Ben Gellman, Author at AIF

Ben Gellman

Age: 23

Home Town: Greencastle, Indiana

Education: B.A. in History, Colorado College

Specific Field Interests: Human Rights, International Law, Access to Justice

Placement: VIKSAT, Nehru Foundation for Development, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Area of Focus: Developing communication strategies for the successful support of organizational aims through documentation, grant writing, and corporate communications.

Fellowship Project: Adivasi and tribal affairs, agriculture, clean energy, girls’ and women’s rights, livelihoods, micro-finance, skilling & skills training, water & sanitation, climate change and natural resource management

Highlights: Ben is serving as an American India Foundation (AIF) Banyan Impact Fellow with VIKSAT, Nehru Foundation for Development in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. For his Fellowship project, he is developing communication strategies for the successful support of organizational aims through documentation, grant writing, and corporate communications. Ben graduated from Colorado College in 2022 with a degree in History. Ben’s undergraduate thesis “A Legal Genealogy of Descent from Slavery in the British Atlantic to the 2001 World Conference Against Racism” discusses the use of descent in the context of slavery in the British Atlantic, British colonial laws in India, the Constitution of India, and international law’s prohibitions on caste and caste-like forms of discrimination today. While at Colorado College, he received a Keller Family Venture Grant to interview people in Nairobi and Eldoret, Kenya about Kenya’s Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission and the International Criminal Court proceedings that followed post-election ethnic violence in Kenya in 2007-2008. After college, he worked at the civil legal aid organization Montana Legal Services Association as a Montana Eviction Intervention Program Intake Specialist and as an Eviction Prevention Case Navigator. Ben looks forward to advancing VIKSAT, Nehru Foundation for Development’s mission of improving Land and Water Management, Water Sanitation and Hygiene, Sustainable Livelihoods, Institution and Capacity Building, and Environment and Climate Change during his Fellowship term.