Amnesty International USA held its Annual General Meeting in Brooklyn, New York a few weeks ago. During the award luncheon on March 21, it was announced that Gerry Rivadeneira has been selected for the 2015 Ladis Kristof Memorial Fellowship. New York Times journalist, Nicholas Kristof and his daughter Caroline were on hand to make the announcement. In addition, Gerry gave a brief acceptance speech.

Gerry Carolina Rivadeneira was born in Ibarra, Ecuador, and migrated to Miami, Florida at the age of 7. She is a Posse Scholar and a junior at Mount Holyoke College, where she is majoring in Political Science and minoring in Law, Public Policy and Human Rights. She learned about Amnesty International in high school and joined the leadership team in 2012 as the Student Activist Coordinator for Western Massachusetts. In the past she has worked with “Strong Women, Strong Girls” to create cycles of mutual empowerment for women and girls, and with “The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts” to help advances social change philanthropy to create economic and social equality for women.

This past summer she worked at the AIUSA office in Washington DC with the National Member Advocacy Department analyzing Amnesty’s national lobbying efforts and ways to improve them. Today she is AIUSA’s National Youth Action Committee representative for the Northeast and has organized events from small regional meetings to a delegation of college students that joined the AIUSA Contingency at Ferguson October’s weekend of resistance in Ferguson, Missouri to stand in solidarity with the people of Ferguson in their struggle for justice, accountability and human rights. She is very excited to serve as the Ladis Kristof Fellow and contribute to the continuous evolution of Amnesty International in our fight for human rights.

2015 Kristof Fellow, Gerry Rivadeneira and AI Hong Kong Director, Mabel Au