a range of primary sources. It

offers insights for students to assess their own cultural assumptions and to understand
other cultures. Students are familiarized with the SIT Human Subjects Review Policy. The
course is the foundation for a cumulative study project involving research in three countries
and culminating in a paper and presentation at the end of the semester. This course is
taught by traveling faculty.

+ Letters Home
These letters home are from previous terms. Site locations may vary from term to term.

Letters Home: Human Rights

April 11, 2016
IHP Human Rights Spring 2016 Nepal (http://blogs.ihp.sit.edu/?p=550)
Letter Home Nepal Country Team IHP Human Rights Spring 2016 Introduction
It is important to start out by saying that this letter is by no means
an attempt to condense Nepal, speak on behalf of Nepali people, or detail a universal
Nepali experience. We did not experience all of Nepal, and that []
January 27, 2016
IHP Human Rights Fall 2015 Jordan (http://blogs.ihp.sit.edu/?p=506)
Dear Future IHP Students, We had a wonderful and challenging month in Amman
and we hope you will too. Upon arriving, we were taken to a restaurant where we
were served pita, falafel, cucumbers, and hummus, a traditional dish of the region, no
doubt. As a vegetarian (1 of 5), I thoroughly enjoyed the meal []
January 27, 2016
IHP Human Rights Fall 2015 Chile (http://blogs.ihp.sit.edu/?p=504)
To study human rights you shouldnt write so much, you should feel and listen.
Raquel Marillanca, Mapuche leader Resistance. Welcome. Reciprocity.
Community. Solidarity. Looking back. Moving forward. No words can fully do
justice to our journey in Chile, from the moment we arrived in the cozy Dominica
Hostel to our departure from []

+ Faculty and Staff

The faculty/staff team shown on this page is a sample of the individuals who may lead
your specific program. Faculty and coordinators are subject to change to
accommodate each programs unique schedule and locations.

Chris Westcott, MA, Program Director

Chris is an educator and change-maker with extensive experience working with

grassroots human rights NGOs and social changeoriented study abroad programs.
Chriss human rights work has focused predominately on the provision of economic,
social, and cultural rights. Chris has worked on housing and workers rights campaigns
with the Urban Justice Center and the Freelancers Union in New York City. Additionally,
Chris was a founding staff member of ENGAGE, where he worked in Thailand and the

San Francisco Bay Area on trade justice campaigns affecting the economic rights of
farmers and access to affordable medicines for people living with HIV/AIDS. Chris has
worked with IHP, first as a traveling faculty member, then as a program manager, since
2012. Earlier, Chris worked for two years on CIEE Thailands study abroad program
focusing on globalization and development. Chris has a BA in environmental studies
from Bates College and an MA in international educational development from Columbia
University. Chris has conducted ethnographic research on the land reform process in
post-apartheid South Africa and has done participatory action research on housing
rights and educational equity in New York City. Chris currently serves on the solidarity
board of Community Voices Heard, an economic and racial justice organization based in
New York.

Anna Gail Caunca, MA, Program Manager

Anna Gail's work experience has focused on the areas of youth and young adult
leadership development, community building, residential life and student
welfare, international education, and human rights education. Building on her graduate
studies in social justice and international education, Anna Gail worked with World
Learnings Youth Leadership and Peacebuilding Programs, facilitating workshops with
the Governors Institute of Vermont on current issues and youth activism and traveling
with and supporting students through the LondonX and Iraqi Youth Leadership
Program for two years. In 2013, she traveled as the IHP Trustees Fellow for the
inaugural year of the Human Rights: Foundations, Challenges, and Advocacy
program. After four adventurous years living in Wellington, New Zealand, she was
excited to start a new chapter as the IHP program manager in 2015.
Anna Gail earned her BS in psychology from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. She graduated from SIT Graduate Institute with an MA in intercultural
service, leadership, and management and received her educators licensure in secondary
education in social studies, incorporating social justice in the classroom. She is a
vegetarian, photographer-in-the-making, and running enthusiast with a hearty laugh.

Lucas Shapiro, Launch Coordinator

Lucas Shapiro comes to IHP after years of working as a community organizer for housing
rights and racial justice in New York City. Most recently, Lucas served as senior
organizer at Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), based in
downtown Brooklyn. At FUREE, Lucas worked with members to fight for living-wage
jobs, affordable housing, access to healthy food, and a seat at the table in shaping local
development. After earning a degree in studies in social change from Ithaca College,

Lucas moved to New York City to become the national organizer for a progressive youth
and student organization and later worked as an organizer with a tenants rights
nonprofit. Lucas is dedicated to multi-issue movement building and strengthening
member-driven organizations, and he has a keen interest in political strategy, public

policy, and popular education. He is currently working to launch Mayday Space in

Bushwick a dynamic center for social justice organizing, community empowerment,
and creative expression. He lives in a cooperative house located in Fort Greene and
enjoys reading articles, watching films, playing games, going on bike adventures, and
visiting friends and family in Spain.

Dema Al Oun, Country Coordinator, Jordan

Dema received her bachelors and masters degrees in law from Jordan University. She
has completed her required legal training and is expecting to take the Jordanian Bar
exam shortly. She is qualified in many aspects of both civil and criminal law within
Jordan and has completed over 35 training courses in legal issues. These courses dealt
with civil and criminal law, and several pertained specifically to the rights of the child or
the rights of women. Additionally, she is trained in international treaties and agreements
pertaining to related human rights issues. Since 2004, she has volunteered at the
National Center for Human Rights in Jordan. She is also a member of Talal AbuGhazala, a famous law firm in Jordan that trains in civil and criminal law. Her past
experience includes two and a half years in a law firm as a legal trainer. She has been a
homestay coordinator for SIT since 2008 and was an advisor for SIT students studying
topics related to women, culture, and youth.

Carmen Luz Morales, Country Coordinator, Chile

Carmen Luz (Lula) is the country coordinator for the IHP program in Chile and has coconstructed the program in Chile from its inception in 2013. She holds a bachelors
degree in history from the University of Santiago and has been working as a consultant
at the Observatorio Ciudadano, a leading human rights organization based in
Temuco that hosts the IHP Human Rights program, since 2005. With Observatario,
Carmen has conducted historical research on Mapuche communities and has
coordinated international seminars and workshops to promote the defense of human

rights of indigenous communities in Chile. She also has worked at the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights in Washington, DC, as a consultant at the Special
Rapporteurship for Freedom of Expression. Her investigative work as a historian has
focused on oral history, particularly on the history of land dispossession and the
vulnerability of fundamental rights affecting the Mapuche people in Chile. Carmen also
brings teaching experience to her role with IHP, having previously taught history courses
in Chile and Spanish language and literature courses in France. She currently spends her
time between Santiago and Valparaiso with her husband Matas and daughter Elosa.

Yanik Shrestha, Country Coordinator, Nepal

Yanik is the director of Passage International, which facilitates experiential education

and global understanding by creating opportunities for students to live and learn abroad.
He has been working intermittently with study abroad programs since 2002. He has also
assisted in guiding several treks in Nepal and India, for Passage as well as for other trek
operators.
A man with eclectic tastes and passions, in 2002 Yanik participated in the No Education:
No Freedom, No Opportunity seminar in Germany, organized by GTZ, on whether
education should be liberalized or not. He was involved in an Antenna Foundation
project a dramatized TV series broadcast on the national TV channel that raised issues
on womens rights and attempted to break taboos through the program. He had the
opportunity to work with two of Nepal's most acclaimed comedians, Madan Krishna
Shrestha and Hari Bansha Acharya, during the project. He has been working in radio
since 2005, first with Hits FM 91.2, a 24-hour commercial radio station. At present he is
associated with Revolution Radio, an online radio station. He is also a part of a hip-hop /
slam poetry group, Word Warriors. The group has played a big role in inspiring other
young poets to use poetry and music as mediums of expression.

Clelia Rodrguez, Traveling Faculty

Clelia O. Rodrguez is a Salvadorian-Canadian educator, born and raised in El Salvador,

Central America. She graduated from York University with a Specialized Honours BA,
specializing in Spanish literature. She earned her MA and PhD from the University of
Toronto and a graduate collaborative program certificate in women and gender studies.
Professor Rodrguez has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of
Toronto, Washington College, and the University of Ghana.
She is currently a human rights professor in the United States, Nepal, Jordan, and Chile
as part of the International Honors Program (IHP) for the School of International
Training (SIT). She teaches Comparative Issues in Human Rights and Fieldwork Ethics
and Comparative Research Methods. She is also an assistant professor (statusappointed) in the Department of Social Justice Education (Ontario Institute for Studies
in Education, OISE) at the University of Toronto. Her international experience
conducting interdisciplinary research and engaged critical pedagogy derives from studies
of literature, ethnicity, culture, race, gender, class, religion, cartography, refugees,
identity, memory, trauma, and decolonization in El Salvador, the United States, Canada,
Mexico, Cuba, Spain, Equatorial Guinea, Nepal, Jordan, Chile and Ghana. She has
published in Postcolonial Studies, Revista Iberoamericana, and Women &
Environments.

Hnin Hnin, Trustees Fellow

Hnin has over five years of experience in consumer-driven social change, with a strong
focus on the sustainable food, food worker rights, and food sovereignty movements.
Born in Burma and based in Brooklyn, she is the founder of Eatable, a startup vegan food
discovery app that helps food lovers find the best chef-crafted vegan creations near them.
Eatable shows you vegan-friendly dishes at omnivore and vegan restaurants alike,
making it convenient to enjoy vegan food while eating out with friends. Not just an app,

Eatable connects the food we eat to questions of nonviolence, joy, love, sustainability,
and justice as alternatives to oppression in all forms. Prior to founding Eatable, Hnin led
lean (startup) experimentation at ROC United, a national restaurant worker advocacy
group with 14,000 members in the US. She was previously the associate manager of
national programs at Slow Food USA, the US headquarters of an international
sustainable food organization with over 100,000 members and 1,500 volunteer-led
chapters worldwide. She is a founding board member and current board chair of CoFED,
a US national nonprofit that trains college students to start sustainable food coops. She
is also the board secretary of SAAFON, a US regional nonprofit that supports black
organic farmers in the southeast US and Caribbean to build thriving businesses.
Hnin holds a BA in political economy and international studies from Williams College.
She is also an IHP alum.

+ Homestays

Students live with a host family for between two and four weeks at each program site,
with the exception of the first location. Homestays are the primary form of
accommodation on the program; other accommodations can include guest houses,
hostels, dormitories, and/or small hotels.

Homestay families provide you with the opportunity to live as an integrated member of
the host communities. In sharing daily life, conversations, family stories, celebrations,
and community events, you will not only learn a tremendous amount, but also develop
lasting friendships.
Family structures vary in every place, and SIT values the diversity of homestay families.
For example, the host family may include a single mother of two small children or a large
extended family with many people coming and going all the time. Please bear in mind
that the idea of what constitutes a home (i.e., the physical nature of the house) may be
different from what youd expect. You will need to be prepared to adapt to a new life with
a new diet, a new schedule, new people, and possibly new priorities and expectations.
Country coordinators in each location arrange homestay placements. In most cases,
students are placed in homestays in pairs, with placements made to best accommodate
health concerns, including allergies or dietary needs. You will not receive information
about homestay families until you arrive in each country.

+ Alumni Pursuits

A diversity of students representing different colleges, universities, and majors study

abroad on this program. Many of them have gone on to do amazing things that connect
back to their experience abroad with SIT. Learn what some of them are now doing.

Recent positions held by alumni of this program include:

Fellow, Amnesty International, New York, New York

Employment Specialist, International Rescue Committee, New York, New York
Outreach Coordinator, Center for NYC Neighborhoods, New York, New York
Executive Director, Children and Youth First, Kathmandu, Nepal
+ Alumni Stories

Sabiya Ahamed (Brown University) offers personal stories and insights into the topics
explored by the IHP Human Rights program in Nepal, Jordan, and Chile on her blog
(http://awildsabiyaappeared.wordpress.com/) .
Sam Friedlander (University of Pennsylvania) writes an article for The Huffington
Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-friedlander/something-calledpeace_b_8641112.html?1448397908) about a memorable and poignant
encounter she had with a Syrian refugee while on this program.

- Dates
Program Dates: Spring
2017
Program Arrival Date: Jan 22, 2017
Program Departure Date:

May 17, 2017

The dates listed above are subject to change. Please note that travel to and
from the program site may span a period of more than one day.

Student applications to this program will be reviewed on a rolling basis between the
opening date and the deadline.

Application Deadline: Nov 1, 2016

- Costs

SIT Pell Grant Match Award. SIT Study Abroad provides matching grants to all
students receiving Federal Pell Grant funding; this award can be applied to any SIT
semester program. View all SIT Study Abroad scholarships. (/pn/prospectivestudents/scholarships-and-financial-aid/?jumplink=collapseThree)

Tuition: $18,000
The tuition fee covers the following program components:

Content and logistics for field programs in New York City, Nepal, Jordan, and Chile
Cost of all lecturers who provide instruction to students in:
Locally taught classes
Foundations and Frameworks of Human Rights
The Role of Civil Society
Classes taught by traveling faculty
Fieldwork Ethics and Comparative Research Methods
Comparative Issues in Human Rights
Guest lectures and panel discussions
Site visit hosts and facilitators
Transportation to classroom spaces and daily program activities
All educational excursions to locations such as Curerrehue, Chile, including all
related travel costs
Travelers health insurance throughout the entire program period
Instructional materials
Other direct program costs
Note: Vacation costs are not covered by program fees; students are responsible for this.

Airfare: $4,500

Group airfare during the program

Airfare includes a flight back to a city in the US at the conclusion of the program.
Room & Board: $4,500
The room and board fee covers the following program components:

 All accommodations during the entire program period. This includes during

orientation, time in all four countries, urban and rural stays, all excursions, and the
final retreat. Accommodation is covered either by SIT Study Abroad directly,
through a stipend provided to each student, or through the homestay.

All homestays in Nepal, Jordan, and Chile

All meals for the entire program period. Meals are covered either by SIT Study
Abroad directly, through a stipend, or through the homestay.

Estimated Additional
Costs:
Domestic Airfare to Program Launch Site
Domestic airline pricing can vary greatly due to the volatility of airline industry
pricing, flight availability, and specific flexibility/restrictions on the type of ticket
purchased. Students may choose to take advantage of frequent flyer or other airline
awards available to them, which could significantly lower their travel costs.
Visa Expenses: $ 150
Immunizations: Varies
Books & Supplies: $ 150
International Phone: Each student must have a phone in each country. Cost varies
according to personal preferences, phone plans, data plans, etc.
Discretionary Expenses
Personal expenses during the program vary based on individual spending habits and
budgets. While all meals and accommodations are covered in the room and board fee,
incidentals and personal transportation costs differ depending on the non-programrelated interests and pursuits of each student. To learn more about personal
budgeting, we recommend speaking with alumni who participated in a program in

your region. See a full list of our alumni contacts. (/pn/admittedstudents/contact-a-former-student/) Please note that free time to pursue nonprogram-related activities is limited.
Please Note: Fees and additional expenses are based on all known circumstances at
the time of calculation. Due to the unique nature of our programs and the economics
of host countries, SIT reserves the right to change its fees or additional expenses
without notice.

PROGRAM SUMMARY
16
16 weeks
New York City,
NY, USA; Kathmandu,
Nepal; Amman, Jordan;
Santiago, Chile
Coursework in
social sciences such as
anthropology, history,
economics, sociology,
and/or political science;
humanities coursework
(philosophy, religion, and/or
ethics) is also recommended.
Read more...

Current Term: Spring 2017

See Other Terms:
Spring 2016
(/programs/semester/spring-

2016/hrc/)
Fall 2016
(/programs/semester/fall2016/hrc/)