Students
SFHC hosts both students and interns. The current students and interns working with the project are:
Christine Bonatsos - a Canadian MA student in geography (University of Western Ontario)
Christine is carrying out secondary data analysis on our food security surveys, and has been of great assistance in analysing our data, including helping with an evaluation of the project. Christine is from London (Ontario). Christine is the proud mother of a new, beautiful girl, Laura, as of May 2010.
Lauren Classen – A Canadian PhD student in anthropology (University of Toronto)
Lauren’s passion for working in the field of rural development was cultivated from birth (as was her taste for delicious and nutritious food!). Having grown up on a grain farm in southern Manitoba Lauren is keenly aware of the vulnerability of agricultural livelihoods and dedicated to improving the viability and sustainability of agriculture worldwide. For her doctoral research, Lauren is living in Ekwendeni and collaborating with us to engage youth in the catchment area in developing a framework for improving livelihoods and safeguarding the health of young people and their families. Drawing on 4 years of experience with participatory agriculture research project in north-central Honduras (Comites de Investigacion Agricola Local), Lauren’s research combines a variety of participatory and visual anthropological research approaches to explore ‘youth culture’ in northern Malawi and to understand how young people engage with, resist and shape the factors which affect their nutrition and health. Lauren is writing up her thesis results back in Toronto as of 2010.
Wezi Mhango – A Malawian PhD student in crop sciences (Michigan State University)
Interns at SFHC
Since 2001 SFHC has had interns through the Canadian Society for International Health’s (CSIH)Youth Internship Program, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) Young Professionals Placement Program, and designed to help young Canadian graduates to obtain professional experience working abroad. Interns live in Ekwendeni and work with SFHC staff for four to eight months. Placements are designed to provide interns with cross-cultural communication, leadership, and technical skills in areas such as program planning, evaluation, research, and data analysis. The interns have played an important role in research and community development activities and are greatly appreciated by SFHC.
Past interns and their current activities:
2001-2002: Tanya Trevors (works for the Canadian International Development Agency)
2002-2003 David Ryan (doing a medical degree in Ireland)
2004-2005 Laura Sikstrom (doing a PhD in medical anthropology at the University of Toronto)
2005-2006 Hinde Tizaghti (working as a consultant in France) and Liesel Carlsson (unknown)
2006-2007 Franziska Satzinger (doing a PhD in public health at the University of Toronto)
2008 Laura Swift (working for Accion Contre la Faim - ACF in the Democratic Republic of Congo)
2010 Johanna Jimenez-Pardo - current intern, working with both SFHC and the Ekwendeni AIDS Programme.
