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Nikhil Aziz

Nikhil Aziz is director of Land, Water and Climate Justice. Before joining AJWS, he was executive director of Grassroots International, which funded social movements for resource rights in the Global South and did advocacy in the United States. Previously, Nikhil was associate director at Political Research Associates, which studied the right wing for the progressive movement. He continues to speak, teach and write on human rights, international development and social change. Nikhil has served on the boards of Africa Today Associates, Massachusetts Asians & Pacific Islanders for Health, MASALA (Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association), Resist, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, the Human Rights Funders Network, and the Engaged Donors for Global Equity (EDGE Funders).

“We Have Human Rights Like Everyone Else”: Reflections from the Democratic Republic of Congo

To say Masinda Masiano is formidable would be an understatement. She packs a punch, both in personality and speech, even if her frame is slight. Masinda is a Pygmy from the village of Mujo Mukondo outside Goma in North Kivu province. She doesn’t know how old she is, but I’d guess at least 60. She met us at the village entrance in a bright orange polo shirt emblazoned with the AJWS logo.

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Empowering Artisanal Miners: Reflections from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Eric Kajemba sat across from me at our hotel in Bukavu, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province. After many hours of driving back from our site visit with Eric’s organization and AJWS grantee L’Observatoire Gouvernance et Paix (OGP), my AJWS colleagues and I were tired. Eric was not. Somewhere in his mid-50s, he has an easy laugh and an undying enthusiasm for his work.

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“We formed our union to have a collective voice”: Reflections from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Takuinja Ruzibuka of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s South Kivu province rises before dawn to cook, get her eight children ready and work on the family’s vegetable plot for a few hours. Only then does she trek down to the Zola Zola tin mine near Nzibira, where she has been a twangaise (stone breaker) for 19 years. The mine sits on land given in a government concession to multinational corporation BANRO.

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