UMaine Mandela Fellows travel to Washington D.C. for Fellowship Summit
On July 29, the 25 University of Maine Mandela Washington Fellows will complete their program at the UMaine Public Management Institute and travel to the Mandela Washington Fellowship Summit in Washington D.C., where they will join the other 975 fellows from host institutes across the nation.
The three-day event marks the culmination of the 2017 Mandela Washington Fellowship program.
During the summit, the fellows will participate in networking events; panel discussions with leaders from the private, public and nonprofit centers; as well as a fellowship talent show. One fellow from each university will present an Ignite talk — a short presentation meant to inspire — to the entire group of 2017 fellows.
Ousmane Souare of Guinea will represent the UMaine cohort and speak about restoring faith in the Guinean public health system following the nation’s Ebola crisis.
Following the summit, many of the UMaine fellows will leave the United States and return to their respective home countries.
However, four of the UMaine fellows will remain in the U.S. for an additional six weeks to complete various professional development experiences.
Fellows Nangolo Ashipala from Namibia and Kossiwa Tsipoaka from Togo will be heading to Cincinnati for an internship with the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati.
Fellow Abdelaziz Elmi from Djibouti will stay in D.C. to work with the geospatial data nonprofit Radiant.Earth where he will develop a data imagery platform to track droughts in the Horn of Africa.
Lastly, fellow Aissata Abdou Gado from Niger will travel to Pennsylvania to work with USAID on a project regarding women and the agricultural sector.