Caley Mikesell is one of eight fellows from around the world spending June and July in rural India to help research and develop holistic programs aimed at improving conditions for impoverished villages.
SEEKHO is a nonprofit organization that works to create cultures of learning, facilitate education, and empower local teachers and “changemakers” to achieve holistic development in villages across the nation.
Seven additional Fellows from the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and other international institutions have joined Mikesell in India. The team currently is conducting research on existing outreach and education models, and developing new methods and areas for outreach.
Mikesell has a primary leadership role in using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to create a report of existing SEEKHO education modules, which include examining and developing the role of narratives in SEEKHO and to facilitate group discussions/workshops to examine SEEKHO’s sustainability and internal public health practices.
The public health studies major from New Jersey learned about the fellowship when she attended the 2013 Transformative Education Summit in Raleigh on behalf of the university’s Periclean Scholars, of which she is a member.
In addition to her studies and the Periclean Scholars program, Mikesell has been active with the Phi Kappa Phi honor society, Elon Volunteers!, and the Village Project reading program. She intends to spend the fall semester in Ecuador and Winter Term 2016 in Honduras.
– Information submitted by Esther Gonzalez Freeman & Marcus Elliott, Watson & Odyssey Scholars Program