Tag: Spotlight

Resident Spotlight: Ritu Thapa (Nepal)

Written by International House on April 5, 2022. Posted in News Archive.

Meet Advritu “Ritu” Thapa from Nepal, a lawyer and activist who joined the I-House community for the Spring 2022 semester while she attends the Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) of the Institute of the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. She is a founding member and the treasurer of the Indigenous Women Legal Awareness Group (INWOLAG), an organization that provides free legal aid to Indigenous and other marginalized groups. Ritu earned her law degree from the University of Pune, India, and is the first LL.M. from her indigenous community. In Nepal, she worked...

Alumna Spotlight: Zubeida (Parpia) Ahmad ’45, A Champion of Women’s Rights

Written by International House on March 31, 2022. Posted in News Archive.

A chance introduction in 2008 led to a friendship and an unlikely “small world” International House connection with a strong and accomplished woman who became one of the earliest advocates of micro-financing and women’s rights in developing countries in the postwar period. Several years after Marianne Murphy Francke and her husband Nils Francke ’85 moved to Geneva, Switzerland, Marianne started taking French lessons. “One of my classmates was moving back to the US and asked if any of us would like to ‘take over’ her weekly lunches with a very interesting older woman who offered...

Resident Spotlight: Mariam Antadze (Georgia)

Written by International House on March 23, 2022. Posted in News Archive.

From Tbilisi, Georgia, comes Mariam Antadze, who joined the I-House community in 2022. Mariam is a Project Coordinator at The Georgian Center for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT), and is in New York City to attend the Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) of the Institute of the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. We asked Mariam to share about her experience at I-House and its role in her professional development. Tell us about yourself. What are you working on?I work for the rights of individuals who have been subjected to difficult forms of...

Resident Spotlight: Elena Pulgar (Spain)

Written by International House on March 16, 2022. Posted in News Archive.

Among our amazing residents this year is Elena Pulgar, a Fulbright scholar from Spain earning her Master of Public Health degree in Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. We asked her to share about her experience at I-House and its role in her professional development. Tell us about yourself. What are you working on? I’m passionate about mental health promotion, advocacy, and policy at a population level, both locally and globally. My main interests include gender-based violence prevention, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), forced...

Resident Spotlight: Aminatu Gambo (Cameroon)

Written by International House on March 11, 2022. Posted in News Archive.

Meet Aminatu Gambo, a Spring 2022 resident at International House from Cameroon who came to New York to attend the Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) of the Institute of the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. A member of the Mbororo-Fulani Indigenous Peoples, Aminatu currently works as Program Coordinator for Political Participation and Advocacy with Foro Internacional de Mujeres Indígenas, also known as the International Indigenous Women’s Forum (FIMI/IIWF), a global network that brings together indigenous women from seven socio-cultural regions. FIMI/IIWF is focused...

Resident Spotlight: Farah Otero-Amad (USA)

Written by International House on March 2, 2022. Posted in News Archive.

This March, we’re thrilled to kick off Women’s History Month at International House with a spotlight on Farah Otero-Amad, an I-House resident from California who is at the start of an exciting career in journalism. We asked Farah to talk about her goals and I-House experience. Tell us about your work. What are you studying? I graduated with a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University. Upon graduating, I wrote articles, shot videos, and produced short documentaries for NBC News. I’m currently working as an associate producer for “The Problem With Jon...

Alumni Spotlight: Amos Jones ’03 and the I-House Experience

Written by International House on February 24, 2022. Posted in News Archive.

When Amos N. Jones moved into International House in the fall of 2002, he was not fully prepared for what he was about to experience. Jones, now a Washington, DC-based attorney who practices, lectures and publishes in the areas of civil rights, religious freedom and ethics, chose I-House as his residence while pursuing his Masters in Journalism from Columbia University. This was after the Kentucky-born National Merit Scholar graduated cum laude from Emory University, but prior to studying at Harvard Law and on a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Melbourne in Australia. “I had not...