Claire Leslie, the Associate Coordinator for the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights, has been committed to addressing human rights issues since she was undergraduate student in the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Global Studies. Claire obtained a B.A. in Global Studies focusing on Human Rights and Justice and she wrote her thesis on The Role of the International Community in the Somali Refugee Camp of Dadaab. Since she graduated, Claire has interned for both the National Immigrant Justice Center’s Detention Project and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota’s Detention Project where she provided detained immigrants and their families with support, advice, and information about the U.S. immigration detention system. She has also assisted the Immigrant Law Center’s Development Office with grant writing and event planning.

Since 2004, Claire has traveled to Mexico and Honduras on multiple occasions to carry out development projects in support of children’s health and nutrition. Claire was awarded the 2009 University of Minnesota’s Outstanding Community Service Award for her work as Director of the Global Studies Student Association (GSSA). Over the two years that Claire was Director of GSSA, the group raised over $40,000 and engaged in service projects in the areas of education, sustainability, and healthcare on behalf of a non-profit children’s home in Honduras. Claire has studied Spanish and Arabic and hopes to someday travel throughout Northern Africa.