HFB will periodically spotlight one of our alumni. If you are interested in being highlighted please contact Miriam Doyle at info@handsforabridge.org

Name: Danielle Hansen

Year(s) in Hands for a Bridge: 2004-2005

School Affiliation: Roosevelt High School (RHS)

Reflection:

International relations and travel had always held great intrigue for me from a young age. I looked for every opportunity to experience new countries, cultures, and languages. However, as someone who is naturally reserved and struggled with confidence, it was difficult to find the courage to take on new challenges, even when they presented as amazing opportunities. I first gained exposure to Hands for a Bridge (HFB) during my language arts class when students from Isilimela visited and was so taken with their openness, optimism and strength despite obvious challenges in their home country, past and present. I knew immediately that I wanted to be a part of this program.

I was ecstatic to learn that HFB was considering expanding to include a Northern Ireland branch and felt that this was where I fit in to the program. Participating with HFB was truly integral in building my confidence as a student leader and global citizen. HFB helped ‘bring me out of my shell’, but more importantly, learning of the history and events surrounding apartheid in South Africa and the Troubles in Northern Ireland left a lasting impression which I feel influences my thoughts, feelings, and actions still today.

In 2005, I participated in the first RHS trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland which was positively influential for several reasons. It was not only a strong lesson in leadership, responsibility, and hard work, but also allowed me to make connections with students who came from different religious backgrounds and who were touched by The Troubles in (at times) very personal ways. The lessons presented within the HFB curriculum and first-hand experiences it affords students put a face to social injustice and made the struggles relatable. The experience was invaluable. I believe that participating in this program helped shape the way I choose to relate to strangers in my everyday life. I am thankful for the education, understanding, and activism that HFB continues to foster and am eager to see what future of the program brings.

Post-secondary school education and/or work, and future plans:

After graduating from Roosevelt High School in Seattle, Washington, I attended the University of Washington where I received a BS in Environmental Health. In 2010 I moved to Houston, Texas to attend the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health where I studied environmental and occupational health sciences, graduating with a Master of Public Health in Industrial Hygiene in 2012.

I took a position as an industrial hygiene consultant with Bureau Veritas North America (BVNA) in 2012 in their Houston office before transferring and holding positions in both the San Francisco Bay Area and back home in Seattle. November 2018 found me moving back to Houston for a promotion to the Industrial Hygiene consulting operations manager position. BVNA’s Health, Safety, and Environmental (HSE) division was acquired by Apex Companies, LLC in July 2019 where I’ve transitioned and continue to hold the same role.

Industrial hygiene is essentially the “health” portion of health and safety in the work place. My responsibilities include helping clients ensure that workers do not experience adverse health effects from either acute or chronic exposure to workplace stressors like chemicals and noise. I also focus on education, training, and empowering workers so that they have the skills to take ownership of their own health and safety.

Name: Rebecca West

Year(s) in Hands for a Bridge: 2006-2007

School Affiliation: Roosevelt High School, Seattle, WA

Post-secondary school education and/or work, and future plans: 

I completed a BS in Public Health at the University of Washington in 2012. In 2016 I graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Public Health with specializations in Population & Family Health and Global Health. During my masters degree I was an intern at ICAP at Columbia University, a non-profit arm of Columbia that conducts global health research and program implementation. I spent six months in Malawi working on a national bio-behavioral survey that measured HIV incidence and prevalence (new cases and overall burden of disease). During graduate school I also served as a board member for the Sexual Health Action Group and co-authored a paper reviewing resources for girls going through puberty in low-income communities in the U.S. After completing my masters I continued working for ICAP and managed a portfolio of HIV service programs in Zambia, Kenya, Lesotho, and Swaziland. I moved to Acornhoek, South Africa in September 2017 after taking a job as a Project Manager for the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California, San Francisco. I currently manage four studies related to HIV testing, treatment and retention in care. I’m currently preparing for an upcoming trip to Amsterdam to present some of my work at the International AIDS Conference, and am working on doctoral applications for the coming fall!

Reflection:

Hands for a Bridge helped me find my voice at a time in life when I was starting to seriously think about what I wanted to do and what kind of person I wanted to be. I have no doubt that my experiences with HFB were an enormous catalyst in setting me on the path I’m on today. My time in South Africa with HFB piqued my interest in learning Sub-Saharan Africa, and I keep coming back – as an undergraduate student in Zambia, a volunteer HIV educator in Tanzania, and now I’ve turned it into my career. The interdisciplinary nature of HFB’s curriculum also opened my mind to the field of public health, which integrates the health sciences, statistics, sociology, and anthropology. My experience with HFB has also really come full circle in my current job. One of the main trials I am in charge of is measuring the impact of community engagement and education on HIV outcomes. It is so much fun to be part of a project that is focused on using the arts to promote discourse and community cohesion around such a critical health challenge. As I move ahead with my career I find that I am able to draw on the skills I developed as an HFB student – facilitating dialogue, fostering creativity, and creating inclusive spaces to learn and grow – to be a more compassionate public health researcher.

Name: Zimkhitha Ndinga

Year(s) in Hands for a Bridge: Since 2004

School Affiliation: Isilimela Comprehensive High School, Capetown, South Africa

 Post-secondary school education and/or work, and future plans:

After graduating high school in 2004, I took a bridging year and joined an NGO called the South African Education and Environmental Project (SAEP) where I received tutoring to help upgrade some of my matriculation grades as well as volunteered as an English tutor for high school students in Cape Town townships. In 2006 I enrolled for study at the University of the Western Cape for study towards an undergraduate degree in Politics and English. During this time, I continued to volunteer as a tutor and I loved it. In 2011 I was employed by the same organization (SAEP) where I worked as a Post Matriculation Programmes’ Coordinator. My duties involved ensuring that students who matriculated from some of Cape Town’s most impoverished township schools were afforded opportunities that would help them be successful in their future. We helped them prepare for exams, assisted them in getting information about the different study options available, helping them apply to universities and colleges, helping them access funding and then supporting them through university. This was my way of paying it forward and I loved every minute of it. All this we did, while also encouraging the programme participants to also pay it forward in some way. I did this work until 2014. I then went on to work as a Courses and Training Coordinator at the Market Photo Workshop, at the Market Theatre and on a research programme at the Desmond Tutu Foundation, based in the township of Gugulethu where I worked to ensure that young women had access to proper sexual and reproductive health services and information. I was employed as a Counsellor/Health educator.

I now work, on a freelance basis, for Nal’ibali, a national literacy campaign. I am also working, together with a friend, on registering an NGO that assists students in Langa’s primary school to access opportunities such as computer literacy, extra tutoring, extracurricular activities, employment or training for their parents, food and clothing, as well as pyscho-social and counselling services. We are also working on involving students from HFB Seattle in a pen-pal and book club programme with students from this programme. This is something I am very excited about. We are now working to formalize and register the NGO so that we can hopefully extend the services to all the primary schools in Langa.

Reflection:

I loved being part of Hands For A Bridge!!! I came from a very poor family, and was orphaned at a young age and raised by my grandmother. I did not know much about the world outside my own. Being part of the programme exposed me to so many opportunities and suddenly made me question the state I and many young people lived in. It gave me the opportunity to engage with young people who thought differently about the world and it made me see it differently. After joining, and visiting Seattle, I came back more aware of what role I could play in changing the lives of other young people and it definitely set me on the path I am on. The year I joined the programme, was the same year that I joined the debating team. When I got to high school, I was definitely the nerdy type and not good in any sports. I did well in my academics but had very little confidence. HFB gave me the confidence to both be myself and excel in what I was good at. I did extremely well in my debating and became the number one speaker nationally, and I loved it. Suddenly, being a nerd was the coolest thing. There are obviously a number of things that have contributed to the person I have become, but if I had to single out one, it would be HFB.

Name: Amy Stromme

Year(s) in Hands for a Bridge: 2009-2010

School Affiliation: University of Puget Sound

Post-secondary school education and/or work, and future plans:       

            After graduating from Roosevelt High School in 2010, I enrolled at University of Puget Sound. There, I majored in International Political Economy with an emphasis in Global Development. In my senior year my favorite professor, Nick Kontogeorgopolus, recruited me to work for a non profit, called Teach Thailand Corps. TTC places English teachers in communities that wouldn’t typically be able to afford or attract teachers. So the day after I graduated in 2014, I boarded a plane and headed for Bamnet-Narong Chaiyaphum, Thailand where I would write my own English curriculum, teach 5 classes a day, 5 days a week in two schools in different villages, and developed a lasting love for service. When I returned from Thailand I continued in this trajectory, volunteering overnight with my church’s women’s shelter, and eventually taking a position as an AmeriCorps member with United Way of King County. In that role my partner, Jess Walton, and I were tasked with increasing food security for low income students at Wing Luke Elementary School. By implementing the nationally recognized Breakfast after the Bell program, we were able to increase breakfast participation by 300% at the elementary school, a difference of 100 more students eating breakfast each morning. Looking forward I hope to eventually get my masters in social work and am currently looking for work in nonprofits in the city that work to combat homelessness.

Reflection:

Hands for a Bridge was a critical experience in my high school years! It planted in me an early commitment to social justice, and challenged me to recognize my responsibility not only as an American, but as a global citizen. I think HFB was the first place where I was asked to take a real inventory of my identity and think about how that relates to others inside and outside my immediate communities. I also loved the emphasis HFB put on art and dialogue. I remember HFB always being a safe place to ask questions, explore ideas, and speak my mind. In college, when I was selecting a major, a friend told me about the International Political Economy department. IPE immediately appealed to my interests but the deciding factor was when my mother asked me, “Doesn’t that major sound a lot like your old HFB program?” If it weren’t for HFB I think I would have pursued my original plan, an Art History and Business double major, and I would be looking ahead to a future in curatorial work in an institution. Instead, I committed to IPE, and I want to be a change agent in Seattle. This is single example of it’s impact, but I earnestly think I might be a different woman if it weren’t for HFB.