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PHII welcomes Godfrey Nyombi of the Young African Leadership Initiative
Piper Hale, MPH
This month, the Public Health Informatics Institute welcomes Godfrey Nyombi to a seven-week internship with PHII. Godfrey is a fellow from the Mandela Fellowship for Young African Leaders, a program of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI), which was created by President Obama to provide leadership training and mentoring to young people from Africa who are selected for their leadership potential. This year, YALI flew 500 young leaders from 49 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and placed them in academic and mentorship programs at institutions across the United States.
Vivian Singletary, Director of the Requirements Lab, and Godfrey Nyombi attend an event sponsored by the City of Atlanta.

We’re so pleased to be selected as a participating institution for this program, and to have Godfrey working with us until late September. Godfrey is from Tanzania, and his passion lies in public health care management. In the past, he has spear-headed initiatives to bring qualified health care workers to underserved rural areas of the country, increasing access to health care in these areas. He also maintains a long-term commitment to bolstering public health in Tanzania through better and more efficient human resources processes in the country’s health care system. Godfrey currently works as a Regional Health Secretary for the Mtwara region in Tanzania.

During his seven-week internship with us, Godfrey will be working closely with PHII’s Requirements Lab on ongoing projects. The Requirements Lab recently completed a project in Mozambique to optimize workforce planning for health care through more efficient human resources processes, with the end goal of scaling up HIV treatment capabilities throughout the country. This project may provide Godfrey with helpful concepts for his own work, and his participation in ongoing projects will also be tailored to his interests.

After his initial arrival to the U.S., when Godfrey completed training at Morgan State University, he and his cohort of 500 YALI Fellows were brought to Washington to meet with President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama during the YALI Presidential Summit.

There, the president told the assembled YALI fellows, “Even as Africa continues to face enormous challenges…we cannot lose sight of the new Africa that’s emerging…We are interested in Africa because we know that if Africa thrives and succeeds…we all grow.” Godfrey said it was gratifying to witness how “near and dear” the YALI program seems to be to the president, and to see the president’s interest in investing in the future of Africa.

For Godfrey, that future means empowering the youth of Africa to grow into the continent’s next generation of leaders.

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