CC senior studies women's rights in Africa

Casey Osborn '07 spent seven months in Mali studying women’s rights.

When Casey Osborn '07 went to western Africa earlier this year to research women's rights, she helped abused women file complaints with the police. She held women's hands during childbirth and interviewed female migrant workers about their struggles with exploitation and abandonment.

Osborn also learned the power of compassion.

"Even when I couldn't speak the language of domestic workers, I connected with them. They opened up to me and shared their lives," said Osborn, a senior from Seattle who is enrolled in the Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy.

And she learned the importance of self-assurance when it comes to being heard.

"As a woman rallying for the rights of other women, I was frequently ignored," Osborn said. "But with persistence I forced people to listen."

Osborn was in landlocked Mali, one of the poorest nations on earth. She spent seven months there studying with the School for International Training's program on Gender and Development, followed by an internship. Her work was in Bamako, the capital, with a population of 1.7 million.

On campus this semester, Osborn is trying to raise awareness of women's reproductive rights through Planned Parenthood. She hosted her first event, a screening of "Love, Labor, Loss" earlier this month. Her senior thesis will examine the social consequences of unwanted pregnancy among migrant workers in Bamako.

Osborn said her experience in Mali was more powerful than she ever imagined it would be. It has shaped her career plans: she is applying to Teach for America and other teaching fellowship programs. After a couple of years Osborn intends to go to law school and pursue a career in human rights as a lawyer.

"In whatever I do," she said, "the issues I learned about in Mali will stay close to me."

View the Holleran Center's fall newsletter. http://www.conncoll.edu/news/enews/images/hcinaction1106.pdf