LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class III Fellow Profiles
Javier Thellaeche Ortiz
Pedro Pablo Vacaflor Raña
Bolivia
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Expertise: Urban Food Security/Policy Home Organization: Fundación Alternativas Host Organization: City of Portland Host City/State: Portland, Oregon
Bolivia
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Expertise: Food Security; Advocacy Home Organization: Acción Contra el Hambre Host Organization: Feed Communities Host City/State: Fayetteville, Arkansas
Mr. Javier Thellaeche is a Food Policy Program Officer at Fundación Alternativas, a non-profit organization dedicated to guaranteeing people’s right to food. At Alternativas, he is spearheading the development of Bolivia’s first urban food policy at the municipal and state level in hopes of generating models for other cities around the country. He coordinates with different food chain stakeholders, drafts food policies and policy framework, generates citizen feedback, and follows lobby strategies. Prior to this, Thellaeche worked at Agronomists and Veterinarians Without Borders, where he conducted research on rural agriculture and alternative markets, published articles, and supervised undergraduate students in their research.
Mr. Pedro Vacaflor works for the Communications and Advocacy Department for Action Against Hunger in Bolivia. His work duties include developing and managing communications plans with the goal of increasing visibility and strengthening advocacy efforts of the organization’s projects. He works with stakeholders, such as mayors, city managers, indigenous communities, media, social and political leaders, and many others. Previously, Mr. Vacaflor served as a volunteer in France with Emmaus carrying out economic activities to promote basic human rights. He was also the Director of Communications in the Town Hall of Tarija in Bolivia, where he compiled information expressing the needs and ideas of the citizens in order to present them to the municipality.
Mr. Thellaeche will be working with the City of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, where he will gain an understanding of the working mechanisms of food policies in the U.S. He plans to use the knowledge acquired from his fellowship to improve upon similar policies in his home country of Bolivia.
Mr. Vacaflor hopes to learn the best practices of becoming an agent of change from a profile of project management, while focusing on communications and advocacy. He will be working with Feed Communities to further his knowledge in developing strategies on nutrition-related issues at the national level, and to learn more about working with the donor community.
LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class III Fellow Profiles
Mariana Rodríguez Saucedo
Gracia Violeta Ross Quiroga
• Expertise: Legislative Transparency/Monitoring • Home Organization: Gobierno Autónomo Departamental de Santa Cruz • Host Organization: Indiana State Senate • Host City/State: Indianapolis, Indiana
• Expertise: HIV/AIDS Advocacy • Home Organization: Red de Personas que Viven con el VIH en Bolivia (REDBOL) • Host Organization: AIDS United • Host City/State: Washington, D.C.
Ms. Mariana Rodriguez is part of the Legislative Assembly Monitoring Team of the State Government of Santa Cruz. There, she analyzes and monitors laws and their progress, maintains the channels of communication, and tracks the exchange of information between the National and State Legislative Assemblies. Other responsibilities include staying updated on Assembly and committee sessions, writing reports for the Legislative Assembly, and giving workshops to different sectors of the population within the city of Santa Cruz and its surrounding provinces. Prior to this, Ms. Rodriguez worked as a junior professional in the environment department of the city government.
Ms. Violeta Ross serves as the National Chair for REDBOL, an organization that advocates for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS in Bolivia. Since her diagnosis of HIV in 2000, Ross has become an advocate for access to treatment for people with HIV/AIDS. Under her leadership, REDBOL was founded and over the decade, it has become one of the strongest HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations in Latin America. In her role, she is involved with the planning of the organization, fundraising efforts, project coordination, as well as public representation in government meetings. She also serves in the Expert Advisory Group of the Medicines Patent Pool and the Civil Society Advisory Group of UN Women for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Through her fellowship at the Indiana State Senate, Ms. Rodriguez will learn about the political system and the legislative process of the U.S. in greater detail, and gain a better understanding of the democratic values and principles. She hopes that the experience will also improve her knowledge and skills in her area of work.
Ms. Ross will be working with her host organization, AIDS United, to learn new approaches on how to better communicate with the government on access to health for and the empowerment of people living with HIV/AIDS, and ensuring that laws are implemented in support of such issues.
Bolivia
Bolivia
LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class III Fellow Profiles
Nicolas Llano Naranjo
Jaime Chávez Alor
Colombia
• Expertise: Access to Technology; ICT • Home Organization: Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones • Host Organization: City of Chicago • Host City/State: Chicago, Illinois Mr. Nicolas Llano is the Director of ICT Promotion for the Colombian government’s Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications. He is responsible for promoting the use of the Internet among local and regional governments with an emphasis on poverty alleviation. He works with local officials to develop public policies that enhance access to internet and/or programs that train workers to effectively use the internet. In the beginning of his profession, Mr. Llano brokered alliances between the private sector, public sector and international entities, but later focused his efforts on the design and installation of a technological park that created jobs, attracted investments, and brought innovation in enterprises to the city of Manizales. Mr. Llano hopes to utilize his fellowship experience at the City of Chicago’s Department of Planning, Policy and Management to learn strategies to designing ICT-related policies and to share best practices to reducing poverty through increasing public access to the Internet.
Mexico
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Expertise: Access to Justice; Human Rights Home Organization: Senado de la República Host Organization: Center for Court Innovation Host City/State: New York, New York
Mr. Jaime Chávez works directly with Senator Arely Gómez Gonzáles as a Senior Legislative Advisor in the Senate of Mexico. His duties include developing and evaluating proposals for legislation on justicerelated issues, since Senator Gómez serves as the Vice President of the Justice Committee. Before working at the Senate, Mr. Chávez worked at the Chief Justice’s Human Rights Coordination Office at the Supreme Court of Justice, where he conducted research and analysis, trained judges and magistrates, followed up on relevant issues discussed by the Supreme Court, and worked on the conceptual development and information systematization of the human rights search engine for the Inter American System for the Protection of Human Rights. Mr. Chávez will be working with the Center for Court Innovation on various initiatives that aim to promote the idea of procedural justice. There, he will also learn about the human rights protection and justice administration system of the U.S. in order to identify practices that may be applicable to the context of Mexican law, while allowing him to enrich his work as a legislative advisor.
LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class III Fellow Profiles
Fernando Elizondo García Mexico
Daniela Rochin Morales Mexico
• Expertise: Immigration, LGBT Rights • Home Organization: Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey • Host Organization: Immigration Equality • Host City/State: New York, New York
• Expertise: Public Policy; Program Evaluation • Home Organization: Secretaría de la Contraloría • Host Organization: Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research (HACER) • Host City/State: Minneapolis, Minnesota
As a professor, Mr. Fernando Elizondo has extensive experience teaching law students about international human rights. He is also the director of the institution’s Center for Human Rights, which offers students practical experience at organizations dealing with immigration, torture and LGBT issues. He has worked with the Commission on Human Rights of Nuevo Leon investigating complaints filed by citizens and drafting recommendations to the authorities responsible for the violations. Mr. Elizondo also collaborates with the legal department of Casa del Migrante (Casa Nicolas), an organization that provides humanitarian and legal assistance to immigrants in Monterrey, assisting undocumented immigrants in their legal proceedings and in applying for asylum status in Mexico.
Ms. Daniela Rochin currently works for Queretaro government’s Office of the Comptroller as the Head of the Social Auditing Department. This job allows her to meet with public officials throughout Queretaro to ensure that they are accountable for their programs and are transparent in the management of them. She is a lawyer with experience in civil and commercial litigation, and she also serves as a civil society liaison for the political party, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of Mexico. Furthermore, she gives academic lectures on the “Evolution of Legal Systems” at Anáhuac’s University School of Law.
Mr. Elizondo will be at Immigration Equality, where he hopes to learn more about NGOs and understand their role and functions, while also sharing best practices to working with immigrant populations, particularly LGBT individuals; thus, allowing him to better guide and advise his students and the organizations with which he works.
For her fellowship, Ms. Rochin will be hosted by HACER, where she will gain insight into impact evaluation methodologies and strategies of social programs, as well as she will be exposed to the different social programs that are being implemented by both government institutions and civil society organizations in the state of Minnesota.
LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class III Fellow Profiles
Eva Miroslava Rosas Ramiro Mexico
• Expertise: Gender Rights; Domestic Violence • Home Organization: Sistema DIF Municipal de Tepeaca • Host Organization: Peace at Home • Host City/State: Fayetteville, Arkansas Ms. Eva Rosas works for the city government of Tepeaca in an institution that provides social services to residents in a range of areas, from anti-school bullying programs to low-cost health services for the elderly. She manages programs that target women, focusing on issues such as family planning, and the prevention of domestic violence and drug consumption. Prior to this position, Rosas was a correspondant-coordinator for Le Journal International. She also worked at Puebla’s Chamber of Commerce, followed by an opportunity, during which she served as a Communications Consultant with former Congressman David Huerta Ruiz. Additionally, she was a consultant at the Secretariat of Social Development. Ms. Rosas hopes to build on her experience working with local organizations and to learn from those that focus on women’s empowerment and genderrelated issues. At Peace at Home, Ms. Rosas will learn about the strategies to strengthen domestic violence prevention programs. Upon return to Mexico, she plans to share and present the best practices and deas learned during her fellowship to local decision-makers in her city of Tepeaca.
Octavio Salomon Alarcón Guardado Nicaragua
• Expertise: Judicial Process/Transparency • Home Organization: 2nd Civil District Court of Managua • Host Organization: El Paso County Combined Courts • Host City/State: Colorado Springs, Colorado Mr. Octavio Alarcón is a court clerk for a district court in the city of Managua, where he maintains court records, authorizes court orders and sentences, provides general assistance and advises judges on legislation related to cases regarding property law, family law, wills and succession, and corporate law. Prior to his current position, Mr. Alarcón worked as a legal assistant to magistrates of the Court of Appeals of Managua. His responsibilities included writing verdicts relating to habeas corpus, advising and assisting Magistrates in drafting sentences, writing opinions and making legal determinations. Currently, he is working on a project by the World Bank that aims to increase judicial transparency by providing public access to information on the judicial branch and its activities. For his fellowship, Mr. Alarcón will work be working with a judge at Colorado’s 4th Judicial District Court to learn more about the U.S. justice system, specifically in the decision-making process within the courts.
LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class III Fellow Profiles
Ana Carolina Caldera Sequeira
Helen Michelle Chávez Minguia
• Expertise: Youth Activism; Public Leadership • Home Organization: National Democratic Institute (NDI) • Host Organization: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation • Host City/State: St. Paul, Minnesota
• Expertise: Community Development, Volunteerism • Home Organization: TECHO Nicaragua • Host Organization: Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research (HACER) • Host City/State: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Ms. Carolina Caldera works with the National Democratic Institute’s Youth Leadership Program as a Senior Program Officer. In her position, she trains youth, ages 18 to 30, on advocacy and strategic planning, as well as providing technical assistance. Ms. Caldera is also responsible for representing NDI at the Coordinating Committee of the Certificate in Leadership and Political Management, a training program that for young Nicaraguans to strengthen their advocacy and leadership skills. She has also worked at the United Nations Development Program as a junior researcher in the Care and Modernization of Political Parties Program (PAMIP).
Ms. Michelle Chávez is the Director of Community Development for TECHO Nicaragua, a non-profit organization that seeks to fight poverty through youth volunteerism and joint actions of families living in the slums of Nicaragua. The organization works in the areas of education, labor, and livability, focusing on building transitional housing for those in need. Ms. Chávez’s job focuses on surveying the needs and desires of the communities where TECHO works. She is also a lawyer and has conducted research in relation to human rights violations.
Nicaragua
Ms. Caldera will be placed with the Wilder Foundation, where she will work on their Youth Leadership Initiative. Through this, she hopes to be able to learn the methodologies and best practices of programs focused on youth leadership and advocacy in the political proces.
Nicaragua
Ms. Chávez is interested in learning about how organizations in the U.S. tackle problems that vulnerable populations encounter. Through her fellowship at HACER, she hopes to gain more experience and to develop her skills so that she may apply them to her work in her country of Nicaragua.
LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class III Fellow Profiles
Rodrigo Eugenio Gómez Osuna
Marian Alicia Mujica Colman
• Expertise: Juvenile Reintegration/Rehab • Home Organization: Corte Suprema de Justicia • Host Organization: Office of the Public Defender, Ramsey County • Host City/State: St. Paul, Minnesota
• Expertise: Judicial Process, Juvenile Justice • Home Organization: Corte Suprema de Justicia • Host Organization: Office of the Public Defender, Hennepin County • Host City/State: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Mr. Rodrigo Gómez is a law clerk at the Paraguay Supreme Court’s Office of Human Rights, where he leads research for domestic and international cases, and by doing so, gathers information and data on the current prison system for juvenile offenders. He also works with judges and court members to improve the juvenile justice system in Paraguay. Other duties include meeting with Congress and commission members on issues or cases involving juveniles, and working with the rest of the team in proposing recommendations on current policies. In addition, Mr. Gómez is a teaching assistant at the School of Law of the Catholic University of Asunción, where he teaches Criminal Law. He also has experience working at a civil court and a criminal court.
Ms. Marian Mujica is a Coordinator for Judicial Policy Programs in the Supreme Court’s Office of Human Rights, where she works on policies regarding juvenile justice. Her responsibilities include developing programs to support and enhance justice for youth offenders; monitoring prison conditions; giving judges information about the psychological, familial and social situation of each adolescent in conflict with the law; and supervising juvenile courts in the implementation of policies and building their capacity. She has represented the Supreme Court in many international conferences, as well as assisted in the coordination of the United Nation’s Shadow and Alternative Reports, and the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights’ (IACHR) National Report.
For his fellowship, Mr. Gómez will be working with his hosts to learn about the U.S. juvenile justice system, specifically in the treatment of youth offenders, the process of detention, and the measures the government takes to rehabilitate and reintegrate them into society.
Through her fellowship, Ms. Mujica will learn about the criminal defense system of Minnesota, especially as it relates to youth offenders, and gain an insight into the roles of those involved in the juvenile justice system (i.e. judges, prosecutors, defenders, psychologists, among others).
Paraguay
Paraguay
LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class III Fellow Profiles
Silvana Maria Arce Otaño Paraguay
Sonia Beatriz Ginés Benítez Paraguay
• Expertise: International Cooperation, Youth Employment • Home Organization: Secretaría Nacional de la Juventud • Host Organization: The Washington Center • Host City/State: Washington, D.C.
• Expertise: Law; Government Affairs • Home Organization: Office of Dr. Ramón Rolando Ojeda, Supreme Court of Justice • Host Organization: El Paso County Combined Courts • Host City/State: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Ms. Silvana Arce is the Director of the Office of International Relations and Cooperation at the Paraguayan government’s Ministry of Youth. Her duties include developing programs, and also enhancing cooperation with foreign governments, representing her office at the international level. She has worked as a consultant and policy maker in Mexico and Brazil, focusing on addressing the issues that highrisk youth face in entering the labor market in the cities of Monterrey, Mexico, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Ms. Sonia Ginés is a lawyer who serves as a Jurisdictional Expert in the Administrative Litigation Division of the Office of Dr. Ramón Rolando Ojeda, 2nd Chamber to the Paraguayan Supreme Court. In her current position, she assists the President of the Court in researching legislation, doctrines, and jurisprudences for the resolution of cases; and in analyzing case studies. Before being appointed to work for the Supreme Court, she worked as a pro bono practitioner and also, as a Secretariat Officer.
As a Legislative Fellow, Ms. Arce is interested in learning about youth-related issues in the U.S., best practices and strategies to identifying and obtaining technical and financial cooperation for projects related to youth, in order to help her in her work to address youth unemployment in Paraguay.
Ms. Ginés would like to gain insight into the methodologies and processes of the courts in the U.S. in order to enhance her professional knowledge and skills. For her fellowship, she will be working with a local magistrate at the Colorado 4th Judicial District Court, where she will receive an insider’s perspective into the workings of the national and local court system and practices.