Mickey Leland
International
Hunger Fellows Program

Class of 2007-2009

Emily Bancroft
Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS (AGHA)
Physicians for Human Rights
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 divides 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 currently leads AGHA’s new Human Resources for Health campaign and their work with Students for Equity in Healthcare, a student-led advocacy group. She is 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.

Emily Bancroft comes to the Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellows Program with an MPH from the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Emily currently works as a Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist for the International Training and Education Center for HIV, an organization based at the University of Washington, which builds global capacity to improve the care of people living with HIV/AIDS. 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. Her experiences with HIV/AIDS programs and work force capacity issues directly feed into the work she will be doing as a Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellow with Physicians for Human Rights in Uganda and then Washington D.C.

Emily is a recent graduate of the University of Washington’s Community-Oriented Public Health Practice Program. Prior to getting her master degree, Emily was a program manager for a number of public sector organizations including NPower, which is a national organization that provides technology assistance to nonprofits, as well as 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 calls home, Seattle, Washington.

Rachel Bingham
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)
Bamako, Mali

Racey Bingham’s work during the field year involves both policy and practice. She assists with the development of technical terms of reference, MoUs with various ministries, some basic infrastructure design, tracking of procurements, design of an applied agriculture grants program and administration of a collaborative website. On field missions, she undertakes research on various technical issues (input provision, access to credit, farmer organization development) and facilitate communication between various stakeholders (elected officials, project beneficiaries, local radios, contractors).

A native of Boston, MA, Rachel attended the School of International Studies at American University. At American, Rachel studied international politics, French and German, and played for American’s Women’s Lacrosse team. 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 has 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.

She graduated in the spring of 2007 with a dual 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 on water resource development and management for multiple uses in rural communities, and she received a certificate from the Water: Systems, Science and Society Program. Rachel will be placed with Millennium Challenge Corporation in Washington D.C. and Mali.

Kurt Burja
World Food Programme
Kampong Cham, Cambodia

Kurt Burja is 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 aid interventions. Based in the Kampong Cham Sub-Office, Kurt monitors and evaluates the distribution of food commodities to and construction of rural assets by food insecure households in eight provinces in eastern Cambodia. Program sectors include food-for-work, school feeding, maternal and child health, home-based care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS and the national tuberculosis program.

Kurt is originally from Gainesville, Florida. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Education degree from the University of Florida and has recently 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. For his two years in the Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellows Program, Kurt will serve in a management capacity with World Food Program in Cambodia.

Francisco Del Pozo
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
Rome, Italy
Santiago, Chile

First placed in Rome, Italy, for his policy placement, Francisco is working with the Knowledge Exchange and Capacity Building Division of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Using 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 preparing field work to foster the e-agriculture initiative in Latin America Region. After April he will move to Chile where he will be placed at FAO’s Latin America Regional Office until December of 2008. Afterwards, he will return once again to Rome to finish his policy placement.

Francisco A. Del Pozo recently graduated with a Masters in Agribusiness Economics from Kansas State University. He currently works for the Economic Research Service of U.S. Department of Agriculture. Before joining ERS, Francisco interned in the Deputy Administration of Commodity Operations of USDA. Previously, Francisco, who has a B.S. degree in forest engineering from Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina in Peru, worked for projects of forestry management and soil conservation 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 his specialization he had the opportunity to pursue a graduate studies in agribusiness economics, bringing the gap between economic development and environment. Originally from Peru, now Francisco is excited to bring back his skills to South America through his placement with FAO in Rome and Chile.

Ira Frydman
UNDP-Malawi
Lilongwe, Malawi

The work that I have been doing has all been linked to integrating 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 this rainy season, I was initially working on an initiative connected with a governmental body 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 my work was organizing and helping to facilitate these reviews of district level contingency plans in four of the most flood prone districts. These CP’s have been completed and will hopefully be used in the event of flooding this rainy season. I also took an active role in helping to create a (UN) inter-agency flood contingency plan and several appeals for funds in order to better prepare the UN system to act in the event of a flood. I have recently begun to shift towards looking at more food security related issues, specifically how hazards such as floods and droughts affect food security in Malawi.

Ira currently works and lives in the Central Valley of California working with a non-profit, Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), as a Biological Farming Program Coordinator. Primarily, his focus is a project whose aim is to work with almond growers to decrease pesticide and sedimentation runoff through the implementation of best management practices. He has a 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 comes from his time spent working with subsistence farmers in Haiti during a two-year term with the Peace Corps. He is originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a Mickey Leland Fellow, Ira will be placed with United Nations Development Program, focusing on food security and agriculture. He will be in Malawi for his first year and Kenya for his second year.

Eric Haglund
Bioversity International/ICRISAT/World Vision
Niamey, Niger

Eric is researching social and economic impacts of three different agroforestry systems under development and promotion here 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 was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. After a Junior 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 Ivory Coast and Madagascar. In 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. Eric sees the Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellows Program as an exciting opportunity to apply concepts learned in graduate school to the field. While in Niger and Benin as a Leland Fellow, Eric will be working on issues related to tree diversity and food security with Bioversity International, ICRISAT and World Vision.

Anne-Claire Hervy
Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa
Washington, D.C.

Anne-Claire Hervy works 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 is 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, begun 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 encourage more effective participation by African and U.S. higher education institutions in African development, with an initial focus on science and technology.

Anne-Claire Hervy holds an MA in International History from the London School of Economics and is currently a doctoral student at American University, working towards a degree in International Relations at the School of International Service. Her dissertation research is concerned with NGO effectiveness, focusing on the obstacles that prevent the formation of genuine, collaborative partnerships between international NGOs and organizations from developing countries, and that hamper local ownership of relief and development processes. This research led Anne-Claire to organize and lead a three-week research trip 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 past three years, Anne-Claire has also worked in communications and program evaluation for Manna Inc., a D.C.-based affordable housing organization. In her capacity as communications manager, she trained herself in graphic and web design and now does freelance design work in her spare time.

At the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa as a Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellow, Anne-Claire will have the opportunity to continue to apply her interest in networking and coalition building. Anne-Claire is a native French speaker and is proficient in Italian and written Spanish. She has just returned from travelling around the world for several months with the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea program. Anne-Claire is originally from Baltimore, MD but currently resides in Washington D.C.

Carmen Jaquez
Land O’Lakes International
Nairobi, Kenya

Carmen Jaquez is creating a intra-organization training manual and on-line training program. Land O’ Lakes would like to expand its activities into pastoralists regions in Africa. Carmen is developing a training manual that creates linkages between Land O’ Lakes current efforts and the needs of pastoralist communities. To create this manual, Carmen has had to opportunity to visit several Land O’ Lakes projects as well as those being implemented by other organizations. Carmen wishes to develop a series of articles discussing diversification in pastoralist programs.

In addition to this primary activity, Carmen assists with proposal development and data analysis when requested by Land O’ Lakes.

Carmen Jaquez is originally from the Missouri Ozarks of Zanoni, MO. She gained a BS Fisheries & Wildlife Management degree 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. Her thesis was a qualitative analysis of community dynamics, use of wild foods, household food security and biodiversity conservation in a marginalized community in northern Uganda. As a Mickey Leland Fellow placed with Land O’Lakes in Kenya and Washington D.C., she will have the opportunity to blend her interests in East Africa, food, ecological systems and livestock.

Alexis Jones
Association for Rural Advancement
Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

Alexis Jones works 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 are to support research and improve internal capacity building. Alexis has organized a steering group to coordinate research at AFRA, which is developing a strategic framework to guide future research, and provides support for research projects in progress. She coordinates an internal capacity-building programme. She is playing a supporting role in proposal-writing and fund-raising, monitoring and evaluation, and the development of a gender policy at AFRA, and will be assisting another South African land NGO to mobilize a regional network of civil society organizations working on land issues.

Alexis Jones graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in English in 2000. A week later, she boarded a plane to Honduras, where she 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 farmworker program. Currently, she is completing 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 events. 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. Alexis will be working on land rights issues with the Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA), which is under the umbrella of the International Land Coalition (ILC). Alexis will spend the first year of her Fellowship in South Africa with AFRA, and the second year of the Fellowship at ILC headquarters in Rome.

Meagan Keefe
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 is working 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 is being carried out by IFPRI and local collaborators around the world with case studies in Uganda, India, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Guatemala. Meagan is working with Guatemala-based partner Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) to conduct the quantitative analysis of rural service provision using household survey data for the Guatemala case study.

Meagan Keefe recently finished a master’s program in Natural Resources Science and Management at the University of Minnesota. Her program focused on forestry, sustainable agriculture, and the use of markets to achieve conservation goals while improving livelihoods. Her master’s thesis was part of a project working to create a market for sustainably harvested palm fronds. This included work 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. Megan Keefe will be working on issues of market access as a Leland Fellow with the International Food Policy Research Insitute first in Costa Rica, and then in Washington D.C.

Alder Keleman
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Mexico City, Mexico

Alder Keleman is working in the Impacts, Targeting, and Assessment Unit of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Broadly, her job is 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 are two field sites for this work: the highlands of Chiapas, where research deals with the conditions created for small-scale maize farming by agricultural and rural development policy; and the State of Mexico, where the goal is to explore the extent to which maize landraces are accepted in local value chains. The end-products of this work will be several written documents, some written in the form of academic articles, and others generated with the purpose of providing information on value chains and industry standards to plant breeders and farmers' advocates working in Mexico.

Alder Keleman currently lives in Mexico City, where she studies the relationship between NAFTA and native maize genetic diversity as a Fox International Fellow at the Colegio de Mexico. She completed a joint Master's degree in Environmental Science (MESc) and International Relations (MA; Certificate in Development Studies) at Yale University in 2006, in which 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 Central Washington State and Wenatchee, WA. Alder will serve her time as a Mickey Leland Fellow with CIMMYT focusing on agriculture and economics in Mexico and then Washington D.C.

Meaghan Murphy
Mercy Corps
Ulaambaatar, Mongolia

Mercy Corps Mongolia supports rural communities in mobilizing resources to meet their economic and social needs, and by extension, to provide a better quality of life for residents. MCM is implementing several rural agricultural development and support programs throughout the country, the most recent addition being the Western Region (Baruun Bus) Economic Development Project. The emphasis is on supporting the creation of income generation and value added opportunities for the rural herder, non-herder, and urban populations for selected aimags in the western region of Mongolia through integrated local economic development. As a fellow I am coordinating an assessment of the Seabuckthorn value chain to identify production and market potential that will inform initial pilot activities as well as future phases of the project. Seabuckthorn berries are a winter hardy fruit native to Western Mongolia that are high in antioxidants and vitamin C among other nutrients, and used to produce juice as well as a medicinal oil for primarily local and national consumption, though also has increasing international potential.

Meaghan Murphy recently 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. She will be moving to Mongolia to conduct a market chain analysis for Mercy Corps during her Mickey Leland Fellowship placement. She will then return to the organization’s headquarters in Washington D.C.

Adam Norikane
Christian Children’s Fund
Lusaka, Zambia

Adam Norikane is currently working with CCF Zambia on the implementation of an Australian funded Youth Agriculture & Marketing Project (YAMP). His job entails assisting staff in project management of a sustainable agricultural livelihoods program targeting 1,000 Zambian youth. Adam has contributed through facilitation and organization of trainings on agroforestry, youth group organization, contract negotiation, and agri-business. For his remaining six months in Zambia, Adam will work 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 has also asked Adam to draft a case study on CCF Zambia's food security program for inclusion in CCF International's Food Security Policy Guidelines.

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 agroforestry extension agent in Senegal. During his time there, Adam became intimately familiar with sub-Saharan agricultural practices, while working on improving food security for his region. Following Peace Corps, Adam received a dual masters degree with American University and the United Nations-affiliated University for Peace in International Affairs and Natural Resources & Sustainable Development. To take advantage of the two universities' localities, 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. For his Fellowship, he will be focusing on CCF’s food security strategy in Zambia, followed by a policy year in Washington D.C.

Daniele Nyirandutiye
Helen Keller International
Bamako, Mali

Danielle is working 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 MUAC (mid-upper arm circumference) method then refer the children 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 will be treated at the district level.

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. Since January 2007, she has been working 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. As a Mickey Leland Fellow focusing on nutrition-related issues, Daniele will be placed with Helen Keller International in Senegal and then in New York City.

Michelle Petrotta
SHARE Foundation
San Salvador, El Salvador

Michelle Petrotta is placed with the advocacy program of the SHARE Foundation in El Salvador where she focuses 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 encompasses an independent monitoring of El Salvador's performance on the Millennium Challenge Corporation's policy indicators, as well as observation and analysis of the aid effectiveness of the projects of the Millennium Challenge Corporation in meeting the sustainable development needs of the Northern Zone of El Salvador.

Michelle Petrotta is a graduate of the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law. In addition to her studies, she has 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. Originally from Fairport, NY, she will be moving to El Salvador to work with the Share Foundation on issues relating to market access.

Erica Phillips
Zanmi Lasante
Partners In Health
Boucan Carre, Haiti

Erica is working on the Agriculture Program of PIH/ 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 helps revise existing nutrition and malnutrition training sessions for use by community educators, researches new nutrition and agriculture training materials to be adapted for use in Haiti, and looks at adherence to the locally made Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTFs) distributed to children enrolled in PIH’s child nutrition program.

Erica Phillips grew up in Potomac, Maryland and attended Pennsylvania State University. After graduating from college, Erica joined the United States 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 joined Cornell University’s International Agriculture and Rural Development Master’s program in the Fall of 2005. As a Mickey Leland Fellow, Erica will work with Partners in Health addressing community nutrition, health and agriculture in Haiti; her policy year will be in Boston at PIH’s headquarters.

Nicole Woo
Akshaya Patra Foundation
Bangalore, India

The first half of Nicole’s field assignment is to assist Akshaya Patra with learning more about the children they serve and developing tools and processes to measure their program's impact on the children. The second half includes coordinating a pilot program, scaling up a supplementary program, and providing fundraising support. Akshaya Patra provides free mid-day meals to underprivileged children in school, which impacts the children's food security.

Nicole Woo has worked on hunger policy as a Senior Policy Analyst at the Food Research and Action Center and as the Associate Director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. She also has served as a fundraiser for nonprofit organizations in New York City and as the financial and administrative director of a number of nonprofits in Washington D.C.. Her international experience includes three years of work and study in Taiwan and Hong Kong. She received her B.A. from Harvard University, where she concentrated in Government. Nicole is originally from New York, NY but has resided for some time in Washington D.C.. As a Leland Fellow, Nicole will be working on school feeding issues with Akshaya Patra Foundation in India, followed by a policy year at Akshaya Patra’s headquarters in Massachussetts.