Niwot's Eloise Shehan to intern with Mwebaza

Eloise Shehan, an alumna of the Dawson School and a former Niwot Elementary School student, recently secured an internship with The Mwebaza Foundation, a Niwot-based nonprofit organization started by retired Niwot Elementary School (NES) teacher Dale Peterson in 2008. The Mwebaza Foundation began as an avenue for penpal friendships between Niwot and Ugandan school children and became a larger cause.

Uganda is beautiful, with fertile soils, high biodiversity, rich vegetation, and abundant water resources. Like many African countries, Uganda continues to grapple with colonialism's legacy, which eroded indigenous customs, languages and way of life. This fueled the second-highest population growth rate in the world, post-conflict conditions in the north, land degradation, malaria, and HIV, helping to contribute to a school environment where tuition fees are charged for public education.

The Mwebaza Foundation has strived to assist Uganda by developing an innovative business model that utilizes social enterprises. These social enterprises foster economic opportunity without relying on generational dependence on non-profit aid, and unite local community members and schools by establishing small businesses. The revenue generated from the small businesses is shared between the local community members and the school, lowering the school's operating expenses and reducing students' tuition.

The Mwebaza Foundation (Mwebaza) partners with 10 schools in Colorado and four schools in Uganda.

Niwot Elementary School, utilizing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, recently hosted a lively annual event called Mwebaza Days during which the children explored global issues and their impacts through local and international lenses.

Shehan participated in Mwebaza Days while a student at NES, where she wrote pen pal letters to students in Uganda.

Shehan said, "Although the letters were abstract due to the distance, I loved reading them, video-chatting, and interacting with my peers in Uganda." In 2020, just before her high school graduation, she contacted Devaki Douillard, the Executive Director of Mwebaza, with a proposal to gain hands-on experience by traveling with the organization after graduating. However, the onset of COVID-19 put all plans on hold.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Shehan took a gap year to explore farming in Martha's Vineyard, where she experienced the rewards of her hard work firsthand. However, she soon decided to shift her focus from a more exclusive environment to communities with limited resources. This realization led her to apply to Vanderbilt University to study environmental science, with a focus on climate studies and data science.

According to Shehan, climate studies is a new major at Vanderbilt University designed to be interdisciplinary, allowing students to take courses in areas such as economics and corporate responsibility. She is also minoring in data science, noting that "data can be skewed."

Her goal is to collect and present data in a way that removes biases and makes it accessible to everyone. "Academia is often not for the masses, it should be understandable for all and free from implicit biases," she explained. She believes that AI can aid in reducing biases by gathering diverse, unbiased perspectives.

Shehan sought a new experience with a deeper sense of purpose and was thrilled to secure an internship with Mwebaza. She said, "Mwebaza teaches students interconnectivity by creating and having cross-cultural conversations between people in different countries. Conversations with students worldwide makes you realize the common problems we all have as global citizens."

Shehan wants to try different experiences, including permaculture, food-sovereignty, and service for others. Her overall goal is to get to know Uganda, traveling to the country with Mwebaza in the summer of 2025. Currently, Sarah Demmel, a Niwot High School teacher, is working with Mwebaza to restart a Mwebaza club and create a social enterprise in Niwot similar to what Mwebaza is striving to do in Uganda.

Mwebaza, a 501(c)(3) organization, is looking to increase its endowment through donations in the form of money or assets that Mwebaza can use to invest in its social enterprises in Uganda. Its endowment can give children access to quality education and tools to sustain and build their futures, clean water and sanitary bathrooms, and access to computers and the internet. It is Mwebaza's goal to create a model of self-sufficiency with schools throughout Uganda and the United States.