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 Mickey Leland
International
Hunger Fellows Program
Class of 2007-2009
EMILY BANCROFT
Field Placement: Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS (AGHA), Kampala, Uganda
As a fellow with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and their Ugandan-based partner, the Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS (AGHA), Emily Bancroft divided her time between supporting AGHA’s health rights advocacy campaigns, connecting AGHA and PHR’s work in Uganda to broader international campaigns and movements, and building AGHA’s capacity through organizational development, fundraising, and office administrative duties. Emily led AGHA’s new Human Resources for Health campaign and their work with Students for Equity in Healthcare, a student-led advocacy group. She was also responsible for finding ways to enhance PHR’s US campaigns by bringing the expertise of AGHA members and stories from the field to inform US policy making.
Policy Placement: Physicians for Human Rights, Boston, MA
As a fellow with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Emily Bancroft manages PHR’s relationships with their advocacy partners in Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda. In this role, Emily brings stories and data from the field that will inform PHR’s Health Action AIDS Campaign and helps to mobilize health professionals to advocate for a comprehensive response to the global HIV epidemic. During her policy year, Emily will organize advocacy exchanges between US and East African health professionals and continue to support the efforts of PHR’s partners in Uganda and Kenya, including organizing an East African health professional student conference focused on health and human rights. Emily will also work to develop new advocacy partnerships in East Africa, including working with the Rwanda Medical Association to build their capacity to engage their members in health and human rights advocacy efforts. In collaboration with the Health Action AIDS team, Emily will also help to develop the advocacy strategies for the next phase of the campaign.
Education/Experience: Emily Bancroft has an MPH from the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Before the fellowship she worked as a Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist for the International Training and Education Center for HIV, an organization based at the University of Washington. As a graduate student, Emily completed her degree project work with the Uganda Health Workforce Retention Study, a joint project between the Uganda Ministry of Health and the Capacity Project to document job satisfaction, working conditions, and intent to leave among health workers across Uganda.
Prior to getting her master degree, Emily was a program manager for a number of public sector organizations including NPower, a national organization that provides technology assistance to nonprofits and the City of Seattle, and a support and education organization for people living with hepatitis C. Emily has a BA in Religion from Princeton University. She is originally from Cumberland, ME but has resided for some years and considers home Seattle, Washington.
RACHEL (RACEY) BINGHAM
Field Placement: Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Bamako, Mali
Racey Bingham’s work during the field year involved both policy and practice. She assisted with the development of technical terms of reference, MoUs with various ministries, basic infrastructure design, tracking of procurements, design of an applied agriculture grants program and administration of a collaborative website. On field missions, she undertook research on various technical issues (input provision, access to credit, farmer organization development) and facilitated communication between various stakeholders (elected officials, project beneficiaries, local radios, and contractors).
Policy Placement: Millennium Challenge Corporation, Washington, D.C. and Bamako, Mali
For her policy year, Racey has stayed with MCC-Mali's resident country mission, and divides her time between Bamako and the project's field site in central Mali. Her work is focused on supporting MCC's technical oversight of the Alatona Irrigation project in the areas of agricultural training, research grants, involuntary resettlement and community infrastructure. As implementation of the irrigation project continues she will support the implementing entity's technical team in contract management and in quality control of consultant services. Towards the end of the policy year, Racey will move back to MCC headquarters in Washington to compile lessons learned from her experience in MCC Compact Implementation. These experiences will be shared with MCC staff, Congress and MCC Partners in Washington.
Education/Experience: A native of Boston, MA, Rachel graduated in the spring of 2007 with a dual masters degree in International Environmental Policy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Nutrition from The Friedman School of Nutrition and Policy at Tufts University. Her focus at Tufts was water resource development and management for multiple uses in rural communities, and she received a certificate from the Water: Systems, Science and Society Program. She completed her undergraduate studies in the School of International Studies at American University. After college Rachel joined the Peace Corps in The Islamic Republic of Mauritania and spent three years coordinating and implementing capacity building agricultural and environmental projects in peri-urban and rural communities. Since leaving Peace Corps in 2003 she traveled back to West Africa every year for research and work with various organizations including Tufts University, Columbia University, Peace Corps, Winrock International and the Department of Defense’s Humanitarian Assistance Program.
KURT BURJA
Field Placement: World Food Programme, Kampong Cham, Cambodia
Kurt Burja was placed with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Cambodia. WFP works in partnership with government and non-governmental organizations to enhance the resilience and coping capacity of vulnerable households and communities through targeted food assistance. Based in the Kampong Cham Sub-Office, Kurt managed and monitored the implementation of WFP’s food assistance interventions in eight provinces in eastern Cambodia. Kurt liaised with cooperating partners at the community level to improve the quality and effectiveness of WFP food assistance programmes and strengthened monitoring and evaluation systems. Programmes included food-for-work, food-for-education, maternal and child health, the national tuberculosis control program and home-based care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS and orphans and other vulnerable children.
Policy Placement: World Food Programme, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Kurt Burja is placed with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Based in the Country Office as a Programme Officer in the Health and Nutrition Unit, Kurt provides programme support to three WFP food assistance interventions: maternal and child health, the national tuberculosis control programme and home-based care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS and orphans and other vulnerable children. Key focus areas include partnerships with government and non-governmental partners, joint programming with fellow UN organizations, beneficiary targeting, project output and outcomes, and advocacy. In addition, Kurt provides technical assistance to the Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (MER) and Vulnerability and Analysis Mapping (VAM) Units on training, assessments and surveys.
Education/Experience: Kurt is originally from Gainesville, Florida. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Education degree from the University of Florida and completed a Master of Public Health degree at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. His prior professional experience includes working in Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer, working as a consultant for Family Health International on HIV/AIDS education, serving as a public health intern with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Thailand, working at the Bureau of Tuberculosis Control at New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and working as a research assistant at the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning. Prior to becoming involved with public health and international development, Kurt taught English as a Second Language at the University of Florida and worked on drop-out prevention and college outreach programs with at-risk high school students in Gainesville.
FRANCISCO DEL POZO
Field Placement: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Santiago, Chile and Peru
Policy Placement: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Rome, Italy
First placed in Rome, Italy, for his policy placement, Francisco worked with the Knowledge Exchange and Capacity Building Division of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Currently he is working with FAO in the field, enabling the exchange of information generated by the e-agriculture.org platform, a global initiative to enhance sustainable agricultural development and food security. He is enabling members to exchange opinions, experiences, good practices and resources related to e-agriculture. The platform also ensures that the knowledge created is effectively shared and used; to do that he is doing field work to foster the e-agriculture initiative in the Latin America Region. Since last May he has been working at the FAO’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago de Chile developing research about the use of Information and Communication Technologies for agricultural development. Currently he is collecting field data directly from projects that are working in the inner rural towns in Peru (coastal, mountainous and jungle regions). He will be systematizing these experiences in Peru until December of 2008.
Afterwards, he will return once again to Rome to present the findings of the research in the Knowledge Sharing Fair for Agricultural Development and Food Security 2009 (http://www.sharefair.net/fileadmin/templates/sharefair/PDF/Brochure.pdf).
Education/Experience: Francisco A. Del Pozo graduated with a Masters of Science in Agribusiness Economics from Kansas State University. Prior to the fellowship, he worked for the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Before joining ERS, Francisco interned in the Deputy Administration of Commodity Operations of the USDA. Francisco has a B.S. degree in Forest Engineering and worked on forestry management and soil conservation projects in the Peruvian Amazon forest region of South America. These job experiences led him to be selected by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for a training program in Sustainable Forest Management in Japan. After gaining his specialization, Francisco pursued a graduate studies in Agribusiness Economics, bridging the gap between economic development, food security and environment.
IRA FRYDMAN
Field Placement: United Nations Development Programme, Lilongwe, Malawi
Ira Frydman worked with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Malawi to integrate disaster risk reduction into contingency planning, food security and environmental areas with a focus on floods and droughts. With the threat of floods in Malawi a high concern during this past rainy season, Ira was initially working on an initiative connected with the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) to help build capacity and conduct reviews of the current contingency plans for threatened districts. The great majority of his work was organizing and helping to facilitate these reviews of district level contingency plans in four of the most flood prone districts. Ira also took an active role in helping to create a UN inter-agency flood contingency plan in order to better prepare the UN system to act in the event of a flood. He then shifted towards looking at more direct food security related issues, specifically how hazards such as floods and droughts affect food security in Malawi.
Policy Placement: United Nations Development Programme -Dryland Development Center, Nairobi, Kenya
Currently in Nairobi at the UNDP regional office for his policy year, Ira’s primary responsibility is to manage The African Drought Risk and Development Network (ADDN). The ADDN, which is sponsored by UNDP’s Dryland Development Centre and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), was established as a multi-disciplinary platform to address the relationship between drought, risk and development in Africa. One of the core activities of ADDN is to sponsor The African Drought Adaptation Forum, which took place in early fall in Addis Ababa. Ira contributed to a primer to climate change adaptation which was presented at the conference, which brought together some 80 policy makers, government officials, UN agencies, donors, practitioners, the media, and applied researchers from around Africa and the Arab states.
Education/Experience: Prior to the fellowship, Ira lived in the Central Valley of California working with a non-profit, Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), as a Biological Farming Program Coordinator. At CAFF Ira primarily focused on project whose aim was to work with almond growers to decrease pesticide and sedimentation runoff through the implementation of best management practices. He has an M.S. in International Agricultural Development with a concentration in sustainable agriculture from the University of California, Davis. While at UC Davis, Ira began his formal studies in agriculture working on biological-agricultural engineering of food waste for the production of usable energy. His interest in agriculture development began while working with subsistence farmers in Haiti as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He is originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
ERIC HAGLUND
Field Placement: Bioversity International/ICRISAT, Niamey, Niger
Eric spent his first year conducting field research on the social and economic impacts of three different agroforestry systems under development and promotion in Niger. The systems aim to increase the agricultural productivity of rural farmers by improving local soil conditions, making better use of scarce and erratic rainfall, increasing local biodiversity, and maximizing the benefits to farmers who adopt the systems. Eric's research entailed assessing the extent to which farmers who have adopted these new agroforestry systems are deriving their intended benefits as well as estimating the profitability of more recently developed systems.
Policy Placement: Bioversity International/ICRISAT, Niamey, Niger
During the second year of the fellowship, Eric remains in Niger to finalize and disseminate the results of the research conducted during the first year. He is participating in a range of activities aimed at communicating his research results to policy makers, development practitioners, and other researchers.
Education/Experience: Eric was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. After a year abroad in Sweden, he graduated from Bates College in Maine in 2000 with a degree in English. He worked in business for a year before leaving the U.S. to serve for three years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Ivory Coast and Madagascar. In the Ivory Coast, Eric worked on a rural water and sanitation community development project. In Madagascar, he was an environment/agroforestry volunteer, working with the national parks service and rural farmers to teach and promote low-tech agroforestry techniques. His experiences as a volunteer sparked an interest in the broader issues of global poverty and international development and as a result, Eric enrolled in a Master of Public Policy program at Duke.
ANNE-CLAIRE HERVY
Field Placement: Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, Washington, D.C.
Anne-Claire Hervy worked with the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, a research and advocacy membership organization founded in 2000 to build consensus and mobilize support for strategic, long-term public and private investments in African agricultural and rural development. Anne-Claire's time at the Partnership was divided between assisting the Partnership in improving its communications and outreach activities and supporting a new initiative to strengthen the capacity of higher education institutions in Africa. The initiative, which began in July 2007, is a joint effort of multiple organizations led by the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC). The goal of the Initiative is to strengthen and support capacity building partnerships between African and U.S. higher education institutions in fields related to national and regional development with a focus on science and technology.
Policy Placement: Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, Washington, D.C.
Anne-Claire continues her works with the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa. Midway through her field year Anne-Claire was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative. As Chief Operating Officer, Anne-Claire manages the daily operations of the Initiative and oversees the development of the Initiative's long-term strategy, including travel to meet key African education leaders.
Education/Experience: Anne-Claire Hervy holds an MA in International History from the London School of Economics and an MA, ABD in International Relations from American University's School of International Service. During her studies at American University, Anne-Claire worked on a project to examine development partnerships, focusing on the relationship between international and developing country NGOs and obstacles to local ownership of relief and development processes. This project entailed organizing and leading a research trip for American University students and faculty to Sri Lanka in March 2006 to examine these issues as they have played out in the reconstruction effort following the Indian Ocean tsunami. For the three years prior to her Leland Fellowship, Anne-Claire also worked in communications and program evaluation for Manna Inc., a D.C.-based affordable housing organization. Originally from France, Anne-Claire grew up in Baltimore, MD.
CARMEN JAQUEZ
Field Placement: Land O’Lakes International, Nairobi, Kenya
Placed within Land O'Lakes, Carmen conducted assessments of activities taking place within pastoralist regions of Africa. This ultimately expanded to incorporate livestock-based interventions (including cattle, goat, sheep, poultry) in dryland systems. This information is being used to provide recommendations for Land O'Lakes to expand their core capacities within these technical areas. To facilitate this training and share information with other organizations, Carmen Jaquez created an intra-organization training manual and on-line training program which provides guidance for field-managers on incorporating and utilizing livestock-based interventions under different conditions (emergency response, chronic food insecurity, etc.). Carmen was able to apply the information she gained by participating and leading Livelihood and Food Security Assessments in several African countries and provided program design recommendations to her host and partner organizations.
Policy Placement: Land O’Lakes International, Washington DC
During the policy placement, Carmen will co-lead the Land O'Lakes Livestock Practice Expansion team. She will be taking the information gained during her field placement to develop a Practice Expansion Strategy for her host organization. To support this she will develop a series of case studies of Land O'Lakes projects from around the world, including capacity statements to be used as internal and external information sharing tools, and provide recommendations for standard monitoring and evaluation tools that can be applied to Land O'Lakes programs worldwide.
Ultimately, this information will be used to educate donors and policy makers and create linkages between practitioners, policy makers and donors. When necessary, Carmen will lead field-based livelihood assessments for future programming. Outside of Land O'Lakes, Carmen will collaborate with stakeholders working on pastoralist issues specifically partners of the Global Livestock Collaborative Research Support Programs (GL-CRSP) and with the Global Livestock Working Group.
Education/Experience: Carmen Jaquez is originally from the Missouri Ozarks of Zanoni, MO. She gained a BS in Fisheries & Wildlife Management from the University of Missouri. After graduating from college, Carmen served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda. She worked with communities adjacent to Queen Elizabeth National Park on resource conservation and wildlife-human conflict issues. After Peace Corps, Carmen remained in Uganda completing several contracts with USAID and serving as the administrator for an NGO working on economic development and natural resource conservation issues in northern Uganda. After a total of 4 years in Uganda, Carmen returned to the US to earn a Master’s degree at the University of Vermont, where she also served as Peace Corps recruiter. In Vermont, she studied Community Development & Applied Economics as well as Ecological Economics.
ALEXIS JONES
Field Placement: Association for Rural Advancement, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Alexis Jones worked with the Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA), a local NGO in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, which works to improve land access and tenure security to strengthen the livelihoods of the rural poor. At AFRA, her main objectives were to support research and improve internal capacity building. Alexis organized a steering group to coordinate research at AFRA, which developed a strategic framework to guide future research and provide support for research projects in progress. Furthermore, Alexis played a supporting role in proposal-writing and fund-raising, monitoring and evaluation, and the development of a gender policy at AFRA, as well as assisted another South African land NGO to mobilize a regional network of civil society organizations working on land issues.
Policy Placement: International Land Coalition, Rome, Italy
At the International Land Coalition, Alexis coordinates preparations for the 2009 Assembly of Members in Nepal, including fund-raising for the event. Her policy-relevant responsibilities include supporting the creation of a strategy to guide ILC's global thematic and policy work, and assisting in developing ILC positions and submissions to international forums. She supports ILC's regional work in Asia, ensuring effective communication between the Rome Secretariat and the regional platform. With ILC's monitoring and evaluation officer, she is developing tools with which to implement a new M&E Framework.
Education/Experience: Alexis Jones graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in English in 2000. She then began service as an agriculture volunteer in the Peace Corps. After Peace Corps, she worked as an outreach paralegal and advocate for Florida Rural Legal Services’ migrant farm-worker program. Immediately prior to the fellowship she earned an M.S. in International Agricultural Development at the University of California, Davis, with a human ecology specialization. Her master's thesis dealt with the vulnerability of households in rural Chiapas, Mexico to intense rainfall. Recently, she has been the recipient of the UC Davis Graduate Scholars Fellowship, the Jastro-Shields graduate research Fellowship, and an Association for International Agricultural and Rural Development (AIARD) Future Leaders award.
MEAGAN KEEFE
Field Placement: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), San Jose, Costa Rica
As a fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute's (IFPRI) Latin American regional office, Meagan worked on a project looking at how to improve the livelihoods of poor households in rural areas by improving the provision of services that are essential for agricultural and rural development. The research project was carried out by IFPRI and local collaborators around the world with case studies in Uganda, India, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Guatemala. Meagan worked with Guatemala-based partner Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) to conduct the quantitative analysis of rural service provision using household survey data, organized regional workshops for local stakeholders in Guatemala, and selected sites for case studies that were then carried out by doctoral students collaborating on the project.
Policy Placement: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, D.C.
Meagan Keefe is working in the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). She is currently involved in a research project looking at food price transmission and assessing the impacts of increased global food prices on the poor in twelve Latin American countries. In addition, she is working on a project that seeks to increase agricultural productivity, incomes, and sustainable management of land and water by small farmers in the rural Sierra region of Peru. A team from IFPRI working with collaborators from Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE) in Peru and Wageningen University (WUR), is investigating the factors affecting the adoption of sustainable land and water management technologies and their impacts in the Jequetepeque watershed of northern Peru.
Education/Experience: Meagan Keefe has a Master’s Degree in Natural Resources Science and Management from the University of Minnesota. She focused on forestry, sustainable agriculture, and the use of markets to achieve conservation goals while improving livelihoods. As part of her master’s thesis, she worked with the Rainforest Alliance in the Peten, Guatemala and Pronatura in Chiapas, Mexico to help coordinate the export of palm fronds as well as the management of the local organizations harvesting the palms. Prior to graduate school, she served as a natural resources Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras, where she worked with communities surrounding a national park in order to promote environmental education and improve resource management. She completed her bachelor’s degree from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota and is originally from Chicago, Illinois.
ALDER KELEMAN
Field Placement: International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico City, Mexico
In her field-placement year, Alder Keleman worked in the Impacts, Targeting, and Assessment Unit of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Broadly, her job was to research the relationship(s) between maize biodiversity, agricultural policy, and markets in Mexico. These topics include a strong poverty and livelihoods focus, given that maize diversity in Mexico is maintained primarily by poor, small-scale farmers. There were two field sites for this work: Chiapas, where research dealt with the conditions created for small-scale maize farming by agricultural and rural development policy; and the State of Mexico, where the goal was to explore the extent to which maize landraces are accepted in local value chains. Outputs of her field placement include up to six peer-reviewed articles. Two of these have already been accepted for publication, another two are currently in peer review; and two in preparation to be submitted to a journal. Alder also produced a 100-page report on maize value chains in the State of Mexico to help guide CIMMYT maize breeding for the region.
Policy Placement: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Rome, Italy
Alder's work in her policy-year placement at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy continues to address crop diversity and markets. In addition to finishing writing projects from her placement at CIMMYT, she is assisting in editing a book reporting a 5-country study on crop-diversity and markets, and is helping to organize a conference on the potential for local seed markets to contribute to agricultural development in Africa.
Education/Experience: Alder Keleman was previously a Fox International Fellow at the Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City where she studied the relationship between NAFTA and native maize genetic diversity. She has a joint Master's degree in Environmental Science (MESc) and International Relations (MA; Certificate in Development Studies) at Yale University in 2006. Her area of concentration was "Biodiversity, Food Security, & Development in Latin America." Ms. Keleman has traveled extensively in Latin America, Europe, and Australia, and speaks Portuguese, Spanish, and some French. She is originally from the apple-growing region of Washington State.
MEAGHAN MURPHY
Field Placement: Mercy Corps, Ulaambaatar, Mongolia
Meaghan Murphy spent her field year with Mercy Corps Mongolia (MCM), which supports rural communities in mobilizing resources to meet their economic and social needs. MCM’s emphasis is on supporting the creation of income generation and value added opportunities for the rural herder, non-herder, and urban populations through integrated local economic development. Meaghan developed a case study of the Gobi Initiative, a ten year economic development initiative and coordinated an assessment of the Seabuckthorn berries’ value chain to identify production and market potential to inform initial pilot activities as well as future phases of a project in the western region of Mongolia.
Policy Placement: Mercy Corps, Washington, D.C.
In her policy placement she works within the Food Security Technical unit, providing technical support to various Mercy Corps programs that address issues of food access, availability and utilization. Meaghan has also been assisting Mercy Corps in developing strategic hunger policy positions for the agency as the organization responds to growing programming demands and also the roll out of Mercy Corps' Action Center to End World Hunger in New York City earlier this fall.
Education/Experience: Meaghan Murphy completed her Masters degree (May 2007) at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. While at Tufts, she concentrated on international food policy and further developed skills in applied research, program monitoring and evaluation, and supply chain analysis. She also collaborated on a midterm evaluation of John Snow Inc.’s child survival program in Ethiopia and co-authored a case study for the World Bank, which explored multi-sectoral nutrition planning in Malawi. Prior to her graduate studies, Meaghan was involved in community and agricultural development at the Center for Rural Studies in Vermont as a farmers’ market manager and research assistant in a multiyear farmers’ market technical assistance project. During the same period, she also worked through the Farmer-to-Farmer Program of Partners of the Americas, helping organize a direct sales coffee project between Honduras and Vermont. Meaghan grew up in Brunswick, Maine.
ADAM NORIKANE
Field Placement: Christian Children’s Fund, Lusaka, Zambia
Adam Norikane worked with CCF Zambia on the implementation of an Australian funded Youth Agriculture & Marketing Project (YAMP). His job entailed assisting staff in project management of a sustainable agricultural livelihoods program targeting 1,000 Zambian youth. Adam contributed through facilitation and organization of trainings on agroforestry, youth group organization, contract negotiation, and agri-business. Adam worked with CCF staff, government officials, and local experts to develop a five-year Food Security Strategy paper which will direct CCF Zambia's future programming in the food security sector. In addition, CCF International asked Adam to draft a case study on CCF Zambia's food security program for inclusion in CCF International's Food Security Policy Guidelines.
Policy Placement: ACDI/VOCA, Washington D.C.
Adam Norikane has shifted his policy placement to ACDI/VOCA here in Washington, D.C. to continue working on agricultural development issues, particularly in light of the global hunger crisis. His work this year will focus on assisting this agribusiness-oriented NGO on developing their food security strategies and programs in addition to providing project coordination. In the near term, Adam's work will be focused on developing an organizational response to the current global food crisis, drawing on his research and strategic planning experience.
As the policy year develops, Adam will be involved in researching possibilities for the expansion of ACDI/VOCA's food security portfolio. In addition to this strategic and policy development, his duties will involve project coordination of USAID Title II and USDA Food For Progress programs in various countries. He will be managing a cocoa development project in the Philippines and offering specialty crop technical assistance. In his role as the Food Security Analyst, Adam will attempt to synthesize his field year experiences and utilize his background in agroforestry and smallholder farmer development in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa to add value to current and developing program management.
Education/Experience: Adam received dual undergraduate degrees from Washington State University in Zoology and Environmental Science. His early experience consists of internships with the US Forest Service in the Olympic National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management in Southern California. He also has worked for three years as a microbiology specialist in the biotech industry in California performing quality control on pharmaceuticals. In 2001 Adam served in the Peace Corps as an agro-forestry extension agent in Senegal. Following Peace Corps, Adam received a dual master’s degree with American University and the United Nations-affiliated University for Peace in International Affairs and Natural Resources & Sustainable Development. In Washington D.C. and San Jose, Costa Rica, Adam worked with an international reforestation NGO, Trees for the Future, as the Central American Program coordinator. He also spent the summer of 2006 working with Rainforest Alliance-Guatemala. Within forest concession communities in the Peten region, Adam worked to audit their extractive forest product industry and prepare a final recommendation report for the communities. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Adam is fluent in Mandinka and has a working ability in Spanish and Wolof.
DANIELE NYIRANDUTIYE
Field Placement: Helen Keller International, Bamako, Mali
Danielle worked on the community-based therapeutic care program within the child survival project. HKI Mali is in the process of implementing Community-based Therapeutic Care (CTC) in all of Koulikoro Region, which includes nine districts. So far, CTC has been integrated into the child survival project in two districts. The CTC program is aimed at rehabilitating acutely malnourished children 6-59 months in the region by providing services at the community level. HKI, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, provides technical assistance in terms of training health agents and community volunteers in the management of acute malnutrition. The idea is that community volunteers will be able to screen children using the MUAC (mid-upper arm circumference) method and then refer serious cases to the community health centers. These centers will be stocked with therapeutic foods and staff that are trained in the management of acute malnutrition, who can handle moderate and severe malnutrition without complications. Only severely malnourished children with complications are treated at the district level.
Policy Placement: Helen Keller International, Dakar, Senegal
Daniele continues to work on the Community Management of Acute Malnutrition program (CMAM) in the Sahel at the Helen Keller International Regional Office for Africa. She recently designed and implemented an evaluation of the CMAM program in Mali to assess its effectiveness as well as evaluated the integration of mass screening of acute malnutrition during National Nutrition Weeks. The results of the evaluation will inform stakeholders on ways to continue improving the program as it expands country-wide.
Education/Experience: Originally from Rwanda, Daniele and her family resettled in Dayton, OH in 1997 after spending three years in Kenya following the Rwandan genocide. Daniele attended the University of Dayton as an undergraduate. She received her masters in public health studies at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. While at Emory, Daniele worked with the Carter Center’s Onchocerciasis Control Program in Cameroon. There, she worked with communities in strengthening the community-directed treatment with ivermectin using traditional kinship systems. She also participated in an impact assessment of ivermectin in sentinel communities; this assessment was part of a ten year evaluation of the effect of ivermectin on onchocerciasis morbidity reduction. Daniele also interned with Atlanta-based Carter Center’s Conflict Resolution Program where she monitored the dynamics of conflict in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Prior to the fellowship, Daniele worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the Tuskegee Health Benefit Program to create and implement a national database for the evaluation and monitoring of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in order to determine whether victims of the study and their families receive medical treatment and care.
MICHELLE PETROTTA
Field Placement: SHARE Foundation, San Salvador, El Salvador
Michelle Petrotta was placed with the advocacy program of the SHARE Foundation in El Salvador where she focused on current human rights, economic justice, and environmental concerns, especially in relation to the projects and policies of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Her field research encompassed an independent monitoring of El Salvador's performance on the Millennium Challenge Corporation's policy indicators, as well as observation and analysis of the effectiveness of the projects of the Millennium Challenge Corporation in meeting the sustainable development needs of the Northern Zone of El Salvador.
Policy Placement: SHARE Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Michelle Petrotta continues working with the advocacy program of the SHARE Foundation in Washington, DC, from a policy perspective. She continues her research on the impacts of development projects on human rights, water, and the sustainable development needs of the population in the Northern Zone of El Salvador. Her work includes writing policy briefs and factsheets for distribution in Congress, as well as in person briefing of Senators, Representatives, and their staff.
Education/Experience: Originally from Fairport, NY, Michelle Petrotta is a graduate of the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law. In addition to her studies, she had the opportunity to work with human rights organizations in both the United States and Latin America, advocating on behalf of migrant farm workers, at-risk juveniles, sweatshop workers in Central America, and immigrant women and children. Furthermore, she spent a semester studying at the University of Chile law school in Santiago, concentrating her coursework on international human rights, international economic law, legal anthropology, and international conflict resolution. She first became interested in hunger, poverty, and international development issues while majoring in Anthropology and Spanish, with a minor in Women's Studies, at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Michelle's interests in international development are women's empowerment, economic justice, and environmentally and socially sustainable development.
ERICA PHILLIPS
Field Placement: Zanmi Lasante/ Partners In Health, Boucan Carre, Haiti
Erica worked on the Agriculture Program of PIH, a sub-section of the Nutrition Program. The aim of the agriculture program is to reduce under-nutrition in under-5 year old children though increased agricultural output of the household. The program currently distributes seeds, tools and goats to each of the families in the program and provides general extension services to families. Home visits focus on learning about agricultural systems and dietary habits/feeding practices for young children. Among her responsibilities, Erica helped revise existing nutrition and malnutrition training sessions for use by community educators, researched new nutrition and agriculture training materials to be adapted for use in Haiti, and looked at adherence to the locally made Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTFs) distributed to children enrolled in PIH’s child nutrition program.
Policy Placement: Partners In Health, Boston, MA
Erica continues to work on a research project at Partners In Health about the food security of community health workers that she started while in Haiti. She is also writing a case study on the delivery of ready to use therapeutic foods in Malawi for the Global Health Delivery Program at the Harvard Medical School, a partner of PIH. Other projects include assisting PIH in evaluating agricultural damages after the hurricane season in Haiti and supporting the Haiti team on nutrition related activities.
Education/Experience: Erica Phillips grew up in Potomac, Maryland and attended Pennsylvania State University. After graduating from college, Erica joined Peace Corps and served in Niger, West Africa for over two and a half years. While working as a Community Health Educator in one of the poorest countries in the world, Erica discovered that in an agrarian based society, one can not teach health or nutrition without understanding people’s primary activity – agriculture. In order to better understand Nigerien food systems Erica worked with community members to weed millet, pick beans and harvest peanuts in the sandy fields. Upon returning home to the United States, Erica set out to learn more about the dynamics of food systems in America, and worked on diversified organic vegetable farms. Seeking to merge the lessons from her various international and agricultural experiences, Erica earned a masters degree from Cornell University’s International Agriculture and Rural Development Master’s program.
RACHEL WINCH
Field Placement: Emerson Fellows Program
Rachel Winch is joining the Leland Program after serving for the year as a Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow. As an Emerson Fellow, Rachel completed her field placement at the Network for a Healthy California where she focused on food stamp modernization, particularly phone-based assistance for food stamp applications. She completed her Emerson policy placement in the office of Congressman James P. McGovern working with the House Hunger Caucus.
Policy Placement: Global Child Nutrition Foundation, Alexandria, Virginia
Rachel is updating and expanding the Global Child Nutrition Foundation’s school feeding toolkit. Originally created for use at the GCNF’s annual school feeding forum, the toolkit provides the resources to conduct a country needs assessment focused in four target areas: government commitment and political will; institutional capacity; community commitment and resource utilization; and, design and implementation. Rachel will be supplementing the toolkit with case studies, including school feeding programs operating in India, Mali, and Guatemala. Rachel will be traveling with Elizabeth Whelan, an award-winning professional photographer and Associate Director of the Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellows program, while gathering information for the case studies. Together, Rachel and Elizabeth will be creating a book comprised of photos and stories from the school feeding sites. Rachel will also be building the capacity of GCNF’s Global Knowledge Center, a resource for those working in school feeding to exchange ideas, best practices, and updates on their work.
Education/Experience: Rachel graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Williams College in 2006 with a double major in sociology and Asian studies and has studied abroad in India and Nicaragua. Prior to joining the Congressional Hunger Center, Rachel taught fifth and sixth grade at Esperanza Academy, a tuition-free middle school for low-income girls in Lawrence, MA, and biked across the country to raise money for affordable housing. When she is not working at GCNF, Rachel manages a farmers market in Silver Spring, Maryland.
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