Returning to Guatemala

By Alicia Robinson, ’11 (International Relations)

I came to Stanford after spending most of my life living in Guatemala, where my mother worked for the United Nations. As an international relations major, my focus was on human rights and international law. As a sophomore, I obtained the Stanford Human Rights fellowship to work for UNICEF in Cairo. I was a member of the Stanford Rotaract Club, where I organized a service trip to Guatemala and also co-founded the Central American Students Association to raise awareness on campus about the socio-political realities of this region. I subsequently pursued my JD at Harvard Law School, where I continued to study human rights and post-conflict peace-building. I decided to return to Guatemala to contribute to efforts to curtail impunity, which has severely affected the country’s overall stability in recent years.