Alheri headshot

Leland Fellow

Onyịnye Alheri

11th Class, 2021-2023

Onyịnye Alheri is an artist, doula and scholar-activist who is active in movements that address food & land justice, police & prison abolition, and maternal/infant health. Ọ recently served as Co-Principal Investigator on a qualitative research project exploring the mental health and psychosocial needs of climate activists in Baltimore and is currently co-authoring a toolkit appendix to address the complex needs of pregnant people who live with substance use disorder. She is looking forward to deepening her understanding of the food & nutritional needs of people in crisis. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Onyịnye has lived in many places including Washington, D.C., Maryland, Oregon, Minnesota, California, Ecuador and México. Ọ earned a bachelor’s of arts (BA) in International Studies & Philosophy from Macalester College and a master’s in social work (MSW) from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Host Organization: UN World Food Programme

First Year Placement
Maputo, Mozambique

Onyịnye worked as a Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Communications (MERC) Officer in support of a cross-cutting project called GTNS (Gender Transformative & Nutrition Sensitive), aimed at preventing stunting and improving food and nutrition security for women, girls, and children in Sofala province. This included using evidence-based practices to co-create training and tools for climate-resilient agriculture, post-harvest loss prevention, and social-behavioral change. Ọ also provided oversight of qualitative and quantitative research design, analysis and reporting to measure the impact and effectiveness of the project. Additionally, Onyịnye supported communications and liaised between several WFP Mozambique units addressing cash-based transfers, food assistance and small-holder farmer wellbeing.

Second Year Placement
Maputo, Mozambique and Johannesburg, South Africa

For the second year, Onyịnye is dividing time between the Mozambique County Office (CO) in Maputo and the Regional Bureau Johannesburg (RBJ). For the first half of year 2, Ọ continues in the role of Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Communications (MERC) Officer, providing support to the Nutrition unit in the Mozambique CO, with a special focus on closing out the Gender Transformative & Nutrition Sensitive (GTNS) project from year 1. The second half of year 2 is spent as a Knowledge Management Officer at RBJ, documenting and disseminating the region’s wealth of information regarding good practices and lessons learned on nutrition programmes.

Blog Posts

The Right to Seed: Food Sovereignty and Indigenous Autonomy

Blog Post / October 2, 2022