Pingree School features alumnus and EFA Co-founder Rachel Hoy Deussom
July 31st, 2011 by bobebill
Rachel Hoy Deussom (’99) is co-founder of Education Fights AIDS (EFA) International. After graduating from Georgetown University in 2003, she served as a Peace Corps
community health volunteer in northern Cameroon. During her service, a fellow volunteer, Andrew Koleros, introduced Rachel to a concerned group of HIV-positive youth, which became EFA’s original HIV-positive youth support group in February 2005. In 2006 they officially established EFA International as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with the mission to promote the successful future of HIV-infected and –affected African youth through education, enterprise, and empowerment. EFA International urther develops the work that these volunteers started during their Peace Corps service and has grown to include both returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) and other individuals that care deeply about youth and the development of sub-Saharan Africa.
Since the Peace Corps, Rachel received her M.Sc. in Global Health and Population from the Harvard School of Public Health. Rachel and her husband Gabriel are currently based in Washington, DC where she works for the World Bank on health and HIV projects in Africa. Her work has brought her to India, Liberia, Mali, Malawi, Niger and Southern Sudan, but her heart remains in Cameroon.
For more information about EFA and how you can support the work being done, go to http://efainternational.org/ or http://educationfightsaidsinternational.cmail5.com/t/ViewEmail/y/8422986F856E06CB/14333B19E7948F6244D0DD5392A9C75A
(from the Pingree School blog)
