Eric Otieno chatting with Congressman and Civil Rights Icon John Lewis at his Atlanta Office during the 2016 John Lewis Fellowship Programme that took place in July of 2016 in Atlanta, GA. USA.
AGGN Junior Fellow Eric Otieno successfully completed the 2016 John Lewis Fellowship Programme and is now a 2016 John Lewis Fellow. Eric Spent a month at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, GA. USA (The Center) this July where he took part in a series of workshops, seminars, site visits and working sessions with elected officials, Civil Society leaders and Civil Rights Icons such as Dr. Roselyn Pope and Congressman John Lewis, after whom the Fellowship is named.
The John Lewis Fellowship is a collaborative international programme organized by Humanity in Action (www.humanityinaction.org) and “The Center” on Human and Civil Rights that is designed to provide a group of university students and recent graduates with the opportunity to explore critical aspects of American pluralism, past and present. This vast subject has a particular focus, as the Programme is based in Atlanta, with its complex history of Slavery, Jim Crow, resistance to inequalities and the Civil Rights Movement, and its current ever changing realities of race relations. The programme also focused on multiple immigrant histories that are mirrored in Atlanta's population, as well as contemporary challenges of immigration, diversity and the relationship between Civil Rights and Human Rights in transatlantic and global governance.
While in Atlanta, Eric also got to meet some of this year's Washington-Mandela Fellows who were in Atlanta with President Obama´s Young-African Leaders Initiative (YALI) (and briefly wondered whether he was in the correct Fellowship, until he found out he wouldn't have been eligible for YALI). Fortunately, it turned out that the Washington-Mandela Fellows were to share not just a session, but the same living quarters as the John Lewis Fellows for a whole month. Eric also profited immensely from the exchange with the Washington-Mandela Fellows. He introduced them to AGGN and discussed ways to work together with them in future since The YALI network has leadership centers in Kenya, South Africa, Senegal and Ghana.