40 OCTOBER 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL HOW ONE FS KID CREATED A Human Rights ORGANIZATION Aidan Gorman is in his final year at the University of Portsmouth, U.K., where he studies international relations. He is a third culture kid, having lived overseas for most of his life in Almaty, Beijing, Amman, and Moscow. He has worked in the public, private, and third sector at places like U.S. Embassy Moscow, Portsmouth City Council, London Politica, and the Global Peace Foundation. Aidan currently runs GorStra Research Group, a pro-bono human rights research group centered on providing students with experience and providing small organizations with bespoke reports. FOCUS ON FS FAMILIES AT HOME Building a pro-bono human rights research group gave university student volunteers from around the world valuable, real-life career experience—and made a difference, too. BY AIDAN GORMAN In 2021 I left Moscow, where my family was posted, to start university in the U.K. I knew I wanted to study international relations and eventually join the Foreign Service like my dad. I loved interning at embassies abroad, and studying international relations in a foreign country strengthened my determination to become a diplomat. During my first summer at university, I chose to stay in the U.K. instead of going “home” and interned for the Global Peace Foundation, a peacebuilding organization. I was fortunate to attend a conference on freedom of religion or belief with 800 people from other NGOs, political organizations, and governments. One of only a handful of young people there, I was inspired to encourage other college students to participate in this field. I began thinking about establishing a human rights research group led entirely by volunteer university students from around the world. I reached out to some students at my university and other universities to ask if they would help lay the groundwork for such an organization. The response was fantastic. Here is the story of how we built the pro-bono human rights research organization GorStra Research Group, what it does, who it serves, and how the experience helped me prepare for a career after college. Building a Human Rights NGO The idea of starting an organization from scratch was daunting, but being a Foreign Service kid helped. I was used to meeting new people and operating in an online world, so I was able to find other students around the world, interview them, and ask for outside help from experts whom I’d met while living overseas. The startup costs were minimal—after paying for a domain name, I created my own website, asked a friend to create the logo, and used free communication software. There was a lot of interest from other students, so I interviewed several dozen and chose the first few based on their areas of interest as well as writing skills, allowing us to cover multiple regions. GorStra currently has more than 50 university student volunteer analysts located in more than a dozen countries around
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