Esther graduated from Duke University with a degree in Political Science. She has a diverse background working internationally and domestically and is driven to develop sustainable avenues of assistance that foster thriving local economies. Most recently, she worked for the City of Cleveland’s Department of Economic Development where she worked to stimulate the attraction of private investment and support entrepreneurship and small business development. Her portfolio invested over $20M, leveraged over eight times of private investment, and caused the creation of ~1500 jobs in the local economy. She also has significant field experience, having conducted qualitative research with displaced populations in eastern Nepal and Cairo, Egypt, worked in Amman, Jordan on conflict prevention, and conducted outreach with immigrants at the Legal Aid Society in the boroughs of New York. Esther sees the potential for social enterprise development and impact capital to deliver financial inclusion and economic development globally and looks forward to joining Global Partnerships in Nairobi, Kenya as a Social Investment Associate to invest in and scale sustainable, impactful enterprises.

Emma graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in May 2018 from Barnard College with a B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Emma’s interest in community activism began in high school when she was inspired to do something about littering in the empty lot next to the site of her fellowship at the Children’s Aid Society. She founded Project Flower Street, an environmental education and visual arts initiative designed to build self-esteem and foster neighborhood pride in children. By her sophomore year of college, Emma worked with over 500 children to create seven public outdoor art installations, made entirely of recycled materials. In college, Emma developed the initiative to focus on teaching hygiene through the visual arts. She implemented workshops in New York and Nicaragua using microscopes, growing bacteria, and fostering cross cultural communication between children from both countries. Some of the grants that have supported Emma’s initiatives include: ABC Summer of Service Awards, Davis Projects for Peace, Laura Bush Traveling Fellowship, and Tamer Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Emma is on the premed track and is thrilled to combine her interest in public health with environmental sustainability through her work with Princeton in Africa as a Fellow at The Kasiisi Project in Uganda.

Emily graduated from Kansas State University in May 2017 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Elementary Education, a secondary major in International Studies, and minors in Spanish and Nonprofit Leadership Studies. In the summer of 2013 Emily taught English for a rural migrant community in Puebla, Mexico then headed to Valparaíso, Chile in spring 2014 to teach English in an urban public school. In the summer of 2016, Emily returned to Latin America to teach English at a local cultural center in Cuenca, Ecuador.  In between trips, Emily enjoyed working as a Program Leader and Intern for the Boys and Girls Club of Manhattan and as a teaching assistant for first semester college freshmen in the course Introduction to Leadership Concepts. Emily spent her final semester at K-State student teaching in a local kindergarten classroom and also finished her fifth year playing bass drum in the Kansas State University Marching Band. Moving forward, Emily is excited to teach at Maru-a-Pula and learn about the Botswanan education system. She hopes to use the skills she has gained throughout her collegiate experiences to challenge her students to think critically and creatively about the world around them.

Emma graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in Global Health. During her senior year, she lived in Tanzania for four months interning for the National Institute of Medical Research. While there, she conducted research on hospital-acquired neonatal sepsis by observing WASH practices of health workers and collecting microbial samples. She previously interned at The World Bank, assisting on the implementation of health system development projects in fragile countries. As she is passionate about the environment, she interned for a community organization in New York focused on carbon emissions reduction, solid waste management, and sustainability. While in Washington, DC, she worked on confronting the city’s HIV/AIDS epidemic by interning with a mobile HIV testing organization and volunteering in middle schools to educate students about prevention. Emma then led the recruitment process at Georgetown Global Consulting, an organization that provides consulting to NGO’s in developing countries. There she also directed a project in Guatemala, communicating and collaborating with the Spanish-speaking client via a translator. She twice advocated on Capitol Hill for increased funding for the USAID Neglected Tropical Disease program with the END7 campaign to eradicate NTDs. 

Alumni Update:

Ela is currently the Communications Manager for Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter, an international unit focused on housing market systems development in more than 40 countries.

Fellow Bio:

Ela, a native of Canada, graduated from Davidson College with an honors degree in History focusing on colonial Africa and the diaspora. While at Davidson, Ela studied abroad in Dakar, Senegal and completed independent research at the British Library as a Kemp Scholar and Kelley Scholar, which culminated in an 80-page honors thesis on the British East India Company’s dependence on African slavery. After graduating, Ela worked for Habitat for Humanity International in Washington DC, supporting their global programs in WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene), land tenure, gender, and urban development. As a fellow, she helped organize regional conferences on land tenure in South Africa and the Philippines and represented Habitat at the ninth World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Prior to working for Habitat, Ela served on the international Board of Directors of WE Charity, traveling as a speaker. She also shared the stage with Al Gore, on various occasions, addressing top media executives, including CEOs from Fox, Time Warner, and Universal McCann. Ela is also a proud alumni of Pearson College UWC in British Columbia, Canada.

Elijah graduated from the University of Georgia with majors in international affairs and economics. He spent six months in Kenya working with the African Prisons Project, where he taught law courses and served as a paralegal to death row inmates in three maximum-security prisons around the country. He was an investigative intern at the Georgetown University Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic, where he worked with attorneys to create defense theories for indigent and mentally ill clients. Scott also conducted client intake and legal research at the Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights to investigate claims of education discrimination. In addition to his experience in the legal field, Scott has extensive experience mentoring and educating youth, as he spent over a year facilitating weekly restorative justice trials and leading courtroom etiquette and public speaking trainings for middle- and high-school students with Athens Peer Court. He has researched the intersection of minority rights and conflict in northeastern Kenya and the Xinjiang region of China through the Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai Conflict Studies Center in Cluj, Romania. Scott has studied abroad at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics, and he has conducted independent research on the future of the regulatory structure of Antarctic Treaty in Ushuaia, Argentina and West Antarctica. Finally, Scott was the Operations Director of the Georgia Political Review for one year, during which he managed an eleven-person Editorial Board and thirty-person Writing Staff and planned and organized lectures and debates. He is looking forward to exploring his host country!

Eli graduated from Temple University with a degree in Media Studies and Production. He is a video producer and editor from Philadelphia. As an undergraduate, he produced his first documentary while studying in South Africa and interned at NBC10 Philadelphia where he won a Mid Atlantic Emmy for editing videos for Generation Addicted, a web series about the heroin epidemic. After graduating, he traveled to Cuba to work on a web series about the Havana hip hop scene and spent six months living in Nicaragua collaborating with indigenous communities producing videos to preserve the endangered languages of the Caribbean region, for which he won a national College Emmy. He also facilitated the first group of study abroad students to visit the indigenous community to participate in language preservation efforts. Eli wants to find new ways to use media as a tool to facilitate inter-cultural education and dialogue. In his free time, he loves producing music and music videos. He speaks Spanish and some Portuguese. While in Kigali, as a Visual Communication Fellow producing videos, written, and social media content with Gardens for Health International, he is excited to try his hand at Kinyarwanda and French.

Alumni Update:

Deborah is currently the Head of Data & Analytics at FirstWave Group in Lusaka, Zambia, where she is responsible for building a highly analytical team working to create visibility into the operational data of three group companies, most notably Yalelo Zambia. 

Fellow Bio:

Deborah, a native of Florida, graduated from American University with an MA in International Economic Relations. In high school, she spent a summer in Zambia, which led her to pursue a BA in International Studies and minor in Economics at AU. Following her freshman year, Deborah interned with ZAYEDESA in Zanzibar, Tanzania. In this role, she broadened the organization’s online presence and deepened her interest in East Africa and Swahili studies. She was granted a Boren Scholarship to learn Swahili from 2015-2016, for which she spent the fall immersed in language courses in Arusha, Tanzania and spring interning with Yawezekana SACCO in Nairobi, Kenya. In this role, she interviewed SACCO members in Swahili, recorded their stories, and identified common challenges. While in graduate school, she was a consultant with Creative Associates International and a Program Assistant in the Africa Program at the Wilson Center. Deborah is a proud AmeriCorps alumna and served as AU’s Undergraduate Commencement Speaker in 2017. As a Strategic Analyst with Spark MicroGrants in Musanze, Rwanda, Deborah is excited to learn from communities driving their own economic development and work on data projects that support Spark’s community-driven work.

Dalia graduated from the University of Bristol, where she earned an MSc in Development and Security with the support of the Fulbright program. As a Fulbright scholar she lived in Bristol, England and worked with Bristol based non-profit organizations. In addition to her studies, Dalia conducted field research on refugee securitization and identity at the Skaramagas camp in Athens, Greece. Her work in migration and humanitarian emergencies began early in her undergraduate career during her exchange in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she worked with refugee youth and asylum seekers. She graduated from the University of South Florida with a BA in International Studies and a BA in Anthropology, completing her degrees in three years. Dalia was awarded her university’s prestigious Golden Bull award in recognition of her work with refugees in Denmark, leadership with Initiatives of Change in Switzerland, ISIS research at the Carter Center, and international religious freedom advocacy in the Department of State. Dalia is incredibly passionate about grassroots programs and continues to develop her skills with plans of starting one herself. She is a dual Egyptian and American citizen with a serious case of wanderlust, a major chocolate addiction, and a love for dancing, swimming, and reading.

Daniel graduated from Whitman College in 2018 with a degree in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology and a minor in Politics. Daniel became passionate about the intersection of science, public health policy, and international development while conducting molecular HIV/AIDS research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. The summer after graduation, Daniel was a Davis Projects for Peace Fellow in Arusha, Tanzania, where he organized a series of outreach soccer camps that promoted HIV education and female empowerment. Daniel also studied international relations in Freiburg, Germany with the IES European Union program. While overseas, Daniel served on the student council and had the opportunity to work with populations ranging from immigration centre inhabitants in Athens to persecuted Roma minorities in Bucharest. At Whitman, Daniel was the business manager and sports editor of the Whitman Wire newspaper, played on the varsity men’s soccer team, and sat on the board of trustees of the Whitman Investment Company. In his spare time, he volunteered at the SOS Health Clinic, which provides free health services to uninsured individuals. Daniel is a Paul Garrett Scholar and received the President’s Environmental Youth Award after travelling by train from Washington state to Washington D.C. to lobby for revisions in climate change policy. Originally from Port Townsend, Washington, he loves skiing, mountain climbing, basketball, and playing the guitar. Daniel is excited to spend a year working with BIPAI Swaziland and hopes to increase health care access for individuals living in Mbabane.