Recent Grad Dedicates a Year to Community Service
Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy graduate Samira Asseh received a 2022–2023 Project Horseshoe Farm Fellowship, a rigorous and intensive year of volunteer service and learning in the community health field.
As part of Project Horseshoe Farm’s Community Health Service program, Asseh will collaborate with local partner organizations in the healthcare, education, and nonprofit sectors. Fellows are trained to build relationships with “health partners”—seniors and other vulnerable adults—to provide home visits and support by attending medical appointments, navigating social services, health coaching, and more.
Other responsibilities include helping elementary school students with classwork, delivering necessary resources to families, and assisting neighbors who need stable housing.
“This fellowship offers a humbling opportunity to practice my passions to serve and support community level health while developing skills in cultural humility, professionalism, and medical ethics,” Asseh said.
Asseh, grew up in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and majored in human development and psychological services in the School of Education and Social Policy. As an undergraduate, she worked as a research assistant at Foundation of Health Research, which focuses on understanding health disparities.
With interests in health disparity and access to healthcare, Asseh served as an intern at Lurie Children's Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine. There, she worked on outreach projects to let nearby schools, churches, and community events know about the clinic’s free STI testing services.
She also helped edit and revise the Chicago Public Schools sexual education curriculum to ensure that the material was accurate and inclusive, and she facilitated online workshops teaching high schoolers who were interested in medical topics, including puberty, sexual health, contraceptives, and substance abuse prevention.
Asseh, she was also a member of the Afrothunda dance troupe and an ESL tutor at Centro Romero, is Northwestern’s eighth recipient of the Project Horseshoe Farm Fellowship. She is the second School of Education and Social Policy student to receive the fellowship; Pooja Kanthawar was the first in 2020.The fellowship includes housing and a monthly stipend. Asseh will be based in Pomona, California.