Project Muso is a collaboration between an American non-profit called Under the Baobab Tree (UBT), and a Malian association called Action Developement Social Musoladamouli (ADS-ML). Below you will find biographies for the Health Educators (facilitatrices) who train each class of the Women's Education Program, the Malian ADS-ML team, the American UBT Board of Directors, the UBT Board of Advisors, and our current volunteers. We also proudly count the hundreds of program participants on our team, and they truly are the most important members.

Health Educators (Facilitatrices)

Hawa Coulibaly was one of the top graduates from Project Muso's 2007 Women's Education program, and she has always dreamed of being a healer.

Korotoumou Diarra is a Health Educator for Project Muso's training class in Bakorobabougou.  Korotoumou enjoys teaching and discussing themes from training with her 12 children and her grandchild, as well as farming peanuts and raising animals, including sheep, chickens, and an eagle.

Minata Koté is a Health Educator for Project Muso's training site in Yorojanbougou. Minata, another former top graduate from Project Muso's education program, is so dedicated to her new job as a Health Educator that she walked five kilometers each day to teach her class in Yorojanbogou (whose name literally means "the neighborhood that is in a far away place"), until she could save up enough from her salary to buy a motorbike.

Djeneba "Muy" Koité was one of Project Muso's top graduates in February 2007. She is particularly passionate about clarifying health issues for others, such as the difference between hepatitis and malaria. 

Kadidia Sounfountera has been working with the Project since 2005.  She is a powerful advocate and activist, and is talented at mobilizing the women of her community around women's causes in particular.  Last year, she traveled to Senegal with Moise and Ari to learn about the revolutionary grassroots community mobilization techniques of our partner Tostan.

Nana Touré has been a Project Muso Health Educator since 2005. Nana is very spiritual, so when she is not teaching or taking care of her children, she can often be found praying or meditating.

Djeneba Traoré has been a Health Educator for one of Project Muso's training classes since 2005.  Every visitor at her house is well fed -- Djeneba loves serving her guests watermelon and beans.  

ADS-ML Team

Aminata Koné (Financial Director) is a medical resident in the pediatric ward of Mali's national Hospital, Gabriel Touré. She completed her medical school training at the University of Bamako-FMPOS.  She has worked in the student government and has completed rotations in internal medicine, pediatrics and obstetrics.  She is an active member in several women’s organizations in Bamako, particularly “CAFO.”

Ichiaka Koné (President, Program Coordinator) is a doctor, with a diploma in internal medicine from the University of Bamako-FMPOS. Ichiaka coordinates all operations on the ground, supporting team members in implementing Project Muso's different programs. He is also particularly involved in contributing his medical expertise to health curriculum development and training. He was the Secretary General of the student government at his medical school, and was the coordinator of Mali's National Youth Council from 2002-2003. 

Moise Samake (Director of Educational Programs) supervises Project Muso's education programming, providing ongoing support to Project Muso's health educator team. He has a degree in Education from the University of Bamako-FLASH School of Education. His thesis discussed the decentralization of non-formal and basic education in Mali.  In addition to his role with Project Muso, Moise is the director of AJRSBS, a community-based organization that provides books to primary school students in his village and its surrounding areas in rural Mali.

Fatoumata “Fatim” Traore (Director of Economic Empowerment Programs) coordinates all enterprise and microfinance programming for Project Muso. She works with the women's cooperatives to ensure on-time loan repayment, supports women to improve the businesses they have launched, and coordinates economic empowerment trainings. She has worked formerly with the international aid organization World Education and with the national urban development organization Alphalog.  From 2001-2003 she was the Community Development Assistant at Asa Subaahi Gumo (ASG), a national NGO in Mali whose accomplishments include creating schools.

Fousseni Traore (Field Supervisor) provides logistical support to Project Muso's participants and health educators. He is a doctoral candidate in Pharmacology at the University of Bamako-FMPOS.  He is the co-director of a local youth action organization and the former president of a local women's advancement association. Fousseni recently organized a conference in Bamako about the role of women in traditional education. He is a member of the National Congress of Young Malians and of the Congress of Young People for Development.    

UBT Board of Directors

Jessica Beckerman (Co-Executive Director, founder) is a Fulbright Scholar to Mali. She graduated in 2006 from Brown University, where she was a National Scholar. At Brown, she studied international development and public health, and her honors thesis examined a Human Rights-Based Approach to Development. Jessica has worked in West Africa with several organizations including the groundbreaking NGO Tostan. She was selected as one of 20 Goldman Sachs Global Leaders from the United States and Canada in 2004. Jessica's role with Project Muso involves developing, revising, and planning programs, evaluating the impact of our work, fundraising, and providing technical support to our opperational team, ADS-ML.

Whitney Braunstein (founder) plays a crucial role guiding Project Muso's development and also serving as Project Muso's "home base" in Washington, DC.  She graduated from Brown University in 2004, where she studied Visual Art and the HIV/AIDS epidemic from an anthropological and sociological perspective. She worked as the Assistant Producer of Speak Truth to Power and as the Development and Program Associate at the Coro New York Leadership Center. She currently resides in Washington, DC and is a project manager at Management Systems International - a leading international development consulting firm.  

Ally Dick (Secretary) graduated from Brown University in 2007.  She majored in Visual Art, focusing on photography and video, and took many classes in the area of international development.  While at Brown she went to Mali to create a documentary film about women’s perspectives on HIV/AIDS in conjunction with the Global Alliance to Immunize Against AIDS.  She returned to Mali to work as an on-the-ground coordinator for Project Muso Ladamunen in 2006.  She currently works at Progreso Latino in Central Falls, Rhode Island with the immigrant community.

Ari Johnson (Co-Executive Director, founder) is a student at Harvard Medical School. He recently worked with Mark Lurie at the International Health Institute at Brown University Medical School, researching migration and health in South Africa, access to care in resource-poor settings, and HIV/AIDS. He is a National Goldwater Scholar and a four-time winner of the Research at Brown award. Ari's role with Project Muso involves developing, revising, and planning programs, evaluating the impact of our work, fundraising, and providing technical support to our opperational team, ADS-ML.

Ethan S. Johnson is currently a research analyst for an institutional investment manager in New York City.  His prior professional experience includes mergers and acquisitions, private equity and equity research.  Ethan also founded On Your Feet Project, a nonprofit organization engaging young people in community service.  He received an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan.

Joshua Schulman-Marcus (Treasurer) is a fourth year medical student at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.  He is currently spending a year in research at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston funded by the Sarnoff Cardiovascular Fellowship.  His current research focuses around the treatment of heart disease in India.  Joshua is especially interested in the growing impact of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes in developing countries, and he is a chief contributor of articles written about this emerging global health issue for The Lancet's student web site.  Joshua graduated from Brown University in 2004, where he studied Biology.

Patricia V. Symonds is a medical anthropologist and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Brown University.  A Brown alumna (A.B., 1979: Ph.D., 1991), her research focuses on the impact of culture, political economy, and cosmology on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. She specializes in the impact of HIV/AIDS on minority hill dwellers in Thailand.  Professor Symonds is responsible for bringing together the original founders of Project Muso, who were all at one point her students at Brown, and she has provided crucial guidance and support to Project Muso since its inception.

UBT Board of Advisors

Arachu Castro is a medical anthropologist trained in public health and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School (HMS) Department of Social Medicine. She is also Project Manager for Mexico and Guatemala at the non-profit organization Partners In Health (PIH). PIH, in concert with local sister organizations, aims to provide high-quality, comprehensive primary health care to people living in poverty. Dr. Castro’s work involves improving access to health care for populations living in poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Paul Farmer is co-founder of PIH. Beginning in Haiti in 1987 PIH has now expanded to include programs in Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, and the US. Dr. Farmer is also the Presley Professor at HMS and an attending physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston (BWH).

Jim Kim, who co-founded PIH with Farmer, recently stepped down as Director of the World Health Organization HIV/AIDS Department and Advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organization to return to Harvard, where he is now directing the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. He is also the Chair at the Department of Social Medicine at HMS and the Division Chief at the Division of Social and Health Inequalities at BWH.

Molly Melching, the founder and Executive Director of Tostan, has pioneered a model for women's education and community mobilization that has been implemented in thousands of villages in Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania, Somalia, and the Gambia. She is highly regarded for her expertise in non-formal education, human rights training, and social transformation issues.

Volunteers

Kate Brackney is Associate Editor of The Johns Hopkins Medical Letter. She is a Brown University graduate and Teach For America alumna, and she is currently coordinating Project Muso's grant-writing team.

Lucas Foglia is a graduate of Brown University. His photographs are exhibited nationally and he has received many grants and fellowships for his work. His photographs are included in permanent collections including the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, the Newport Art Museum, Light Work, Sprint Systems of Photography, the Margulies Collection and the Starr Foundation. In 2007, Lucas created a photographic series on the work of Project Muso, and some of his photographs can be seen throughout this site.

Rebecca Fox graduated in 2007 from Brown University, where she studied biology and public health.  She has worked in Mali both with Project Muso and the Global Alliance to Immunize Against AIDS.  Rebecca is interested in the intersections of public health and environmental conservation.

Addie Goss is the Morning Edition host and a reporter for National Public Radio's member station in Wyoming. She was formerly a production assistant at National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and was the news director at Brown Student Radio between January 2005 and May 2006. Addie coordinated Project Muso's ethnographic life-history research project in Yirimadjo in 2007. Two of her happiest times have been bicycling across the United States and eating beans in Mali. 

Kevin Hepner is the senior financial advisor for Project Muso. He works closely with the Project Muso team to enhance the efficiency and organization of our financial bookkeeping system, and he has developed organized and extendable accounting structures for our organization. A Certified Public Accountant, Kevin is the President and CEO of United South End Settlements, a 116-year-old nonprofit located in Boston's South End. He is an instructor of non-profit accounting and finance at Boston University and is the former Vice-President of the Judge Baker Children's Center. Kevin has served on many nonprofit boards and is currently the Board President of the South End Community Health Center.

Kat Johnson is on the ground in Yirimadjo through May 2009 as Project Muso's Education volunteer.  She graduated from Wesleyan University in 2006, where she majored in French and Sociology and spent a semester abroad in Cameroon.  Prior to joining the Project Muso team, Kat spent two years with Common Ground, a housing and community development organization in New York City. 

Amanda Sellers has provided crucial English-French translations for Project Muso's publications. She is currently a graduate student at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, where she is pursuing a degree in Transatlantic Relations and Comparative US-European Politics through a joint program through IEP-Paris and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She received a B.A. with Honors in International Studies and a B.A. in French from UNC-Chapel Hill.  For two years, she also taught early childhood French immersion classes in Maryland and in North Carolina.

Sangeeta Tripathi works with the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) in West Africa focused on strengthening national pediatric AIDS treatment programs. Sangeeta graduated from Brown having concentrated in international development, has taught in NYC public schools, and has spent a good bit of time working in Mali and throughout the region.  Sangeeta has provided crucial advice and support to Project Muso's efforts over the past year.

Tibet Sprague is a software developer for FuseCal.com who designed and developed this website.