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Since 1989, more than 350 advocates from 100 countries have attended the program. HRAP participants have ranged from early-career advocates who cut their teeth in very urgent human rights situations to mid-career advocates who have founded organizations. HRAP alumni have served as UN special rapporteurs, in the ministries of their governments, and at leading human rights organizations around the globe. They have been recognized with honors including the Rafto Prize, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, the highest acknowledgment from the international human rights community.
Below are the biographies of current Advocates and descriptions by select alumni as to why they became human rights advocates.
To see a list of additional past Advocates click here.
To read about more about the work of our Advocates click here .
Brazil, 1995
Coordinator, Projeto Trama
After HRAP, 1995 Advocate Michelle Gueraldi decided to study at Harvard Law School. She then served as a lawyer for the Organization of American States Human Rights Court in Costa Rica. While in Brazil, she worked primarily on human rights advocacy in human trafficking and children’s rights as an attorney. She published a book about human trafficking, Em Busca do Éden: Tráfico de Pessoas e direitos humanos, experiência brasileira, in 2012.
As of 2018, Gueraldi is a PhD student at the Law School of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal.
When asked about the greatest benefit of HRAP, she writes that all aspects were beneficial for her work as a human rights lawyer. She writes: “HRAP gave me the tools to push my career forward as a human rights advocate. If it wasn’t for this program, I may not have been able to continue working in the human rights field. This program helped me discover new ways both globally and locally to continue my work.”
—Article composed by Allison Tamer, Program Assistant, April 2013
—Updated by Claire Kozik, Program Assistant, Summer 2018
