RI'S ADVOCATE TEAM
Michelle Brown, Senior Advocate and UN Representative
Michelle Brown joined Refugees International in 2000 and currently represents the organization at the United Nations. She has conducted field assessments in the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Latin America and South Asia. On her more than 20 missions in the past six years, Ms. Brown has focused her advocacy on issues such as protection of internally displaced people and refugees, reintegration assistance in post-conflict situations, and children affected by armed conflict. Before joining RI, she worked for three years as an English teacher in Japan. Ms. Brown also worked in South Asia with various women’s health organizations and with women’s micro-enterprise organizations in Cambodia. She has a Master’s degree in International Development Studies from George Washington University.
Patrick Duplat, Advocate
Patrick Duplat began as an Advocate at Refugees International in September 2007. Mr. Duplat’s core humanitarian experience was earned with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders) when he served as a financial coordinator in Indonesia during the 2004 tsunami, then as project coordinator in Somalia and Chad, where he worked with refugees from Darfur. Prior to working with MSF, he spent three years in China where he worked on investor relations with a large international public relations firm, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. Mr. Duplat has a Bachelor’s degree from McGill University in Commerce and a Master’s degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics. His thesis is on the Chinese aid model in Africa. As a dual French and Canadian citizen, Patrick is fluent in French, and has working knowledge of Mandarin Chinese and German.
Mpako Foaleng, Advocate
Mpako Foaleng was hired as an advocate for Refugees International in November 2007 and began her position in March 2008. Mpako has worked at the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, a project of the Norwegian Refugee Council since April 2003. As a country analyst for IDMC, Mpako conducted assessment missions to Guinea, Chad, Angola, and the Central African Republic. While in grad school, she completed internships and worked as a consultant for the World Trade Organization and the World Council of Churches. Mpako has a PhD in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, where she wrote her thesis on the nexus between natural resources and civil wars in Africa. She is originally from Cameroon, and is fluent in French, English and Italian. As a great credit to her language skills, she wrote her undergraduate thesis in Italian, her Master’s thesis in French, and her doctoral dissertation in English.
Sean Garcia, Advocate
Sean Garcia joined Refugees International as an Advocate in September 2006. He has ten years of experience working as an advocate for human rights in Latin America and spent the last four years working on migration issues in the U.S.-Mexican border area. He has a strong interest in economic dislocation, political conflict and human rights issues. In addition to working with the Latin American Working Group for four years, Sean worked at the Advocacy Institute, SAVE Dade, the Cuban Committee for Democracy, and the Washington Office on Latin America. He was also a Banneker Fellow at the George Washington University Center for Washington Area Policy Studies. He has both a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs and a Master’s degree in International Development from George Washington University.
Limnyuy Konglim, Advocacy Associate
Limnyuy Konglim joined Refugees International in March 2008. She is responsible for providing logistical and program support to the Advocates and other RI travelers while they are in the field. Her core work experience is as a customer relations and development specialist at the Center for Teaching Excellence at American University. She has held short-term positions and internships for the Mengo Youth Development Institute (Kampala, Uganda), Leadership Initiatives, and Voices for Global Change. Ms. Konglim is of Cameroonian descent and grew up in the United States. She has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Communications from Syracuse University and will soon complete a Master’s degree in International Affairs at American University with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. She is conversational in Spanish and is also studying French.
Jacob Kurtzer, Congressional Advocate
Jacob Kurtzer joined Refugees International as Congressional Advocate in May 2007. In this capacity, he advocates on behalf of RI on Capitol Hill. Prior to joining RI, Mr. Kurtzer served as a legislative assistant for Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL). His responsibilities included assisting and advising Congressman Wexler on Foreign Policy, Trade and Human Rights, as well as staffing the Congressional Indonesia Caucus. Mr. Kurtzer has also worked on legislative issues relating to Drug Policy, Transportation, Natural Resources, Crime, and the Caribbean. Previously, he volunteered at the American Anti-Slavery Group a non-profit NGO working to monitor and combat slavery worldwide. He also worked at the Economic Cooperation Foundation in Tel-Aviv, doing policy planning for Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives. Mr. Kurtzer has a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy with a citation in Religious Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has also studied abroad at the American University in Cairo, and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Andrea Lari, Senior Advocate
Andrea Lari joined Refugees International in 2004 and has conducted missions for the organization to countries in the Great Lakes of Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa and Colombia. On these missions, he has focused on protection and humanitarian responses to recently displaced people, and the return and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced people. Before joining RI, Mr. Lari was a researcher for Human Rights Watch where he focused on Angola and forced displacement. His career in humanitarian work began when he volunteered with Jesuit Refugee Service in Angola. He then served as their Country Director for Angola from 1998 to 2000 and conducted humanitarian needs assessments in Pakistan and Afghanistan in early 2002. Mr. Lari grew up in Italy and began volunteering for projects assisting refugees in Croatia and Albania early in his career. He has a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Bologna, where he wrote a field-based final thesis entitled, “Human Rights Protection of Guatemalan Refugees in Southern Mexico,” and has completed the International Summer School at the Refugee Studies Program in Oxford.
Maureen Lynch, Senior Advocate on Stateless Initiatives
Maureen Lynch joined Refugees International in 1999. She has conducted assessment missions to more than 20 countries including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cote d’Ivoire, Ingushetia, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Syria, and Zimbabwe. Ms. Lynch advances awareness and action on behalf of the more than 11 million stateless persons worldwide. As RI’s Director of Research, she authored “Lives on Hold: The Human Cost of Statelessness,” the first report on the global problem of statelessness by a U.S. non-governmental organization and “Forced Back,” which details the situation of refugees who survived forcible return from China, India, Tanzania, Panama, and Thailand. Prior to joining RI, Ms. Lynch worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Immigration and Refugee Services of America. She holds a PhD in Human Development and Family Science, and has published and presented on topics related to refugees, immigration, displacement and aging, post-traumatic stress disorder and conflict-origin mental health, child protection, family relations, the effects of displacement on the environment, and statelessness.
Mark Malan, Peacebuilding Program Officer
Mark Malan joined Refugees International as Peacebuilding Program Officer in May 2007. He is responsible for analyzing ongoing peacekeeping missions and advocating for their improvement. He also provides leadership for the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping (PEP), which strives to improve international peacekeeping as well as the U.S. government’s capability to respond effectively to conflict. From 2004 to 2006, Mr. Malan headed the research department of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre in Ghana. From 1996 to 2003, he was a senior researcher and head of the Peace Missions Program at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). Before joining the ISS, Mr. Malan enjoyed 20 years of service with the South African military, where he attained the rank of lieutenant colonel and held a variety of posts, including senior lecturer in Political Science at the South African Military Academy. Mr. Malan has developed a number of regional peacekeeping training courses and manuals and has published extensively on issues relating to regional security and peacekeeping in Africa. He has been an active participant in the African and global policy debate on peace operations and was a contributing author to the supplementary volume of The Responsibility to Protect.
Camilla Olson, Advocate
Camilla Olson joined Refugees International in August 2006 as Advocacy Associate. She was promoted to the position of Advocate in March 2008. Camilla has conducted field assessments to Thailand and Malaysia, where she focused on Burmese refugees, and to Sudan, where she focused on the conflict and displacement in Darfur. Before joining RI, Camilla was the Field Relations Manager for InterExchange Au Pair USA, a nonprofit cultural exchange program. She has also had internships with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Geneva, the International Rescue Committee, and Mercy Corps. She received her MA in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University in December 2005 and holds a BA in French from Rutgers University. Camilla is a dual citizen of the United States and Sweden and is fluent in Swedish.
Melanie Teff, Advocate
Melanie Teff began her work as an Advocate with Refugees International in July 2007. Since joining RI, she has conducted a mission to Liberia to assess the humanitarian needs of Liberian returnees since the end of the 14-year civil war in 2003. Ms. Teff’s international experience includes two years in the Solomon Islands with VSO working as legal advisor to a local nongovernmental organization combating domestic violence and child abuse. She then spent three years as a human rights advocacy trainer in the Dominican Republic, where her focus was on statelessness among the Haitian migrant and refugee communities. Ms. Teff later established and coordinated the international advocacy and policy office for Jesuit Refugee Service in Rome, where she worked between 2003 and 2006. This position involved frequent travel to overseas offices of Jesuit Refugee Service and representing the agency’s advocacy positions in Geneva to UNHCR. She has also co-coordinated the International Coalition on the Detention of Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants since 2005. Prior to getting involved with international work, Ms. Teff spent eight years as a lawyer in England with a focus on child rights, child abuse, and legal cases involving family law. Ms. Teff is a British citizen, currently completing a Master of Laws degree in International Human Rights Law at the University of Essex. She is fluent in Spanish.
Erin Weir, Peacebuilding Advocate
Erin Weir joined Refugees International in January 2007. As RI’s Peacebuilding Advocate, Ms. Weir is responsible for advocacy on peacekeeping and civilian protection issues, as well as the day-to-day activities of the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping (PEP). Most recently, she spent one year as a Research Associate with the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center in Ghana, where she published pieces on the effects of UN ‘integrated’ peacekeeping missions on the humanitarian imperative as well as strategic forced migration. Ms. Weir has an MSc in International and European Politics from the University of Edinburgh, where her thesis focused on the politicization and militarization of refugee camps in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. As an undergraduate, she focused on peacebuilding and Canadian foreign policy. Ms. Weir also served as a policy and research assistant in the office of the University Advisor on Equity, a position she held for three years while completing her undergraduate work at Queen's University in Canada. Ms. Weir is a citizen of Canada. She is fluent in French and has a basic knowledge of Spanish.
Kristèle Younès, Senior Advocate
Kristèle Younès joined Refugees International in February 2006 after working as a Legal Officer with the Coalition for the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Since joining the RI advocacy team, Ms. Younès has conducted several humanitarian assessments. Her missions include the survey of and advocacy on behalf of displaced Iraqis in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, and the plight of refugees from Darfur and the Central African Republic in Chad. Prior to joining RI, Ms. Younès worked with Médecins du Monde and the International Rescue Committee in Afghanistan, where she managed protection programs. She was also part of a team which explored the possibility of a joint European Union/UN/DRC government program to re-establish the judicial system in Bunia, a war-torn town in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has worked on Rule of Law issues with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s human rights department in post-war Bosnia. Ms. Younès has a law degree from McGill University and a Master’s degree in Public International Law and International Organizations from the Sorbonne. Ms. Younès is a citizen of both Canada and Lebanon, and is fluent in French, Arabic and Spanish.
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