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Alison A. Pflepsen

Biography

When Alison Pflepsen was 17, she spoke at the U.N. conference on women in Beijing as the northern hemisphere representative on International Youth Day. She talked about her first encounter with discrimination, when a grocery store manager would hire only boys. At the same event, she recalls, "Young women from Asia and Africa talked about girls' problems in their countries, such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation."

The experience humbled Alison and became a catalyst for her activism. Since graduating summa cum laude from Northwestern University, she has coordinated a regional AIDS education program in Namibia and worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural health education in Senegal. Her Peace Corps experiences profoundly affected her desire to pursue a career in international development. She was particularly saddened to see many girls married off before they had finished elementary school, while older women lamented their lack of education, which prohibited them from supporting their children. In contrast, while helping a non-profit organization manage a scholarship program for African girls, Alison saw the transforming effect that education has on a girl's life.

Today, Alison's goal is to pursue a degree that will allow her to build on her experiences and enhance her knowledge of international education issues and her skills as a program manager. She especially hopes to increase and improve girls' and women's educational opportunities and to design programs that sensitize boys and men to the issue of gender equality. Alison plans to continue to focus her work on Africa, particularly francophone West Africa, Muslim communities, and rural populations.

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