Update from 2018 - 2019 Ismail Mahomed Fellow in New York

Lara Wallis, our 2018 - 2019 Ismail Mahomed Fellow, gives us a glimpse into her time at Columbia University where she is studying towards a Masters of Law:

"My first two months as a Human Rights Fellow at Columbia Law School have been an incredible learning experience. My human rights courses have given me the opportunity to critically reflect on my experience working in the public interest law sector in South  Africa to date, and on human rights law more broadly, and to think about creative approaches that I would like to apply in practice in future.

As a member of the Columbia Human Rights Clinic, I have been able to compare the advocacy strategies employed in  South Africa, to those employed globally, and I have been learning about what aspects of the US clinical teaching model could be applied in South Africa. I have also been able to gain deeper insight into international human rights systems. In October, I travelled  to Geneva as a research assistant to Professor Sarah Cleveland, the chairperson of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, as part of the Advanced Human Rights Practicum to attend meetings of the 124th Session of the Human Rights Committee.

I am excited  to continue to build on my human rights experiences here at Columbia".

Learn more about Lara Wallis and her fellow 2019 LLM Human Rights Fellows studying at Columbia