Meet the Founders

Christinah Hambira, Botswana

Christinah Hambira teaches Setswana and serves as a guidance counselor at Tsabong Unified School in Tsabong, Botswana. Christinah has been a teacher for 23 years and has received the prestigious, nationally recognized Project of the Year award in 2014 for her work in Guidance and Counseling. Christinah presented internationally at the Parenting and Africa Network conference on teen parenting challenges in Malawi in 2013 and Uganda in 2014.

Christinah participated in the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program in the U.S. at Indiana University from August to December of 2015. During her stay, Christinah conducted a study on teenage pregnancy, its challenges, and intervention measures that are in place in the U.S. educational system. Christinah’s project was titled “Causes and Effects of Teenage Pregnancy and Parenting that Hinders Girl’s Full Access to Education.”

Christinah’s professional goals are to influence educational policies that would promote access and equity to education by teenage pregnancy dropouts, help schools create a conducive learning environment for teen mothers that is cognizant of the challenges they face, and to have a stake hold involvement in fighting teenage pregnancy by engaging in activities that promote positive parenting.

J.P. Gairhan, United States

J.P. Gairhan is a graduate of the University of Arkansas who graduated cum laude with a degree in African and African American studies, history, and political science. J.P. has a history of professional service having worked as a congressional intern for U.S. Representative John Lewis and served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member with the Sunflower County Freedom Project. J.P. also began training for a Peace Corps assignment in Kathmandu, Nepal before the program was ended prematurely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2022, J.P. served as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Botswana in the country’s inaugural Fulbright teaching cohort. During his nine-month period as an ETA, he lived and worked in Tsabong, a town in the Kalagadi District.

Currently, J.P. is working with the Emmet Till Interpretive Center in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, promoting transformative change and racial reconciliation.