Naa-Djama Attoh Okine
Health Development Initiative
Kigali, Rwanda
I am a rising junior at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study designing a concentration around the intersection of health, history, and human rights in a sub-Saharan African context. Additionally, I am participating in the accelerated BA/MPH program to receive a master’s in public health with a concentration in epidemiology through the College of Global Public Health. I am both deeply humbled and immensely grateful to have been named a 2017 Human Rights Fellow, as my passion to uphold the right to health for marginalized populations falls directly in line with the goals of the program.
This summer, I will spend approximately two and a half months in Kigali, Rwanda, to serve as an advocacy and policy intern at Health Development Initiative . As a member of the A&P department, I will assist a collective of physicians, community health workers and human rights activists with a series of projects, including the following:
- Advocating for Women’s Rights to Safe Abortions
- Organizing youth education programs centered around sexual and reproductive rights
- Working with members of Parliament, human rights activists, and sex workers in an effort to decriminalize sex work
Additionally, I will work alongside the Center for Health and Rights to conduct a research project discussing the effects of the criminalization of sex work on the migration patterns, social gains, health, and stigmatization of female sex workers in Rwanda.
This summer, I hope to reconcile with the following inquiries:
- How does the criminalization of sex work impact the health of sex workers, their clients, and their families?
- How does a human rights organization address sensitive topics such as sex work or LGBTQ rights that come into conflict with certain cultural beliefs?
I cannot tell which emotion is more all-consuming at the moment: excitement, fear, anxiety, or a twisted combination of all three. I selected Rwanda as a fellowship destination due its tumultuous past, the sheer mass of its growth, and the bright prospects of its future. The republic survived one of the most violent genocides of recent history, rebuilt a majority of its cities, and stands as one of the few developing nations to install a successful universal health care policy, all in a time frame of two decades. I hope that by working under a health-based NGO in Rwanda, I will be able to analyze the practices that made its recovery possible and to apply them accordingly.