The COVID-19 pandemic is making it harder to provide legal protection for victims of domestic abuse, even as cases of abuse have surged. A Thursday press release from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RICADV) reported that the number of restraining orders issued against abusers during April 2020 fell by 46 percent over the […]
Iain Guest
Iain is a contributor to What's Up Newp and What's Up Rhode Island.
Iain is currently the project coordinator of the Advocacy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based NGO that serves the needs of civil society -- particularly community-based advocates for peace and human rights. He coordinates the Human Rights Forum partnership between ISIM and the Advocacy Project and teaches as an Adjunt Professor in the Master of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown
He is also author of a book about the disappearances in Argentina and presenter of several BBC documentaries. In 1992 he served as a spokesperson for the UNHCR operation in Cambodia, and in 1994 as spokesperson for the UN humanitarian operation in Haiti. He served as a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace (1996/7). Between 1997 and 2000, he conducted several evaluation missions to Rwanda and Bosnia for USAID and UNHCR. He has also served as special assistant to the Special Representative of the UN Human Rights Commission on Rwanda. He was the Geneva-based correspondent for the London Guardian and International Herald Tribune between 1976 and 1987.
Posted inBusiness, Food & Drink
Newport restaurants struggle to limit the environmental impact of take-out
Restaurants in the Newport area are trying to ensure that their growing dependency on take-out meals does not generate more plastic and threaten the area’s environmental gains. Plastic has long been a target for greens because it fouls beaches, endangers marine life, and puts further pressure on Rhode Island’s sole landfill. The threat has spurred […]
Posted inColumns
Iain Guest: A community teacher chafes at distance learning, pines for her students
I first met Lisa Olaynack, an English teacher at the Thompson Middle School in Newport in 2016, when she invited me to her class for a discussion about girls’ education in Kenya. At the time my nonprofit was supporting the Kakenya Centre for Excellence, a pioneering boarding school for girls in western Kenya that will […]
Posted inCity & Government, News
COVID–19’s Shelter in Place brings spike in domestic abuse
Amidst signs of a sharp increase in domestic abuse in Rhode Island, agencies are determined to ensure that victims receive the full range of support, including emergency shelter, online counselling and legal recourse – while making sure that health restrictions are respected. “We’re concerned but we’re also prepared,” said Jessica Walsh, director of the Women’s […]