ICI Partners with AUCD to Host ADA International Fellows from Tanzania and Kenya (MA UCEDD/LEND)

June 16, 2017

The Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) worked with the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) on the ADA International Fellowship Program on Inclusive Education, which is sponsored by U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, to host Fellows from Tanzania and Kenya. Heike Boeltzig-Brown and Miwa Tanabe worked with AUCD to identify and recruit 20 mid-career professionals from Brazil, Kenya, Peru, and Tanzania, who have come to the US for 5 weeks and are working with faculty and staff at UCED's around the states. The Fellows learned about best practices in inclusive education in the U.S. and then will apply what they learned in an individualized inclusive education project or initiative that they will implement upon return to their home countries.

The ICI is honored to have hosted Monica Norbert Mbelle, from Tanzania, and Maria Monchari Omare, from Kenya. Monica works as the regional director of the Vocational Education and Training Authority (VET), a government agency where she organizes and coordinates the implementation of VET policies and guidelines as stipulated in the country's legal framework. She worked with assistant dean Sheila Fesko and program coordinator Kaitlyn Siner. Maria is the executive director of the Action Foundation, an NGO that promotes inclusion of people with disabilities through community-based rehabilitation, advocacy, and art. She worked with SGISD PhD student Marian Brown and assistant professor Valerie Karr.