Marselha Gonçalves Margerin, LL.B, M.A.
Advocacy Director

Marselha Gonçalves Margerin is advocacy director at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights (RFK Center) working with RFK Human Rights Award Laureates from Latin America. Ms. Gonçalves Margerin coordinates projects associated with 2006 Laureate, Sonia Pierre of the Dominican Republic who works to realize the right to a name and a nationality of Dominicans of Haitian descent and for the respect of the fundamental rights of Haitian immigrants in Dominican Republic. She also works with 2001 Laureate, Darci Frigo, who fights for the rights of the landless, combating modern-day slavery, and protecting the land’s biodiversity and sustainability in Brazil. She also supports 1998 Laureates Berenice Celeyta and Gloria Florez of Colombia who work protecting human rights defenders and defending the rights of those marginalized by the internal conflict in Colombia, and 1990 Laureate Amilcar Mendez from Guatemala who strives to protect the constitutional and human rights of Guatemala's indigenous population. Ms. Gonçalves Margerin oversees laureate-to-laureate projects on Rights to Education and Right to Food.

Ms. Gonçalves Margerin has been part of the RFK Center team since 2006. Ms Gonçalves Margerin has contributed to several non-governmental, academic and international organizations among those are the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti where she worked as a human rights officer. She also worked in the organization of the Inter-American Moot Court Competition at the American University Washington College of Law and assisted Nobel Peace Prize José Ramos Horta, current President of East-Timor.

Ms. Gonçalves-Margerin holds an M.A in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University School of International Service and a Law Degree from Universidade Federal de Uberlandia, Brazil. In Brazil she worked in the fields of education and family law.

Besides English and her native Portuguese, Ms. Gonçalves-Margerin is fluent in French and Spanish and has a working knowledge of Haitian Creole.

Marselha Gonçalves Margerin
1367 Connecticut Ave., NW Suite 200
Washington, D.C. 20036
Tel: (202) 463-7575 Ext. 224
Fax: (202) 463-6606
gmargerin@rfkmemorial.org