Sumshot Khular

Sumshot Khular
Human rights and peace activist

Sumshot Khular is an indigenous Lamkang Naga from Thamlakhuren Village in the Chandel district of Manipur, India. She is an active human rights and peace activist, with extensive experience in post-conflict reconciliation and peacebuilding processes at a local level. As a human rights expert specializing in women’s rights, militarisation and indigenous issues, Sumshot was engaged in mediation following the Kuki-Naga conflict and continues to oversee peacebuilding processes between ethnic groups in the region. She has been invited to speak on the effects of militarisation at the United Nations Permanent Forum on indigenous issues and has delivered presentations at the regional review of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development. She serves as the elected Vice President of Naga Women Union, an network of 16 Naga tribes working on gender-based violence, women’s human rights, conflict transformation and peace-building in local communities and across ethnic communities.

Previously, Sumshot has served as the Executive Director of Community Action and Research for Development in Chandel – a grassroots organization progressing human rights education, women’s rights, development and peace throughout Manipur. Sumshot translated human rights documents, i.e Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR), United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples(UNDRIP), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and India’s Domestic Violence Act, and developed human rights education models to bring accountability and protection to Manipur’s most remote areas. She continues to develop educational materials used in teaching her native language, including a Lamkang dictionary, and writes children’s books to make human rights accessible to younger generations. She has also worked with Centre for Social Development in Imphal (Manipur) on development, HIV/AIDS and on local capacity building for peace. Outside of Manipur, she has worked with the Indian Social Action Forum (New Delhi) on combating communalism, defending democratic rights and resisting the negative impact globalization, and in NE region with the Foundation for Social Transformation (FST) in Guwahati, Assam a small local philanthropic grants making organisation and as a fellow of FST, she had worked on training youth in Chandel using the medium of theatre in peacebuilding.

Sumshot holds an MA in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from Essex University, UK and a MA in Linguistics from Manipur University. She is a member of the Lamkang Snu Lop, Naga Women’ Union Manipur (NWUM) , Indigenous Women’s Forum for Northeast India (IWFNEI) and Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) and Asian Indigenous Women’s Network (AIWN) and a trainee of Women Peace Makers Programme (WPP).

She was a Visiting Scholar at the University of North Texas in 20016 and 2017 documenting and working with Dr.Shobhana Chelliah on Lamkang language. She joined the graduate program at UNT in Linguistics in fall 2017.

Presentations at Calvin University

Sumshot Khular at FIDC
Part of the: Faith and International Development
Thursday, February 8, 2018 03:33:00 PM
Calvin College Chapel