On the eve of International Human Rights Day, the Centre for Human Rights held its annual graduation ceremony. This year’s event, which took place on 9 December 2016, was very special for a number of reasons.
The first reason is that the first graduates of the first fully-fledged hybrid Master’s programme presented by the Centre received their degrees at this Ceremony. This Master’s programme, focusing on “Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa”, brings together students from all across the continent in a combination of on-line and on-campus teaching and learning.
A second reasons is that, with 28 students completing the Master’s in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA), the number of graduates of this programme has now reached 483. The newly graduated Class of 2016 will join graduates who currently hold prominent positions across Africa, for example: the Chief Justice (Sierra Leone); the Attorney-General (Zambia); the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection (Ghana); the Deputy Secretary to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (South Africa); a Member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ethiopia); three 3 Judges of the High Court (Kenya, Ghana, Uganda); two Deans of Law (Malawi, Ethiopia); the Head of African Governance Architecture (Kenya); and the Senate Majority Leader (Kenya).
A third reason is that, for the first time, the Master’s HRDA graduates include not one, but two Asian students, one from South Korea and one from Taiwan.
The graduation ceremony was the last in a series of events commemorating the Centre’s 30-year anniversary in 2016.