Cameron Kays

Cameron Kays is a scholar-practitioner with experience working on transitional justice, human rights, peace-building, and cultural anthropology initiatives in the United States, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Ukraine, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Her research focuses on supporting Tribal Nations in North America in applying transitional justice mechanisms to address the legacies of atrocities. Cameron worked as a cultural anthropologist in the Southwest region of the U.S. with several Tribal Nations on a variety of projects that resulted in several published reports, journal publications, a podcast, and a presentation at the international conference for the Society for Applied Research in Anthropology. Since, Cameron has worked for a variety of human rights organizations seeking to provide survivors of mass atrocities with access to transitional justice mechanisms including reparations, truth-seeking, justice, and non-recurrence. Cameron prioritizes holistic, victim-centric/ bottom-up, trauma-informed, and sustainable approaches to human rights and transitional justice.

Cameron is also the Chair of the Harambee Centre, a non-governmental organization that operates in East Africa helping women and children achieve access to healthcare, education, and economic development. One project Cameron is currently managing is the Najiajli Project (which translates to “I care for myself”) in Chwele, Kenya. The Najiajli Project provides vocational training, business courses, health courses, and more for teenage girls who were impregnated as a byproduct of the lockdowns and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cameron holds a Master’s degree in Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and Rule of Law from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations with a minor in Cultural Anthropology and emphasis in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona, United States.