Certificate in Community-Engaged Leadership
Patricia Muumba ’19
Hometown: Newton, Massachusetts
Major: Architecture
Minor: Education
I work with my community(ies) to address … access to education for children.
My friends would say I’m … passionate, dedicated and always smiling.
Fun fact: I am deathly afraid of heights, but I love to travel.
The best part about the Certificate in Community-Engaged Leadership i … Stage 3 [the capstone]. The conversations you are encouraged to have help you truly question your intentions, vision and impact in whatever you plan to do.
For my Stage 2 committed project, I … traveled to Kampala, Uganda, to work with Studio FH Architects as an intern. Studio FH Architects have a partnership with Cotton On Foundation to build schools in Rakai District. These schools are sustainable, with a biogas system and a rainwater collection system.
The idea behind this project, is to use the system of a school as a microcosm of the society. And that whatever happens in school can trickle down the community. If children have a rainwater collection system at school, they will ask their parents why they do not have one at home. If their kitchen cooks with biogas they will ask their parents why they use firewood.
While working with Studio FH, I inspected construction of schools that were going up, evaluated schools that were already in use and finally designed the new schools coming up keeping in mind what we have learned from the existing schools.
My community partner(s) taught me that … architects and designers have a say on bigger issues. The beauty of architecture is that it can respond to social issues in a more permanent way than many other professions, careers or forms of expressions. The built environment makes a permanent impact the question just remains, what kind of permanent impact is one making.
I’ve also learned that engaged leaders do not always have to be leading from the front. They lead through their actions.
Other projects and organizations I’m committed to include: Engage, Inspire & Empower, an organization I started in the Uganda community of Boston to support immigrant families through the process of getting acclimated to the American education system and workforce. I am also a co-founder and designer on The Muumba Project, an organization that is working to design and construct sustainable and contextually appropriate educational spaces in developing countries and communities.
I plan to continue my journey as an engaged leader by … growing the reach of the two organizations I am a part of right now: Engage, Inspire & Empower and The Muumba Project.
Certificate in Community-Engaged Leadership
Build on your interests and apply your experiences (from courses to extracurricular activities) to this program to develop the skills you need to be a community-engaged leader.