Travel and Learning Award for Thalia Kehoe Rowden

Thalia’s plan

Thalia will use the Borrin Foundation Travel and Learning Award to conduct co-design research on measuring disability rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and build relationships with human rights experts in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. Thalia’s work with the Human Rights Measurement Initiative includes beginning new work to produce robust measurements of how well each State Party is respecting the rights of disabled people under CRPD and other international instruments. Thalia will be listening to academic researchers and grass-roots human rights defenders to hear what their measurement and data needs are, and how HRMI’s work can support them to reach their goals for the people they serve.

About Thalia

Thalia Kehoe Rowden is co-Executive Director of the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, a global research NGO that serves the world with robust data tracking the human rights performance of countries. Thalia and her colleagues put strong tools into the hands of change-makers and leaders around the world, in the belief that what gets measured gets improved.  Thalia is a law and languages graduate of Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, holding a BA in Linguistics and an LLB(Hons), and also qualifications in Pastoral Leadership and Applied Theology from Carey Baptist College. She has worked as a Baptist pastor, a relief and development worker in Southeast Asia, an editor, and at the Wellington Community Law Centre, where she wrote and edited many chapters of the Community Law Manual.

Thalia is a disabled Pākehā New Zealander with ancestors from Scotland, England, and Ireland, and lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington with her husband and two children.

Grant Amount

$7,500 in 2025 to support travel