Silvana Turner

Silvana Turner, from Argentina, graduated from HRAP in 1998. When asked about HRAP, she remarks among the personal and professional benefits of her participation, how it helped her to “establish contact with people from different organizations and different parts of the world”. A fundamental part of the training involved in HRAP is related to relationship-building and networking, skills that allow graduates to enhance their effectiveness as individual advocates and to build stronger organizations in their respective home countries. HRAP provides Advocates with an unique opportunity to share their invaluable grassroots knowledge and learn more about the strategies and best practices of other Human Rights organizations. Furthermore, advocacy networking allows Advocates to develop a range of contacts and foster relationships with relevant US-based organizations that often lead to joint projects and funding opportunities.

Since graduating from the Program, Turner has gone on to expand her academic knowledge of Human Rights both at the United States, at Brandeis University International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, through the Brandeis International Fellows Program, and in her home country, recently receiving a Master’s Degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Buenos Aires.

During the past 13 years since she left the HRAP, she has achieved notable accomplishments that have had an immeasurable impact in Argentina and worldwide. In 2003, she was one of the founding members of the Latin American Forensic Anthropology Association (ALAF). Turner has worked as a consultant for prestigious international NGOs as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA) and the Euro-Mediterranean Federation against Enforced Disappearance (FEMED). She has also developed an outstanding work with International Intergovernmental Organizations as the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Office of the Prosecutor; the UN Office of The High Commission for Human Rights; and the Organization of the American States (OAS). Finally, she has also been a consultant for several National Commissions and Governmental Organizations, among them: the National Secretariat of Human Rights of Argentina, the National Trust Commission of Panama, the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa or the Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women in Ciudad Juarez.

When in 1998 Turner entered the HRAP she was working as an anthropologist and researcher at the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), a non- profit scientific, non-governmental organization committed to the forensic investigation of Human Rights violations. Currently, she continues her work at the organization as a member and a full time researcher. The Team's members have conducted field work in nearly thirty countries through the world and have been widely recognized for their achievements.

—Article composed by Marta Garnelo Caamano, ISHR Intern, June 2011