Human Rights Watch Joins Direct Relief for a Special Conversation

6100 Wallace Becknell Road,Santa Barbara CA 93117

04 April, 2023

Description

As we enter the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic, global health remains in an existential crisis, unable to fully respond to the racial, gender, and class inequities reflected across borders and communities. Calls to reimagine global health have been amplified through the pandemic as well as various humanitarian crises. Direct Relief and Human Rights Watch represent two actors in the global health space, working to advance the right to health through humanitarian and rights based frameworks. Please join us for a conversation on how these civil society organizations are responding to immediate global health challenges, while simultaneously reflecting on the need to advance a new global health order. THOMAS TIGHE, Direct Relief President & CEO Thomas Tighe has served as President and CEO of Direct Relief, a nonprofit humanitarian medical organization, since October 2000. Since Tighe's arrival, the organization has provided cash grants of more than $170 million and furnished more than $9 billion in essential medicines, equipment, and supplies to support health services for low-income people in over 100 countries and all 50 U.S. states, where the organization conducts the country's largest nonprofit charitable medicines program. From 1995 to 2000, Tighe served as Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer of the Peace Corps, overseeing day-to-day operations of the agency’s worldwide programs and a resurgent growth to a 27-year high. From 1993 to 1995, Tighe served as Associate General Counsel of the Peace Corps, negotiating bilateral agreements to initiate Peace Corps programs in South Africa and China. From 1989 to 1993, he served as Associate Counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, conducting oversight and developing legislation related to veterans’ mental-health care, special disability programs, drug and alcohol treatment, and services for homeless veterans. Tighe also handled collateral duties related to foreign aid and the Peace Corps. A 1982 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Tighe received a J.D. in 1985 from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, and an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in May 2003. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in rural Thailand from 1986 to 1988. He was selected for the Aspen Institute’s 2003 class of Henry Crown Fellows, was on the editorial advisory board for Pacific Standard Magazine, and is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy. He was named to the Nonprofit Times Power & Influence Top 50 (2021), Executive of the Year in 2006 by the South Coast Business and Technology Forum. He has also served as a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s graduate program in Global and International Studies. A. KAYUM AHMED, Human Rights Watch's Right to Health Special Advisor Kayum Ahmed, PhD, is a South African human rights lawyer who serves as Special Advisor on the right to health at Human Rights Watch (HRW). Kayum is leading the development of a global health strategy for HRW and is currently working on various global health projects including the Pandemic Treaty, the right to health of Indigenous peoples, as well as redefining the right to health in international human rights law. Kayum also holds an appointment as Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s school of public health where he teaches health and human rights advocacy. Previously, Kayum worked on ensuring equitable global access to Covid-19 vaccines as Division Director at the Open Society Foundations (OSF) Public Health Program, while teaching classes on socio-economic, rights at Columbia Law School. Prior to OSF, Kayum served as Chief Executive Officer of the South African Human Rights commission from 2010 to 2015. During this period, he led a team of 178 colleagues to monitor, protect and promote human rights in South Africa, and oversaw the management of nearly 45,000 human rights cases. These cases included access to socio-economic rights such as water, health, and education, as well as cases pertaining to discrimination based on race, sexual orientation and disability among others. Kayum holds a Ph.D. in education from Columbia University as well as various law degrees rom the universities of Oxford (MS.t), Cape Town (LL.B.), and Leiden (LL. M.). In addition, he has degrees in anthropology (M.A.) and theology (B.A. Hons). His interdisciplinary research interests include human rights, vaccine justice, indigenous knowledge systems, epistemic disobedience, and decolonizing the global health architecture. His forthcoming book on decolonial theory and Black radical feminist movements will be published by Columbia University Press in 2024. In addition, Kayum serves on the boards of Initiative for Access, Medicines and Knowledge (I-MAK), The LAB (San Francisco), and the Center for African Education.