Susan holds a Bachelor of Fine Art with a minor in Human Rights and Conflict Studies as well as a teaching certificate in Art Education from Birmingham-Southern College. During her undergraduate career, she discovered an interest in promoting cross-cultural empathy through creative storytelling. Susan explored her passion for cultural exchange by traveling to Avedo, Ghana, where she taught art and English at a rural primary school. She also spent a semester studying art in Florence, Italy. While in Birmingham, Susan participated in long-term service-learning initiatives. She partnered with NorthStar Youth Ministries, an outreach program where she taught weekly art classes and mentored elementary students. Susan also participated in service throughout her internship at Glide Foundation, an internationally recognized social services organization in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. While at Glide, she contributed to the Communications department’s efforts to share powerful stories of hope and healing and also assisted with creative arts programming for Glide youth. After graduating, Susan taught in an inclusive classroom for both children with special needs and typically-developing children. She is thrilled to begin this adventure and looks forward to learning from the Maru-a-Pula community, discovering the arts in Botswana, and exploring the country’s breathtaking landscape.

Shayla graduated from Princeton University in 2015, with a major in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures and certificates in Global Health and Health Policy and Latin American Studies. She is interested in sexual and reproductive health as well as public health. During her undergraduate years, she studied abroad in Havana, Cuba and conducted ethnographic thesis research on women’s childbirth experiences in São Paulo, Brazil. She served as a Peer Health Adviser and developed the curriculum for the Safer Sexpo program, a comprehensive safer sex educational program mandatory for first-year students. Outside of her work in health, Shayla facilitated multiple identity-based discussion groups that encouraged students to share their perspectives on issues such as race, gender, and sexuality. After graduating, Shayla worked with UMatter, Princeton University Health Services’ new health and wellbeing initiative focused on active bystander intervention among the campus community. Shayla is thrilled to work in Gaborone, Botswana with Young 1ove, and is looking forward to learning more about public and sexual health. She is very excited to explore all that Botswana and southern Africa has to offer.

Riley is from Roxbury, Connecticut, and graduated with a degree in Anthropology from Davidson College. She has a strong interest in international studies and has spent significant time studying abroad in Spain, Nepal, and Tanzania. Her studies focused on the Spanish language, the Tibetan education system in exile, and on conflict resolution and international development in Africa. While at Davidson she was a fellow in the Chidsey Leadership Development Program, a member of the Women’s Leadership Committee, and served as a tutor to first and second grade students at an after-school program. Over the summer she worked at the International Institute of Los Angeles in the Child Development Division to help provide free childcare to immigrants, refugees, and families of low socioeconomic status. Riley is looking forward to exploring the Botswana culture through the local community and learning from the students.

Alumni Update:

Phoebe is continuing to work with One Acre Fund, but has recently moved back to the US after 6 years living in East and Southern Africa. Her new role will be supporting One Acre Fund’s smaller countries of operation on program strategy. She also recently got married to a man she met during her fellowship year!

Fellow Bio:

Phoebe is from Nashville, Tennessee and graduated with a degree in English and American Literature with a minor in global health. At Middlebury, Phoebe held leadership positions in GlobeMed at Middlebury, a non-profit that partners colleges and grassroots organizations, and in the student initiative Friends of John Graham Homeless Shelter. An avid traveler, she spent a summer interning at Africa 2000 Network in Uganda, a semester studying abroad at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and a summer interning at Partners In Health in Boston. In her free time, Phoebe loves rock climbing, reading, and running. While in Botswana next year, Phoebe looks forward to learning to teach, picking up some Setswana and adventuring through Southern Africa.

Alumni Update:

Nicholas is based in Durham, NC while completing a Master’s in Biomedical Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. Nicholas applied to the 2020 medical school application cycle, and ultimately hopes to focus on sexual health amongst LGBTQ* adolescents.

Fellow Bio:

Nicholas, a native of North Carolina, ( UNC ’17) graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in American Studies and minor in Social and Economic Justice. While at Carolina, he co-founded UNC’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to challenge stigma surrounding mental illness. He worked with University administration to enhance mental health-related policies and procedures affecting students, faculty, and staff. He has also worked with the Infectious Disease Clinic at UNC Hospitals to craft a nutritional program for the clinic’s HIV patients, with a focus on the intersection of nutrition, race, and class. Nicholas is an alumnus of Columbia University’s Summer Public Health Scholars Program (SPHSP). While studying at the Mailman School of Public Health, he served as an HIV/AIDS Prevention and Outreach Intern with CAMBA where he facilitated focus-group sessions comprised of parents of LGBTQ* youth to communicate the relationship between familial acceptance and positive health outcomes in queer adolescents. For fun, Nicholas enjoys spending time with friends, watching sports (go Heels!), staying active, and binge-watching Rupaul’s Drag Race. He’s honored to join BIPAI Botswana and explore Gaborone and beyond!

Although Nada was born in Atbara, Sudan and spent a part of her childhood in Saudi Arabia, Nada calls Saint Louis, Missouri home. At Princeton she was a member of the Department of Chemistry’s Class of 2014 and spent most of her time as an upperclassman conducting solid-state research aimed at synthesizing and studying thermoelectrics materials suitable for alternative cooling device applications. Outside of the lab, she was involved with Princeton’s chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign; the Triangle Club, a touring original musical comedy troupe; as well as Community Action, a freshman pre-orientation program. An enthusiast of foreign languages and a firm believer in their utility as mediums for cultural transmission, she has dedicated a significant portion of her coursework to studying Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Arabic and hopes that her time in Botswana will allow her to add Setswana to the list. In the future, Nada plans to use what she has learned from her studies, both scientific and cultural, to inform her actions as a global citizen and a physician. Until then, she is excited beyond words both to join Maru-a-Pula as the new Junior Math Fellow and to adventure across Africa.

Alumni Update:

Mike is now in his third year of residency in the Family and Community Medicine department at University of California San Francisco. He is working on research projects both related to social and health systems barriers to health care in Tanzania as well as impacts of homelessness on health in the US.

Fellow Bio:

Mike is a biology major with minors in anthropology and chemistry. Mike is originally from Minneapolis, MN and at Macalester he was a wide receiver on the football team, president of the Health Professions Student Coalition and a chemistry tutor. Through Macalester, Mike participated in summer research programs on campus and at the University of Minnesota and studied abroad in Gaborone, Botswana. In his free time, Mike volunteers at Regions Hospital and plays the saxophone. Next year in Botswana Mike looks forward to practicing the Setswana that he learned during study abroad, meeting new people and enjoying local food.

Alumni Update:

Mgbechi is currently a 3rd year medical student at the University of Iowa’s Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. Since her fellowship year, she has been working hard to finish medical school in hopes that she might return to the continent very soon! Mgbechi’s first published short story titled “Rabid Morula Seed” was conceived during her time in Botswana and is one of the stories that gained her an acceptance to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop for an MFA in fiction in the fall of 2014.

Fellow Bio:

Mgbechi completed her senior year in 2010 at Princeton University as a pre-medical student and Anthropology major with certificates in Creative Writing and African Studies. She is the eldest daughter of Nigerian parents and lives in Millstone, NJ.  Mgbechi is also the former president of Akwaaba, the Princeton African Student Association and received the Ward Prize for an internship with the New Yorker Magazine’s Function Department. While in Botswana next year, Mgbechi looks forward to finally connecting her dreams for Africa and global health with on-the-ground experience, and to forming new friendships with wonderful people (kids and grown-ups!).