ROTARYPEACEBRADFORD

VICTORIA COCHRANE

 

NEW ZEALAND

An update from Torie's AFE (July 2010): I am still surviving and thriving in Kigali, Rwanda.  It is Monday morning and I am recovering from a fantastic weekend filled with film festivals, school openings, traditional dancing and of course, a quiet local beverage with good friends.

It has gotten incredibly dusty here in Kigali and though I never thought it would happen, I get very excited everytime I think that I hear rain outside.  No such luck so far, the sounds are usually the toilet flushing, someone washing clothes or a drain running.  I have now developed the obligatory Rwanda sniffles and a husky voice.  No running outside for me at the moment to avoid getting a face full of dust.

I am now at the halfway point which is very hard to believe.  I am now looking at the calendar trying to cram in everything I want to visit in the few weekends I have left. 

Tomorrow is the official start of the election period and I think that the RPF have their opening rally tomorrow.  I am as yet unsure whether it will be interesting times here in Kigali but so far I don't see much of a difference except for a noticeable increase in the number of military walking around and the police are now armed with machine guns.  Very reassuring.

 

Sponsored by:   Rotary Club of Port Nicholson, Wellington District 9940, New Zealand

Country of Citizenship:  New Zealand

Language proficiency: English, French

Undergraduate degree:  LLB(Hons) (Law), BA (Hist)

Areas of Interest:  I have a strong interest in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, with a focus on policy and/or prosecution.  My interest for the MA in Conflict Studies is to look at issues related to the prosecution of genocidaires and war criminals resident outside of the country in which the crime was committed. I would also like to look at the effect of international criminal courts on the systems of justice in post-conflict societies, particularly in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Background:  I currently work as a lawyer in the Criminal and Human Rights teams at Crown Law, which is the legal division of the New Zealand Government. I have previously had the invaluable experience of working as a junior barrister in South Auckland which exposed me to in-court advocacy in the civil human rights field.
While studying for my undergraduate degrees at Otago University, I had the privilege to volunteer at a number of NGOs in Thailand working with refugees, aids victims and living at an orphanage.  It was through these experiences that my interest in International Human Rights was cemented and I focused my legal training on this area of work.  More recently I have been helping my father and step-mother arrange charity concerts to raise funds for their orphanage in the Philippines, and have become an avid attendee at Rotary events around Wellington.

I cannot thank Rotary International enough for their support and for giving me this amazing opportunity.  Through my studies at Bradford and my likely life-long affiliation with Rotary, I hope to work towards creating a safe environment which protects women and children from exploitation when they become displaced as a result of conflict.