Ayugi Ntambwe-Kalala is over the experiential learning aspect of BYU Public Health and is BYU Public Health’s internship coordinator. She joined Cougar Hall to talk about the exciting opportunities that are available to Public Health students.
Starting in the Public Health space, Ayugi gained her Public Health and Economics degrees at Westminster. After gaining her degree, she started working in food equity around the world and was working in the Department of Quality Assurance.
She applied to be the president of the Salt Lake Health Sciences Foundation at 23 years old and realized that while she wouldn’t have the largest chance, it was something that she could apply for.
She wasn’t hired, but impressed at the audacity of the application, she was allowed to apply for the role of program manager, which she would be hired as.
Here she would move closer to working in the fundraising field. She built off her skill set of building programs to help countries and people be able to switch over to healthier diets and to allow for longer and healthier lives.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ayugi was finishing up her MBA but wanted to be able to do more during this time.
Ayugi said, “We were stuck inside; politically it was not a great time for us to be around, and so we decided to leave. We were in Kenya for about a year and a half following that, where I launched a menstrual health company providing sanitary products.”
Ayugi was born and raised in Kenya. One of her largest interests is looking into menstrual health and helping to develop products for people due to the low quality of products people in developing countries usually receive.
Ayugi’s company was a large helper in giving clean products of good quality to women in Kenya and still actively operates even after Ayugi and her family moved back to the United States.
When the world reopened, Ayugi worked with organizations focused on vaccine equity. This time, though, led her to travel more, and the intense form of travel wasn’t working with her personal life.
“There were some significant health risks, like a cholera outbreak in Malawi two weeks after I left. I was thinking, man, I could have brought that to my kids. You know, just seeing that, perhaps it wasn’t the time or season for me to be doing that.”
After looking for a career that would allow her to spend more time with her children and family, she looked at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints education system and landed on BYU.
Here she has been able to work in a part-time role, being present for her family while leading the Applied Learning Experiences and being the lead internship coordinator.
Ayugi played a key role in helping develop the Applied Learning Experiences for students. Applied Learning is a way that students are able to work on actual research projects with a mentor and gain real-life work experience that can transfer to their résumés.
Ayugi explained, “The whole idea was going from a traditional internship where we had students go into a health department that they would never return to post-graduation. We kind of revolutionized that into applied learning… it’s an actual project that they’re working on, and so you get that hands-on experience.”
During these projects, students are working with actual professors and are gaining real-life research opportunities and experiences that will benefit them in their careers.
What the college wants to do is to invest in our students. BYU is investing in these students to allow them opportunities to grow. Ayugi points out that the department wants students to jump at these chances.
Ayugi said, “You could just apply for the funds; that would be great because they get you an opportunity to experience something cool while building your résumé for what life looks like post-graduation.”
Ayugi has lived a full life in the Public Health field and is helping bring those incredible experiences to students so they can have as successful and fruitful careers as Ayugi has had.
To hear more, listen to the Y Health Podcast with Cougar Hall here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1861280/episodes/18100281