Alumni Update:

Following her fellowship, Meyris moved back to New York City to work at a policy advocacy organization that champions gender equality. Meyris is currently attending Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where she is pursuing an MPA in economic and political development with a focus on Africa.

Fellow Bio:

Meyris was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in New York City. She graduated from Brown University in 2016 with a degree in Political Science and Africana Studies. She further pursued her interest in African politics and histories by spending a semester studying International Politics and Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town. While at Brown, Meyris was a tutor through Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment, a student-led program that partners Brown tutors with students in refugee families living in Providence. She was also a member of Brown UNICEF and served as the club’s secretary for two years. Her passion for international development led her to intern at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she worked with the Africa Ebola Unit and the Office of Development Planning. She has also served as a healthcare intern at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, an investigative intern at the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights, and a production intern at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. While living in Tanzania, Meyris is excited to learn about disability and maternal health through her position at CCBRT, experience Tanzanian dances and music, learn Swahili, and maybe even climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Fellow Bio:

Michael Broache graduated from Princeton in 2006 and went on to complete a one-year master’s program in international relations at Cambridge. At Princeton, Michael majored in the Woodrow Wilson School and wrote his thesis on police reform in Afghanistan. His master’s thesis explores why developing countries provide troops to UN peacekeeping operations. At Princeton, Michael rowed lightweight crew, was a member of the Opinion Board for The Prince, and was the alumni relations chairman at Cloister. At Cambridge he spent most of his free time at the river, either rowing or coaching. Michael will be headed to Kibondo, Tanzania, in August to start his fellowship with the International Rescue Committee.

Meghan studied Global Health and Africana Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. Her journey in East Africa first began summer after freshman year when she took part in a peace development program in Kenya and interned at Ushirika, a community health clinic in Kibera Slum. She split her junior year between two countries—Tanzania and Costa Rica. In Tanzania, she studied intensive Swahili and worked as a maternal and neonatal health intern at the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital. She also adopted a kitten there and brought her back to the States! She spent her second semester in Costa Rica focusing on tropical medicine and carrying out research on zoonotic parasites. She was able to return to Tanzania that summer to collaboratively found a sports program focused on women’s empowerment and gender relations. At Holy Cross, Meghan spent a year researching social change in female genital cutting, a project which developed into her thesis. She is beyond excited to be back in Tanzania—besides working as hard as she can at BIPAI and making new friends, her goals are to learn to make her chapatti actually taste like it’s supposed to, improve her Swahili, and climb Kilimanjaro!

Alumni Update:

Meghan currently manages the US presence of Gardens for Health International. She is proud to be the only US employee for the organization which is fully locally-led and staffed in Rwanda.

Fellow Bio:

Meghan is from Boston, Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Social Studies with a focus field in Gender and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. While there, she wrote a senior thesis on the challenges of girls’ education in postsocialist Tanzania based on a case study of an American non-profit funded secondary school for vulnerable girls in Morogoro, Tanzania. She had also visited Tanzania the summer before when she spent two months running an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign in a rural village outside of Arusha. She has also explored girls’ education organizations in the U.S., having been a Corporate Intern at Girl Rising in New York, where she managed corporate outreach and partnerships. Outside of these interests, she was also the president of her college a cappella group, the Harvard LowKeys, and plans to continue singing in Tanzania. While working for IEFT in Monduli, Tanzania, she hopes to learn even more about interventions in secondary school education in Tanzania while also being able to improve her Swahili, eat as much chapati as possible, and psych herself up to climb Kilimanjaro.

Matt, a native of Colorado and Minnesota, (Princeton ’16) graduated from Princeton University with a degree from the Woodrow Wilson School in Public and Foreign Affairs. During the summers, Matt did a French immersion program in Chicoutimi, Quebec. He also interned for the US State Department in Paris, France and the US Global Leadership Coalition in Washington D.C. Following graduation, he worked at Deloitte Consulting. While there, Matt worked on several proposals aimed at bringing increased energy generation to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, among several other federal projects. In his free time, Matt enjoys hiking, snowboarding, and photography. Matt is excited to travel to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as the International Rescue Committee’s Supply Chain Operations Fellow.

Mackenzie, (Tulane ’18) graduated from Tulane University with a double major in Sociology and International Development and a minor in Spanish. She grew up in Los Angeles, CA. Although she loves New Orleans and Louisiana, her passion for travel and global development started at a young age with visits to her grandparents and family in the Philippines. She studied abroad in Argentina, where she backpacked around the country and lived with a host family. While there, she worked at a nonprofit where she tutored teens and completed research on teen pregnancy prevention. In addition, Mackenzie interned with the United Nations’ World Food Programme in Yangon, Myanmar, where she was responsible for communications, reporting, and liaising with donors for Maternal Child Nutrition initiatives. On Tulane’s campus, she has been a part of Sexual Aggression Peer Hotline and Education. She worked on a hotline for survivors, creating programming for students and advocating for cultural and legislative change around sexual violence. Mackenzie also served as a Public Health intern for the New Orleans Children’s Hospital, collaborating with the government on initiatives to combat infant mortality. She aims to work in the international development and global public health field, reducing disparities in maternal-child health and preventing sexual violence.  

Alumni Update:

Louise is currently living in Palo Alto, CA, working for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation as a Qualitative Research Analyst and working for Samsung as a User Experience Researcher. She recently completed her PhD in Anthropology and Education from Columbia University, Teachers College.

Fellow Bio:

Liza is a biology major from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At Columbia, she was president of GlobeMed partnering with a health and human rights NGO in Northern Uganda, a volunteer advocate for the Crime Victim’s Treatment Center supporting victims of acts of domestic or sexual violence, and leader for Columbia Outdoor Orientation Program taking freshman canoeing down the Delaware River before school begins. Liza loves laughing and the great outdoors more than anything. While in Mwanza, Tanzania next year, Liza looks forward to learning as many stories as possible to continue building her understanding of our global village.