Student Spotlight: Yuki Davis ‘15

Name: Yuki Davis ‘15

Hometown: Bristol, Vermont

Concentration: Development Studies

How did you start working with the Mali Health Organization Project? My relationship with the Mali Health Organizing Project began freshman year, when I was a lost first year trying to find a place to call my own. I was starting to problematize and critique the traditional development paradigm but I still wanted to contribute in some way, and Mali Health seemed like an important alternative focused on the community in which it worked.

What is the Mali Health Organization Project? Started a few years ago by a Brown student, Mali Health aims to implement programs that encourage health change, not charity. I have since led the student group for three years, which has been an incredible crash course in non-profit management and student organizing.

And how did you work with them translate into your thesis? In order to culminate my relationship with the organization, I decided to write my thesis on the organization’s community health workers and their relationship to their work. I spent my past summer doing a practicum in the field, contributing to grant reporting, surveying, and the monitoring and evaluation of the organization’s community health worker program. It was a summer that was equally challenging and reporting. Based on these experiences, my thesis examines the ways in which health workers are a case of community-grounded development, and the influence of this in their relationships with their beneficiaries and the aid organization.