Defending Human Rights amidst a Pandemic

Hone Mandefro is a PhD student of Social and Cultural Analysis at Concordia University with a Master's of Social Work. He is also a Black international student from Ethiopia, a human rights advocate in Ethiopia, a Wadsworth International Fellow, and a 2019 Vanier Scholar.  In this video, Mandefro unpacks the complex experiences of international students who are active human rights advocates in their birth country. He says they feel obligated to meet the challenges of daily life, achieve academic success and maintain mental wellness amidst the precarity of being immigrants. However, they can play a transformative mediating role, informally or formally, using their experiences with human rights in both countries to propose reform to policies and praxis.