Meet the Graduates 2023: Kendall Wells

From Ottawa, Canada, to Paris, France, via Nairobi, Kenya, Kendall Wells travels from one continent to another with a constant motivation: to act for human rights. She has just obtained her Sciences Po master's degree in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action along with the Advanced Certification in Gender Studies. She tells us about her journey.

Why did you integrate gender studies into your educational career?

Gender equality, gender mainstreaming, and intersectionality have been the core perspectives for which I have focused all of my studies and professional work because, as a woman, my life experiences have put women’s and gender-diverse peoples’ experiences at the heart of my passion for human rights. During my undergraduate degree, I studied human rights with a concentration in migration and gender which, naturally, led to continuing with these disciplines during my master's. This has allowed me to deeply enrich my understanding of the multiaxial nature of discrimination which so many individuals experience at the hands of gender inequalities and socially constructed norms.

Will you remember a course in particular?

In my first year, I took “Women's Fight Against Violence and the Fight for Human Rights” with Sacha Koulaeva and Tchérina Jerolon. Both instructors brought extensive field experience expertise and engaged in case studies that tackled some very difficult instances of large-scale violence against women and gender-diverse persons. I particularly appreciated the attention paid to different types of resistance from social, to economic, and even armed resistance across varying contexts. It was positively different from any other gender and human rights course I had taken before.

What do you want to keep from your Science Po years?

Meeting and working with my friends and colleagues who show, both in class and day-to-day life, that they are here to make the future better and that they have the skills, kindness, and drive to do that. They give me hope!

What is next?

I am currently weighing several options, but wherever I end up, I'm looking to work on the nexus of climate change and migration as well as gender mainstreaming.

More

• The Advanced Certification in Gender Studies is open to all students in a second year of master programme at Sciences Po
• At the Sciences Po Undergraduate College, Bachelor students can apply for the Certification in Gender and Equality
• The Master in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action at the Sciences Po School of International Affairs