Our People .
Chief of Party Kelly Brooks
Kelly Brooks is an experienced international development specialist with 17 years of program management experience on projects aimed at addressing systematic violence inflicted against minorities and vulnerable communities. Kelly has nearly 10 years of experience managing USAID funded projects with Management Systems International, Florida International University, and most recently Chemonics. She is a respected human rights expert with technical expertise in gender equality and minority rights, including Afro-Colombians and indigenous communities, and the LGBTI community. She joined Chemonics in 2012 and is currently the chief of party of the Colombia Human Rights Activity. Working with government stakeholders and representatives from civil society, Kelly has led her team in advocating and protecting the human rights of 40 communities devastated by violence related to the internal armed conflict. She received her B.A. in international relations from Tufts University and her M.A. in international affairs from Columbia University.
by Kelly Brooks
Stop, Look, and Listen! Preventing Recruitment of Youth into Illicit Activities in Southern Colombia
This post originally appeared on Harvard’s Center for International Development’s Building State Capability program’s blog. The authors successfully completed the 15-week Practice of Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation online course. This is their story. As development practitioners, we tend to rush in with solutions to deal with complex problems. We impose so-called best practices without digging…
3 Questions with Kelly Brooks: On the Historic Colombian Peace Process
The USAID Human Rights Activity (HRA) in Colombia supports the Colombian government and civil society to foster respect for human rights and protect vulnerable populations. The Colombian government is negotiating a peace accord with the FARC guerrilla group after 50 years of conflict. What are the biggest challenges that the demobilization of the FARC presents,…
Can Teaching Human Rights in Conflict Zones Build Peace?
When the governor’s office of Antioquia first approached USAID’s Colombia Human Rights Program (HRP III) with the idea of creating the first ever official human rights school, I couldn’t help but think, “Oh no, not another school.” Unfortunately, it is often the case that students, particularly in the area of human rights, are exposed to…