Fellows

Kobby GOMEZ-MENSAH’s study of Human Rights and Democratisation at the Global Human Rights Campus and the Institute for Peace and Security Policy Studies (IFSH) of the University of Hamburg, gave birth to AMGI. AMGI is a product of both research and observation in the human rights and migration space with a view to make contribution to not just knowledge but policies and programmes aimed at Africa’s advancement.

 

He identified like-minded people, with whom the foundations of the Institute continue to develop, with the objective of advancing the cause of migrants everywhere. His motivation is to see young people, particularly Africans, shying away from perilous journeys to Europe, in search of non-existing opportunities.

 

Between September 2020 and June 2021, he was a consultant researcher to the Youth Bridge Foundation, a local NGO in Accra, researching youth aspirations and expectations ahead of Ghana’s 2020 elections. He also trained youth in three regions on the ideologies and tenets of political parties with representation in Ghana’s Parliament since 1993. 

 

In May this year, he led a team to undertake a needs assessment in Ghana’s Nsawam-Adoagyiri Constituency, for the establishment of an education resource center to serve as a safe learning space for students in the Constituency that borders the capital to the North-West, but has no library. 

 

He initiated the Institute’s first activity of rescuing trafficked Ghanaian women, bonded in slave-like arrangements in Egypt. The process saw two women, Alberta and Theresa, leaving the North African country, without paying the bond of $5,000 their Queenpin required of them before returning their travel documents to them. The two women have since November and December 2019 lived in Ghana with their families.

 

Kobby holds a Master‘s in Human Rights and Democracy studies from EIUC Venice and University of Hamburg’s IFSH, M.A. in Communication Studies as well as BA in Political Science from the University of Ghana. His research interest spans democracy and good governance, human rights, migration and communication studies.

 

He has worked as a journalist since 2004, while studying at the University of Ghana. He was a parliamentary reporter for nearly eight years and believes in holding public officers accountable, a quality demonstrated strongly in his  writings. Between 2017 and 2019, he was a contributor writer for the Oasis Magazine in Egypt, where he wrote mainly on arts and lifestyle.