January/February 2024
Dear Friends of PiAf,
I hope the first two months of this new year have brought you much rejuvenation and joy. We have much to share with you in the first edition of the Princeton in Africa Fellows Flyer of 2024. Our Fellows have been at their posts on the African continent for about 6 months, and they now bring with them insight into how scattering your seeds and planting firm roots can lead to new growth. Keep reading to hear from Zoe Kaldor (Mpala Research Center- Kenya), Kristen Tam (International Livestock Research Institute- Kenya), Hannah Greene (LONO- Côte d’Ivoire), Lauren Soherr (Kakenya’s Dream- Kenya), and Haby Sondo (Food for Education- Kenya) as they share their notes from the field.
January also saw many momentous developments from the PiAf community.
With the overwhelming support of our community members, Princeton in Africa successfully matched our $30K goal for our Board Matching Campaign. Thank you to our generous donors for their contributions and for continuing to invest in the future generation. Your support ensures the continuation of our powerful new Nexus program, which connects young African leaders to valuable opportunities on the continent, as well as the longevity of our flagship program, which has placed over 700 Fellows in the last 25 years.
The PiAf Interview season in January was a further testament to our network’s strength. Together with over 50 passionate PiAf alumni volunteers and members of our Board of Directors, our team conducted nearly 200 interviews with candidates for the 2024-25 fellowship cycle. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to all of our alumni and board volunteers for their participation, and we wish our 2024-25 candidates the best of luck.
In addition to coordinating a successful interview season, our staff also has been preparing for our annual PiAf Leadership Retreat. This year, the retreat will take place in Kigali, Rwanda in just a few short weeks, and we are overjoyed to return to a country that has held tremendous significance to the organization. In PiAf’s inaugural year, the International Rescue Committee in Rwanda was among our first organization partners to host a PiAf Fellow. Our last visit to the land of a thousand hills was during our 2022 retreat, and we look forward to rekindling our connections in the coming weeks!
As part of our retreat in Kigali, we will be hosting “The Connect: PiAf International Networking Event” on Sunday, March 3rd, 2024, from 4:30 PM-5:30 PM CAT at Burrows Restaurant. We warmly invite you and those in your professional circles to join us for an evening of synergy with our talented 2023-24 Fellows. To RSVP, click here.
In the midst of our exciting future planning, PiAf also looked to celebrate our past. In January, we published our 2022-23 Annual Report: Expanding the Program’s Reach, which highlighted the major triumphs of our organization in the past year. The edition includes a documentation of the Nexus program’s success, the growing accessibility of our application process, and our triumphant return to full-time fellowships on the African continent. We send our warmest regards to our wonderful 2022-23 Fellows, wherever they may be in their post-PiAf journey!
2024 is a pivotal year for our organization as we cross our grand 25th year milestone. To mark the occasion, I sat down with Princeton Alumni Weekly to share our vision for the program’s inclusive and ambitious future. In the article, I emphasized the exceptional caliber of our Fellows in promoting ethical and sustainable engagement with the continent. I explained that “Princeton in Africa does a really good job of making sure that the Fellows are very aware of development work: How do we decolonize development? Are you aware of your positionality and your power when you go to the African continent?” These considerations make our organization stand out in the work that we do and position us to be a major player in the United States’ growing commitment to Africa in the next three years.
We are proud to uplift our Fellows, who are at the forefront of advancing strong and mutually-beneficial U.S.-Africa relations. Thank you for following along on our organization’s journey and our Fellows’ successes.
Wishing you a flourishing March ahead,
Damilola Akinyele
Executive Director
PiAf Connections
Please click below to check out pictures of our Fellows, Alums and other members of the PiAf family meeting up at home and around Africa.
Notes from the Field
By Zoe Kaldor, '23-24 Fellow with Mpala Research Center
Me with a baby camel. Mpala has a herd of over 100 camels. They are kept just for research purposes. Credit: Rachael Mutisya
Hi All! My name is Zoe Kaldor, and I am one of the Fellows at Mpala Research Centre in Laikipia County, Kenya. Mpala provides a “living laboratory” where scientists can conduct experiments in the realm of savannah ecology, animal behavior, one health, etc. The center also has a genomics laboratory, allowing researchers to process many of their samples on-site.
My co-Fellow Rachael and I manning the Mpala booth at the Wildlife Scientific Conference in Naivasha, Kenya.
My role is to handle Mpala’s communications, which entails keeping our social media active, writing the monthly newsletter, updating the website, and putting together our reports. There are a lot of relevant, international holidays this time of year such as International Women and Girls in Science Day and World Wildlife Day, so I am also working on blog posts to highlight Mpala’s work in those areas.
Working at Mpala has been a rewarding experience so far. I’ve been able to meet several renowned researchers, I’ve become friends with many of the research assistants and project managers, and I’ve been able to learn about ecology, conservation, and savannah ecosystems, which I knew very little about previously. While Mpala’s location is remote, I have been able to travel to Nairobi to meet up with other Fellows, and I had the opportunity to attend a conference in Naivasha back in September with my co-Fellow, Rachael. I am excited to see what the rest of the fellowship has in store!
A few of the Fellows (Malaika, Hannah Z, myself, Haby, and ID) were in Diani Beach, Kenya over the holidays, so we met up for dinner one night. Credit: Malaika.
Notes from the Field
By Kristen Tam, '23-24 Fellow with International Livestock Research Institute
Thrifting at Toi Market with church friend Nicetta.
Hello! My name is Kristen and I am grateful for the opportunity to be a PiAf fellow at the International Livestock Research Institute.
Camping and hiking at Chyulu Hills National Park with PiAf alum, Madison Spinelli
I have been really blessed to be here in Nairobi, and 6 months in, I still cannot believe how fast it’s flown by! To be very honest, the first 4 months I really struggled to find my place, community, and to feel comfortable (even though I have access to basically everything in Nairobi), as it was tough being far from family and close friends and being somewhere I couldn’t “blend in” because of my skin color.
I am inspired by the community led/participatory research that ILRI does and am proud to report on the projects we do such as helping pastoralists identify what successful methods they have in place to adapt to climate change effects, and to help them teach their methods and scale the climate adaptation impact to those in their greater community as well.
I am a huge proponent of having a good work life balance so if I’m not at the rock climbing gym, you’ll find me on long weekend hikes, runs, camping or outdoor climbing at Lukenya (coincidentally hopped in a car to climb with PiAf alum Lavina Ranjan, last weekend), or sharing a meal with friends. Church has also been a crucial way of keeping me grounded and has helped me build community here in Nairobi and I am really grateful for my church, Emmanuel Baptist Church, and how it’s helped me build a lot of relationships with locals and grow in my faith.
Notes from the Field
By Hannah Greene, '23-24 Fellow with LONO
With colleagues watching Côte d’Ivoire win against Senegal in the round of 16– Côte d’Ivoire went on to win the entire tournament!
I’m honored to be the first fellowship participant at LONO, an agricultural sustainability engineering startup based in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire. LONO transforms agricultural waste into bioenergy and organic soil amendments to reduce farmers’ vulnerability to climate change. Projects center around mobile biodigesters that produce cooking gas, an industrial compost and biochar production facility, and technical assistance for a range of biofuel and organic fertilizer projects.
Interviews with farmer cooperative
The first months were a steep learning curve, but I am growing in all the best ways. The difficult adjustment was exacerbated by discovering the depth of my initial French language inadequacy, catching Dengue fever, and struggling to adapt to Yamoussoukro life—but I am growing in all the best ways. Interviewing farmers about the soil degradation they observe from chemical pesticide use, for example, has been an intensive French immersion speed course and an incredible opportunity to meet farmers and agricultural players from throughout the region.
Working for a locally-owned SME has transformed my understanding of how global climate action intersects with grassroots private enterprises. My responsibilities as a Project Manager span socioeconomic and environmental impact evaluation with farmer cooperatives, recordkeeping and accounting, meetings with funders and potential project partners, and writing funding proposals and technical reports for international agencies.
My biggest sources of joy have been running and bicycling through the trails in the savannah surrounding Yamoussoukro and doing DIY triathlons on weekends. I’m filled with gratitude for my colleagues I’ve now gotten very close to (in French), building relationships with vegetable vendors in my weekly trips to the market, and watching Côte d’Ivoire win the Africa Cup of Nations!
The largest basilica in the world is in Yamoussoukro! For a sense of scale, try to spot where I’m sitting and drawing.
Notes from the Field
By Lauren Soherr, '23-24 Fellow with Kakenya's Dream
Me and my coworker Brian Kiprono at Kakenya’s Center for Excellence II
Habari yenu? My name is Lauren Soherr and I’m the Princeton in Africa Fellow at Kakenya’s Dream. If you traveled around seven hours west of Nairobi, you would find me on the campus of an all-girls boarding school perched on a hill overlooking the Maasai Mara. I live in a remote area among a tightly knit community and a lot of cows. So far, my fellowship has been wonderfully immersive. Over the past six months, I’ve become conversationally fluent in Swahili, I’ve mastered a Maasai dance move and I’ve learned how to cook ugali, a Kenyan staple.
Me with a cow at Kakenya’s Center for Excellence II
My life is embedded in the community just like the organization I work for. Kakenya’s Dream is a locally owned and operated organization dedicated to women’s empowerment. By investing in education, health and leadership initiatives, Kakenya’s Dream supports girls in rural Kenya to become agents of change. Our work also involves advocacy and sensitization campaigns educating youth, parents and community members about the harmful effects of FGM and early marriage. Working in a grassroots mission-driven organization, I’m learning how to facilitate homegrown strategies for sustainable development from local experts.
In my role as a Communication and Programs Officer, I’ve been involved with a diverse range of projects engaging every level of operations. To bolster monitoring and evaluation, I’ve designed and implemented data collection tools, consulted on impact assessments and mapped information systems. Collaborating with language teachers and school administrators, I’ve co-facilitated literacy programming for over 100 high schoolers. I’ve also had an exciting opportunity to assist with the development and launch of a youth friendly clinic. This clinic will provide essential mental health and out-patient services to rural communities who are currently traveling up to 50 km to access medical care.
The view from my porch
Meanwhile, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to travel in the field and hear directly from community leaders and advocates for girls’ rights. As part of the communications team, I interact with students and stakeholders across two counties to capture feedback and success stories. Through this work, I’ve honed my skills in ethical storytelling to make nuanced realities on the ground accessible to readers globally.
I can’t say the ride has been smooth, partly because the roads to school are bumpy, but mostly because living in this unique corner of the world required a lot of adjustment. I’m immensely grateful to my friends and coworkers for holding me with patience, care and generosity as I’ve acclimated to my new home. Sending love and warm wishes from Kenya!
Notes from the Field
By Haby Sondo, '23-24 Fellow with Food for Education
Since beginning my role as a Fundraising Associate at Food for Education in August 2023, I have been immersed in a wealth of opportunities to learn about school-feeding programs and their direct impact on nutritional and educational outcomes on
children in Kenya, and globally. As a member of the fundraising team, I assist with writing proposals, due diligence documents, grants, and quarterly reports to effectively communicate Food for Education’s impact to both existing and potential donors. Since onboarding, I have had ample opportunity to travel to different counties across Kenya to witness the operation of the kitchens that the organization establishes.
These experiences provided me with firsthand insights into the life-changing impact school-feeding programs have on feeding Kenya’s future. Moreover, I have been able to significantly improve my writing skills, learning critical language to use when communicating with donors. Now, I lead monthly calls at the organization, helping enhance my leadership and public speaking skills, and am looking to expand the scope of my work to the communications department. I am eternally grateful for all the ways I have grown at the organization and I eagerly anticipate the future possibilities that await me at both at Food for Education & in the fundraising realm.