Founder and Executive Director
Rebecca L Mitchell founded the Student Project Africa Network after volunteering at an orphanage and HIV/AIDS clinic in Kenya in order to enable other college-aged students to have similar life-changing experiences. She recently graduated magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a degree in Biology and International Health.
Rebecca has worked with the Positive Youth Development Program, as an embryonic stem cell research assistant, co-facilitated a health class for female Somali refugees, served as the Vice President of the U of MN Parliamentary Debate Society, and recently conducted obstetric hemorrhage research in Egypt through the University of CA San Francisco’s Women’s Global Health Imperative. This past year Rebecca received the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, the L’Oreal Paris Beauty of Giving Award, and was named a Glamour Top Ten College Woman and to the USA Today All-Academic First Team. She is currently working full-time as SPAN’s Executive Director and applying to medical school.
Deputy Director
Joseph Walla graduated from the University of Minnesota’s political science department in 2006 and is interested in developing creative solutions to entrenched conflicts. For his summa thesis, he examined how water scarcity in the Middle East perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how increasing its supply could reinvigorate negotiations. He interned with the State Department in Rome and is currently in Thailand studying as a Luce Scholar.
East Africa Regional Director
In addition to his work with SPAN, Leonard W Muyelele serves as the Director of Operations and as the Principal of the Pistis Education Center, which is where he and Rebecca first met. He holds a B.A. in Literature and Government from the University of Nairobi, and post doctorate in Project Management as well as being certified in Community Health Education. His time as a volunteer has taken him to Somali refugee camps as a teacher and a counselor, to Mombasa at the Wema Center for destitute girls, and with AMREST as a HIV/AIDS counselor and campaign coordinator in Nairobi. Leonard lives with his wife and four children in Nakuru, Kenya.
Executive Board Member
Abigail Walla recently moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles where she is attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Abby, who is the livelier of the Walla duo at working at SPAN, studied in the African Studies department at the University of Minnesota before moving to California and has always had a passion for the issues confronting Africa today. She hopes that this next year she will have the opportunity travel with SPAN as a volunteer to put her passion into service.
Executive Board Member
Cameron Dunkin has spent extensive time in Kenya over the past three years where he was teaching and completing agricultural, marketing, and medical projects for various SPAN placements, including development of three libraries. Most recently, he assisted SPAN Regional Direcor Amos Otieno in co-founding Baobab Branch Educational Programmes, an NGO designed to provide holistic and vocational education services to youth and young adults who have no other access to them.
Cameron and Rebecca met in Kenya, quickly joining efforts to find ways for youth to take active part in shaping a better world. Cameron graduated with a B.A. in Political Studies from Queens University, and has subsequently worked under Right Honorable Herb Gray in the International Joint Commission, and as President’s Intern at microfinance NGO Opportunity International Canada. Cameron serves as Country Coordinator and is currently applying for his master’s degree, while will be spending his summer teaching ESL and wakeboarding at a Special Needs Camp in northern Ontario.
Executive Board Member
Brad Beherns graduated with a B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota in 2005 and has since been active in various community organizations in Minneapolis. He tutored English to recent immigrants and refugees with the innesota Literacy Council and FIRE before spending extensive time in Asia traveling. Upon returning, he began working with The Center for Victims of Torture, speaking to the public about the issues of interrogation and how to ease the acclimation of torture victims into the Minneapolis/St. Paul community. He interned with the Amy Klobuchar’s U.S. Senate campaign and will be entering law school this coming fall.
Executive Board Member
Kai’s experience as a volunteer began at the age of 5 when he ventured with his family to central Baja, Mexico to work at an orphanage. In high school, Kai volunteered at the Ronald MacDonald House in Phoenix, Arizona and for the Guardian Angels citizen crime fighting organization in Phoenix and Chicago. Following graduation from the College of Architecture, School of Industrial Design, ASU in 1993, and then again in 1995 Kai ventured to rural Poland to work for a small, mountain church: first completing masonry projects and then to design, coordinate, and build a 2,000 sq-ft playground for the children of Salmopolska. In the summer of 2001, Kai ventured to northern Namibia, Africa to work with a high school to rebuild their computer lab. And in the summer of 2007, Kai worked through SPAN at Pistis, as described in his blog journal.
As the the founder and CEO of Terra Soft Solutions, a Colorado based Linux technology firm that specializes in high performance computing systems, Kai brings to SPAN his experience with web-based technologies for the management of communications, data, contacts, and projects to assist Directors, Volunteers, and NGO partners in conducting efficient, effective processes and projects.
Additional thanks!
SPAN offers its thanks to the supportive staff of Terra Soft Solutions, Chris and Jake in particular for their time, creativity, and expertise in helping shape the form and function of this new SPAN website.
And many thanks to L’Oreal Paris for a generous donation and well received award –thank you!