Estabrook Fellow

Anne Evans Estabrook Human Rights Senior Fellow

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Kean University President, Dawood Farahi, announced on March 4, 2014, that acclaimed international Human Rights Advocate and best-selling author, John Prendergast would join Kean University as the Anne Evans Estabrook Human Rights Senior Fellow. Kean University has the special honor of welcoming Prendergast to help lead and expand the work of the University’s Human Rights Institute every Fall and Spring Semester.  Prendergast spends a week in Residence at Kean while he helps mentor students and programs on how to be conscientious and active in Human Rights Efforts.

“Kean University is pleased to welcome Senior Fellow John Prendergast to the Human Rights Institute with his over 30 years of experience advocating for Human Rights,” said University President, Dr. Dawood Farahi, “We are also grateful for the generous support of the fellowship sponsor, Anne Evans Estabrook whose ongoing contributions and commitments to Kean are invaluable and deeply appreciated.”  

Prendergast has worked for peace in Africa for nearly thirty years. As Co-Founder of the Enough Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity, John has also worked for the Clinton White House, the State Department, and two members of Congress, the National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. As a Big Brother for over 25 years, Prendergast has a unique connection to reaching youth as well as a youth counselor and a basketball coach and recently wrote a dual memoir with his first little brother in the Big Brother program, Unlikely Brothers.  As an author his publications have been received with immense success. Prendergast co-authored the New York Times best seller, Not on Our Watch, with Don Cheadle, as well as The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes.  Prendergast was a part of the facilitation team that was behind ending the Ethiopa and Eritrea War in 1998-2000, the deadliest war in the world at that time. Prendergast also participated in the peace processes for Burundi (led by Nelson Mandela), Sudan and Congo.

Prendergast is a board member and serves as Strategic Advisor to Not on Our Watch, the organization founded by George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Brad Pitt. He also helped direct the Sudan Now campaign, which supported the holding of a peaceful referendum for South Sudan.  Prendergast has been awarded six honorary doctorates.  He has been a visiting professor at more than a dozen major Colleges and Universities, including Stanford, Duke, Yale Law School, Dartmouth College and Kean University. John is the recipient of numerous awards, including but not limited to; The U.S. Department of State Distinguished Service Award, the Princeton University Crystal Tiger Award; The Huffington Post 2011 Game Changer Award and the Kean University 2013 Human Rights Institute Award.