11 May COVID-19 Conversations 2: Rohingya & COVID-19 in Malaysia with Lilianne Fan
Join a discussion updating the situation for Rohingya in Southeast Asia with Lillianne Fan, Chair of the Asia-Pacific Refugee Rights Network’s Rohingya Working Group. She discusses the challenges the Rohingya are facing and the obstacles in the COVID-19 environment.
Special Guest: Lilianne Fan
Lilianne Fan is an anthropologist and humanitarian professional with more than 15 years of experience working with refugees, internally displaced persons, and communities affected by conflict and disaster. She is International Director and Co-Founder of the Geutanyoe Foundation, a humanitarian and community empowerment organisation based in Aceh, Indonesia, and Malaysia. She chairs the Asia-Pacific Refugee Rights Network’s Rohingya Working Group and is a Research Associate with the London-based Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group, where she focusses on engagement on humanitarian action in Asia, particularly in the ASEAN region. She holds an MA in Anthropology from Columbia University.
Hosted by: Dr Bridget Welsh
Dr Bridget Welsh is currently an Honorary Research Associate with the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute Malaysia (UoNARI-M) based in Kuala Lumpur. She is also a Senior Research Associate of the Hu Fu Center for East Asia Democratic Studies of National Taiwan University, a Senior Associate Fellow of The Habibie Center, a University Fellow of Charles Darwin University. She specializes in Southeast Asian politics, with a focus on Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Indonesia. An author and editor of numerous books, reports and articles, her last report is Grappling with Transition: Myanmar’s 2019 Asia Barometer Findings. Her forthcoming book A Divided Malaysia: The Rise and Fall of Pakatan Harapan examines Malaysia’s 2018 elections and the transformation of national politics during the Harapan government of 2018-2020. She taught at John Cabot University, Ipek University, Singapore Management University, SAIS (JHU) and Hofstra University. She received her Ph.D in political science from Columbia University, language training at Cornell University (FALCON) and B.A. from Colgate University. She is a Senior Advisor for Freedom House, a member of the International Research Council of the National Endowment for Democracy and a core member of the Asian Barometer Survey covering fifteen countries in East Asia.