{"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":"2026-09-08T16:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T20:53:08","slug":"heather-mcalister","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/undergraduate-studies\/alumni\/heather-mcalister\/","title":{"rendered":"Heather McAlister"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-5xl  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n            <div class=\"cu-textmedia flex flex-col lg:flex-row mx-auto gap-6 md:gap-10 my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 max-w-5xl\">\n        <div class=\"justify-start cu-textmedia-content cu-prose-first-last\" style=\"flex: 0 0 100%;\">\n            <header class=\"font-light prose-xl cu-pageheader md:prose-2xl cu-component-updated cu-prose-first-last\">\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] pb-5 after:w-10 text-cu-black-700 not-prose\">\n                        Heather McAlister\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                                \n                            <\/header>\n\n                    <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":6497,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cu_dining_location_slug":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_page_type":[],"class_list":["post-6553","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6553"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6962,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6553\/revisions\/6962"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_page_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/africanstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_page_type?post=6553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}