{"id":6553,"date":"2014-10-22T10:52:44","date_gmt":"2014-10-22T14:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/?page_id=6553"},"modified":"2015-02-24T14:36:30","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T19:36:30","slug":"heather-mcalister","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/undergraduate-studies\/alumni\/heather-mcalister\/","title":{"rendered":"Heather McAlister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>African Studies is an interesting discipline because of how self-reflective it is. I spent much of my degree re-evaluating my passions and my motives for creating change on a continent I had never been to at the beginning of my degree. Through my engaging professors and my experiences in South Africa and Malawi, I started to understand what kind of change I wanted to make in the world and how I planned to do this. Introspection and critical thinking, two key skills I gained from African Studies, led me down my current path of working for more local changes in Ottawa.<\/p>\n<p>For the past two months, I have been employed at a local non-profit, <a href=\"http:\/\/justfood.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">Just Food<\/a>, which strives to create a food system that works for everyone. I have done volunteer management, fundraising campaigns, and marketing during my time there, and I still get excited to meet people who participate in the 50 community gardens we support across the city, or running into local farmers I know through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.savourottawa.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">Savour Ottawa<\/a> (one of Just Food&#8217;s many projects).<\/p>\n<p>The inter-disciplinary approach of African Studies prepared me well for the varied responsibilities I&#8217;ve handled at Just Food and I like knowing that the changes I support in my community have impacts on health and food security in other communities across the world as well. I hope that my experience on a local scale will help prepare me for more effective global work in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>African Studies is an interesting discipline because of how self-reflective it is. I spent much of my degree re-evaluating my passions and my motives for creating change on a continent I had never been to at the beginning of my degree. Through my engaging professors and my experiences in South Africa and Malawi, I started [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"parent":6497,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Heather McAlister - Institute of African Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"African Studies is an interesting discipline because of how self-reflective it is. I spent much of my degree re-evaluating my passions and my motives for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/undergraduate-studies\/alumni\/heather-mcalister\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/undergraduate-studies\/alumni\/heather-mcalister\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/undergraduate-studies\/alumni\/heather-mcalister\/\",\"name\":\"Heather McAlister - Institute of African Studies\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-10-22T14:52:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-02-24T19:36:30+00:00\",\"description\":\"African Studies is an interesting discipline because of how self-reflective it is. 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