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2021-2022 marks the 10th year of the AHDA fellowship program. Since 2012, the fellowship has hosted at least 107 fellows who represent over 48 countries and territories. Below please find information regarding the professional interests and accomplishments of fellows and alumni. While at Columbia, fellows design individual projects that address some aspect of a history of gross human rights violations in their society, country, and/or region.
Click here to read more about the fellows' projects.
Click here to read about more about the work of our Fellows.
Bosch Foundation Fellow
Deo Okot Komakech is a Research and Documentation specialist who believes in dealing with the past in order to move forward. Deo has a passion for post conflict/war development, community empowerment, and enjoys working in multi-cultural and challenging environments. Currently Mr. Komakech works at the Refugee Law Project (RLP), which is affiliated with the School of Law at Makerere University. In his position as the Research and Documentation Officer, he works directly under RLP’s National Memory and Peace Documentation Center (NMPDC) in Northern Uganda. In this capacity, his responsibilities include promoting and tracking the impact of NMPDC’s work within communities and among stakeholders; promoting awareness regarding ongoing debates about truth, reconciliation and accountability monitoring; supporting community memorial initiatives; and working on different documentation initiatives including oral history testimonies, mapping, conflict and historical event documentation.
In terms of specific projects, Mr. Komakech is currently engaged in the documentation of the voices of victims and survivors of massacres that never caught media attention or any form of acknowledgement. After four year in his current position, international and local media houses have nicknamed him “the massacre scooper”. As an AHDA fellow, Mr. Komakech seeks to develop a project that will provide Ugandans in war-affected communities with a digital documentation platform for the collection and dissemination of information. The platform will enable citizens to share their memories and experiences and receive unbiased information about their history; it will also enhance the use of documentation as a means for reconciliation and accountability, and in the longer term could be used to develop a warning system with which to predict and prevent future conflict.
