From 2015 through 2024, the United Nations is marking the Decade for People of African Descent, under the themes of recognition, justice and development. The National Lawyers Guild and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers have the opportunity to participate in the international convenings, plans and programs of action to demand justice for Afro-descendant people being organized as part of this Decade.
Please help the NLG and IADL to cover and offset travel expenses for
two delegates to participate. If additional funds are raised or
insufficent funds are gathered to support two participants, any
remaining donations will be used to support participation by and
scholarships for progressive law students, new lawyers, and Guild
members who identify as African Descendants.
NLG International Committee Treasurer Ollie
Jefferson, an immigration lawyer in Texas, participated in an
earlier convening in Geneva in 2017 for the Decade for
People of African Descent . She and another NLG representative,
the Chair of the Africa Subcommittee, a human rights
lawyer in New York, have been invited and approved to travel to Dakar, Senegal, on October 23-25,
2019, for the 2019 Africa Regional convening .
Ollie Jefferson has practiced Immigration Law for
over 35 years, as a specialty area of law. Within the framework of her
position, she has represented foreign nationals from most parts of the
world, with special emphasis on asylum seekers, and refugees. The
majority of said persons seeking protection were born on the African
continent, as well as Palestine. Much of her asylum and other
protection litigation on behalf of women and children was performed pro-bono.
Aside from her practice, Ollie participated in advocacy for
refugees by spear heading educational projects for the general
public, and particularly in an effort to understand the origins of and
to bridge the division between African Americans and Africans of the
Continent. In this regard, she has appeared on television and radio
shows local to the Dallas, Fort Worth areas of Texas; appeared on
numerous panels pertaining to the African Refugee crisis. Ollie has
advocated and worked toward increasing the number of African refugees
for resettlement in the U.S. in conjunction with Southern Methodist
University; written numerous published articles for purposes of
educating the public in Immigration matters, as a guest editor in the
area’s major newspapers.
Separate from the National Lawyers Guild, Ollie has traveled
with a group to Kenya to study the refugee environment of displaced
persons from the countries bordering Kenya. This delegation visited
Camp Kakuma, a massive refugee camp in Northern Kenya, as well as Camp
Lokichokia, also in the North, bordering the Sudan, a staging ground
for relief to Southern Sudan. Upon her return to the U.S. She
motivated different individuals and organizations to sponsor at least
15 African refugees for resettlement in the U.S., which was
successfully accomplished, as well as the necessary daily interaction
with the refugees to assure their acclimation to a new life. She
additionally wrote news editorials about the need to increase the
number of African refugees for resettlement, and enlisting the help of
others for sponsorship and further participation in refugee resettlement.
Ollie further participated in a delegation to Port Au Prince,
Haiti, as part of The National Lawyers Guilds interest in monitoring
the trial of a local human rights activist in Haiti. Upon her return
she publicized the trial through an article for the Haiti subcommittee
of The National Lawyers Guild, which was also published in a major
newspaper in Miami. She has further gone on delegations to El Salvador
and Colombia as part of National Lawyers Guild delegations, and Cuba
as a member of a different organization. After each delegation she
wrote editorial articles published in major newspapers to educate the
American public on the relevant issues.
In addition, the co-chair of the Africa Subcommittee of
the NLG is part of an international coalition of
Afrodescendant people that has been strategizing and organizing
concerning the International Decade and they have been discussing
interventions at the upcoming meeting. Her colleagues from this
coalition from Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe will be at the
meeting. She is a human rights lawyer and activist. She has worked
with organizations and communities around the world and has worked
abroad in Cambodia, Hungary, Liberia, Kenya and South Africa. She has
various areas of expertise, including women's rights, racial
discrimination, elections, United Nations advocacy, capacity building
and human rights training, and she has served as an election observer
in 5 countries.
