Bayala Marie Laurentine

Bayala Marie Laurentine is from Burkina Faso, a West African country. Bayala studied Communication and Journalism at the University of Ouagadougou, and in 2008 she received her Master’s in Documentary Filmmaking. Since 2008, she has been working in the field of new media. In April 2013, Bayala was appointed Editor of Information and Reports in the media branch of the National Radio and Television of Burkina Faso (RTB). Bayala uses film to impact society, winning an award at the Festival for Human Rights “Ciné-Droit-Libre”, with her film “jusqu'au bout” about violence against women. Her film was shown at FESPACO in 2011 as well as on the TV channel “TV5 Africa". Bayala has directed over nine films and is very active in community life. She co-founded the Africadoc Burkina Association, which promotes documentary filmmaking and collaborates with Others Youngs, an African documentary festival. Bayala believes in the potential of Africa and its ability to grow. 

Paul Andres Cuadrado Cuadrado

Paul Andres Cuadrado Cuadrado is a social science professional from Ecuador. He has studied social management and development in Ecuador and Spain, as well as democracy in Sweden. He has worked as a teacher and a consultant. Since 2008, Andres works for an Ecuadorian NGO, Esquel, where he is charged with the cooperation for a development area, in which he has designed and written at least 200 project proposals earning an average of three million dollars through international cooperation. He’s also collaborated on programs looking to strengthen civil society and education. Andres has a deep interest in human rights promotion, specifically relating to LGBTI, women, and youth. He hopes his experience in the USA will provide him tools, knowledge, and good practices that will help him to design and develop better advocacy campaigns, as well as projects for the promotion of human rights.

Redona Dudushi

Redona Dudushi is from Tirana, Albania. In 2000, she graduated with a degree in Clinical Psychology. Dudushi completed her first Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democracy for South East Europa Countries in Bologna. She also holds a Master’s in Peace Building and Social Transformation from Vermont University. Dudushi is finishing her Doctorate studies in Clinical Psychology with a focus on sexual behaviors of people living with HIV/AIDS in Albania. For the past 15 years, she has worked as a Clinical Psychologist for the National Institute of Public Health in the Department of Infectious Disease at the National Program of HIV/AIDS. Dudushi is focused on pre-test and post-test counseling for people living with HIV (PLWH) as well as those affected by HIV, and she hopes to develop and implement training programs for counselors dealing with this population. She has been coordinator for the Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center (VTC) in Albania, supported by Global Fund. She wants to strengthen the impact of VTCs by improving the standards and protocols. Since 2014, Dudushi has served as a professor at the University of Tirana, in the Department of Social Science, Psychology branch. She is an author and co-author of many international and national articles regarding psychosocial treatment of PLWH in Albania.        

Tynymgul Eshieva

Tynymgul Eshieva, from the Kyrgyz Republic, has more than 13 years of experience in the nonprofit sector as a communication and public relations specialist and trainer. She earned a Master's in Business Administration and the equivalent of Master’s degree in Journalism in Kyrgyzstan. She worked as freelance journalist for a broadcasting radio program and several Kyrgyz newspapers and magazines. Over the last 6 years, Eshieva worked as a PR coordinator at the Soros Foundation-Kyrgyzstan and managed communication and advocacy activities for the foundation and its grantees. From these experiences, she developed strong project coordination, communication, and implementation skills. Eshieva has a personal interest in public health, urban and rural development, and an especially strong passion for youth empowerment. Her research interests and future plans are related to the topic of media, documentary photography, communications and their role in promoting social issues, and implementing social and advocacy campaigns in the non-governmental sector. 

Betto Jones Grand

Betto Jones Grand is from the Central African Republic and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in engineering. He started with the Orange Group in Central Africa as a fields engineer and then moved into the chief sector of transmission and Wimax at Orange Central African. He has eight years of professional experience in the telecommunication sector including the role of project manager during a government project to recover the verbal trial results from an election in Central Africa. Betto was elected Orange Bravo in 2013, and he received the medal of Chevalier in the order of merit CAR in December 2015. After his time at the University of Montana, he will attend the University of Syracuse in New York. His goal while in the US is to develop a technique to control the new technologies of communication and information in his home country.

Edine Harr'Met- Kimbouala

Edine Harr’met-Kimbouala was born in Pointe-Noire, Congo-Brazzaville but spent her childhood in France. She initially attended the University of Bordeaux III studying literature and English civilization but transferred to the Institut Universitaire de Technologie in Périgueux to study tourism. She worked in a travel agency in Paris before deciding to return to Congo to work for UNICEF as an assistant coordinator. In that capacity, which Harr’met-Kimbouala compares to an emergency room setting, she coordinated with governments and NGOs to implement development plans founded and designed by donors. Harr’met-Kimbouala currently serves as an Executive Secretary within the Polio Eradication Department at the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville. In addition to her administrative duties, Harr’met-Kimbouala supports incoming requests for activity plans from a number of countries, igniting her interest in communication, a skill she hopes to focus on during her time in the US. 

Nazi Janezashvili

Nazi Janezashvili is from Tbilisi, Georgia. In 2008, she received the Lane Kirkland Scholarship and studied law at the University of Warsaw. In 2009, she participated in the Human Rights Advocates Program (financed by OSF) at Columbia University. Janezashvili is a Ph.D. student at Caucasus School of Law and has worked for a number of different NGOs focusing on human rights and the judicial system. Janezashvili has served as the Executive Director at the Unity of Judges of Georgia Association, and she’s a legal expert for the Women’s Initiative Supporting Group. Before this role, Janezashvili was a program coordinator at Penal Reform International South Caucasus Regional Office, and she also held the position of Executive Director for the NGO ‘Article 42 of Constitution’. Janezashvili was a member of the Ethic Commission at the Georgian Bar Association; National Preventive Mechanism in the Public Defender’s Office. Janezashvili participates in and speaks at several events and has authored publications on human rights and judiciary.  

Sabra M Khamis

Sabra M Khamis is from Zanzibar, Tanzania. She graduated from Zanzibar University in 2006, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law and Sharia. In 2007, Khamis was employed by the Zanzibar Government in the Zanzibar Labour Commission as a Legal Officer before she was transferred to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Zanzibar. There she served as a state attorney and public prosecutor with nine years of experience in criminal prosecutions. In January 2015, she was promoted to Senior State Attorney. She is an active member of the Zanzibar Female Lawyers. Khamis is in the English Language Institute at the University of Montana in order to improve her English language skills. She will then attend the American University Law School for her Humphrey Fellowship program in Human Rights Law in early August, 2016.  

Pierre Kwizera

Pierre Kwizera was born in Burundi. He attended the National University of Rwanda and received a degree in General Medicine. In 2007, he worked in a health center for people living with HIV/AIDS in an eastern province of Rwanda. The following year he became a coordinator and was responsible for a site in the western province of Rwanda as part of a clinical trial studying malaria medication through the European and Developing Countries Trial Partnership (EDCTP). In 2008 Kwizera returned to Burundi and conducted a survey observing patients at the Association Nationale de Soutien aux Seropositifs Sidéens (ANSS) and Hôpital Prince Régent Charles (HPRC). In addition to this survey, he worked as a General Practitioner in a number of hospitals in the capital city of Burundi including the Clinique Prince Louis Rwagasore where he served in the maternity ward. In 2010 Kwizera became the Medical Coordinator of Performance-Based Financing and worked in HealthNet TPO, an NGO from the Netherlands. Then in February 2016, he became the Medical Coordinator of Sexual and Reproductive Health until his departure for the US. 

Akuété Giana Mathey-Apossan

Akuété Giana Mathey-Apossan is from the Republic of Togo, West Africa. He did his master's degree in IT Engineering at Groupe BK University and holds the main certification for Microsoft & Cisco. He also holds Bachelor in Financial and Commercial Management (2011). In addition, Mathey-Apossan holds numerous software and hardware certifications including FCSNA and COBIT5 Foundation, qualifying him for IT enterprise governance and security. He received these certifications from Koenig-Solutions in New Delhi, India. With his experiences, including more than  (10) years in different fields (economics, statistics, national security, food industry, etc), Mathey-Apossan’s main project is interconnecting all hospital regional centers in order to allow high data availability and socially sustainable development to make progress towards the UN's Millennium Development Goals. He also works as the system and network manager for the biggest brewery in his country.  Giana is excited to study English and American culture at the University of Montana before continuing his fellowship.

Mamunur Rahman

Mamunur Rahman from Bangladesh, has training in development studies and green business, and is the deputy general manager of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Foundation where he is promoting SMEs on behalf of the government, particularly in developing green industries.  With support of GIZ Nepal, Rahman has worked as an international expert and conducted global value chain analysis and identification of the prevailing trade barriers in SAARC regions. He worked as a team leader on a United Nations Population Fund project in the Ready Made Garments (RMG) sector in Bangladesh and worked for EU Bangladesh to develop the 'Bangladesh Gender Country Profile'.   As an expert with the United Nations Development Program, he worked on formulating women’s entrepreneurship development projects implemented by the Ministry of Women Affairs of Bangladesh.  During his Humphrey year, he plans to develop leadership skills as well as work with several U.S. departments that are active in Bangladesh. His long-term objective is the creation of green jobs that mitigate poverty, pollution, climate change and unplanned urbanization.