Learn About My Why
Hi, I’m Emilie!
I currently work as a Fellow with the Aga Khan Foundation in Kampala, Uganda, where I support a variety of education projects in the West Nile and Central regions, particularly through the lens of Human Centered Design. I’m working to unpack the question, “how might we design innovative and sustainable solutions by reimagining who gets to be the expert?”. When not pondering this question, you can find me mountain biking, climbing, or trying to keep up with Uganda women in Zumba. You can learn more about my prior work and experience here.
For the past little while I’ve been traveling up peaks and through valleys (physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally) in an effort to move closer and closer to my purpose, passion, and potential. You’re probably thinking, but aren’t we all? Indeed we are. I guess why I'm here is because my story might be a little bit different than the norm.
It started 8 years ago, in a small fishing village called Nkhata Bay in the Northern tip of Malawi, a beautiful country in East Africa. It was here that I witnessed that solving big challenges requires collective action, and the people closest to those challenges are often, if not always, closest to the solution. I saw this in the group of individuals fighting HIV and AIDS through nutrition, I saw this in the micro-peanut butter enterprises led by women, I saw this in the Matthews, the teachers who poured everything into their students with nothing to spare, I saw this in the Finas who so desperately wanted a different future for people with disabilities in her community.
It is since this time, these people, this spark that I knew I wanted to play a role in supporting the hardest to reach, move through their own peaks and valleys. And the best way I knew how to do this was by exploring my ability to contribute as an international development practitioner.
This led me to pursue a Masters of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, where I had the opportunity to contribute to projects fighting the impunity of United Nation Peacekeeping personnel committing acts of sexual exploitation and abuse and working with Grand Challenges Canada on a global tool to assess innovations’ along their transition to scale. I studied refugee policy at one of Europe’s most prestigious universities, Sciences Po, in Paris, France, where I took my policy knowledge to the field, working with refugees and migrants in the North of the city and in Calais, “the jungle”.
For the better part of my academic and professional career, from the University of New Brunswick, to U of T’s Munk of Global Affairs, to the Government of New Brunswick, and Venture 2 Impact, and many personal, professional and volunteer experiences since then, I've been gradually working my way back to the place and people that ignited that spark (more on my work here and my time in Malawi here).
In July of 2022, I found my way back via the amazing work of the Aga Khan Foundation in Kampala, Uganda. Over the coming months, I will be supporting a project called AGENCI (Adolescent Girls Education in Crisis Initiative), funded by Global Affairs Canada, in partnership with World University Service Canada and a local NGO, Windle International Uganda. You can learn more about that project here.
What might interest you here are stories from the field from my perspective and those whom I am learning alongside. Some reflections on prior work and learning, my digital nomad chapter in South America, topical issues in Uganda and East Africa, and emerging issues and themes in the international development space. A space to reflect. A space to educate. A space to spark. And maybe an invitation for you to further tap into your and others' peaks and valleys.
I hope you will join me in learning and unlearning. And in keeping the spark alive.
Many, many thanks to my family, friends, mentors, and colleagues who’ve set me on the course to do just that.