Professor Cooper Travels to Haiti with Human Rights Delegation

Professor Holly S. Cooper will travel to Haiti on March 10 as part of a human rights delegation of doctors and lawyers.  The group will endeavor to identify 80 individuals in critical need of medical care in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti in January and petition the United States government to grant humanitarian parole to allow them into the U.S. for medical treatment.

Also travelling to Haiti at that time will be Monika Kalra Varma '00, director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights (RFK Center).  For the past eight years, the RFK Center has partnered with the grassroots medical group Zanmi Lasante/Partners In Health in Haiti, an alliance Varma discussed when she spoke at King Hall in October 2009 about her organization's partnership with the California International Law Center at King Hall (CILC).

Professor Cooper's delegation includes Dr. Victor Carrion and Dr. Dina Frid from Stanford University; Dr. Daryn Reicheter of Survivors International; Especianise Loresca, a Haitian-born student at UCSF Medical School, Jayne Fleming, attorney and human rights advocate from Reed Smith; Moira Duvernay, a prominent international human rights lawyer; Josue Rojas, and Dr. Suzan Song.   The group will work with Mario Joseph of Bureau Avocats Internationaux, the top international human rights lawyer in Haiti.

Members of the King Hall community who wish to donate funding or supplies for distribution in Haiti may contact Professor Cooper.