Into Africa: Katherine Wycisk

Alumna turns her passion for caring for orphans in Uganda into a nonprofit.

Katherine Wycisk (’12) and Aid4Uganda co-director Shane Falconer with a child from a Ugandan orphanage.

Katherine Wycisk (’12) is volunteer co-director of Aid4Uganda, a nonprofit in Melbourne, Australia, that supports orphanages in Uganda. “It’s the only kind of work I could ever imagine doing, and it is the most incredible job in the world,” she says. All of the money raised by Aid4Uganda goes directly to care for children. She is currently raising funds to more than double the size of an orphanage just outside the capital city of Kampala to house 100 children.

Why are you so passionate about this cause?

I wish I knew! I just know that my purpose in this world is to try and make it a little better – cleaner, happier, less hungry – than I found it. I do not have any grand illusions about changing the world, because no one person could ever do that. Rather, I believe in joining the ranks of those idealistic people who keep fighting to make a vision of a better future reality, because I am sure that if enough people do join them, sooner or later, the world will become a better place.

When did your interest in Africa begin?

It actually dates back to high school; that was when I learned about the insurgency raging in northern Uganda and started getting interested in the country’s – and the region’s – politics and culture. As my interest grew, I began reading East African newspapers and started getting involved with organizations such as Gulu Walk and the Enough Project that worked for peace and development in East Africa.

How did you pursue that interest at Wake?

I majored in political science, with an unofficial focus on African Studies and international development. I wrote every research paper I could on Uganda and the surrounding region, and I started thinking about traveling to the area. I finally got my chance in the summer before my senior year, when I used funding from the Richter Scholarship to spend two months in Uganda, splitting my time between volunteering in the capital city district and doing research in the northern city of Gulu.

The trip was absolutely incredible; I got to talk American foreign policy with people actually affected by it. I got to play with kids, travel the country, and do field research. I got to try my hand at cooking Ugandan dishes, sleep in an orphanage, and tour NGOs working to rehabilitate the northern region. I came home not only with an enhanced understanding of Uganda and the East African region, but with a career.

What professors inspired you while you were at Wake Forest?

Katherine Wycisk and Shane Fulcmar with children at an orphanage in Uganda.

Dr. Thomas Phillips (’74, MA ’78) was my single greatest inspiration; he pushed me to travel, to research and to experience as much of life as I could. He helped me craft summer research projects, encouraged me to take classes I never would have considered for myself, and got me reading some of the most interesting books I have ever encountered. His mentorship helped me grow enormously as a person and a scholar, and it helped me figure out what I wanted from my life and my career.

How did you become involved with Aid4Uganda?

While I was in Uganda (through the Richter Scholarship), I met Shane Falconer, who was building an orphanage in a small suburb outside the capital city of Kampala. Shane was interested in expanding his work and creating a small charity focused on supporting orphanages throughout the country. It was an inspiring idea, and one that intrigued me. I could see that investing in children was the way to put the country’s people on the road to prosperity. Shane and I joined forces and established Aid4Uganda.

I know you worked for a year before you graduated with another Wake Forest graduate, the Rev. Taylor Field (’76), pastor of Graffiti Church in New York City. How did that experience affect you?

Graffiti was a wonderful experience because it showed me how powerfully beneficial grassroots charity work can be. Graffiti works primarily with the underprivileged population of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, providing services such as GED classes, a clothing closet for job interview attire, computer classes and a soup kitchen. Being involved in such an on-the-ground organization helped me see how investing in individuals and meeting them where they’re at is the best way to influence and develop a community.

Major: Political Science

Minors: Economics, Middle East and South Asia Studies

Hometown: Randolph, NJ

After graduation, Ken Meyer will head to the United Kingdom to study for a masters in international relations and politics at the University of Cambridge. His thesis will compare and contrast political polarization in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Q: What’s different about you since your first year on campus?

A: During orientation I probably drove my first-year roommate and my new hall mates insane as I spewed politics endlessly for the first few days. It’s a miracle that many of them are still my friends. I’ve always had a love affair with American politics. My vision for my life tracked toward managing campaigns and government offices at the national level. Though I’m still fundamentally the same bleeding-heart Democrat that walked onto campus four years ago, my time at Wake Forest and in North Carolina taught me to listen, to talk across geographic divides and to see the common humanity beneath our politics.

Q: What activities did you enjoy outside of the classroom?

A: I never planned on working in newspapers. I never wrote for my high school paper. I never wrote for my town paper. Newspapers seemed like a dying medium. When I followed a friend up to the newspaper office my first week at Wake, it was supposed to be a simple trade off. If I went with her to the first Old Gold & Black newspaper meeting, she would come with me to the first mock trial meeting. Four years later, she never once wrote for the paper, but I started working with the staff in graphic design and eventually made my way up the newspaper ladder to serve as the first-ever managing editor for online content. We built out a new online program for the Old Gold & Black that included a new website, new social media accounts, and a new mobile application. For someone who never planned on working in newspapers, I’m very proud to say that our staff and this program won Best of Show for Online News at the 2012 North Carolina Statewide College Media Awards. I’m also personally proud to say that this experience allowed me to volunteer my fall semester serving the White House as an intern in its Office of Digital Strategy.

Q: Did you study abroad?

A: Since coming to Wake Forest I’ve had the privilege of spending time in 10 different countries. The Outdoor Pursuits club took me backpacking during my first spring break through the Spanish island of Mallorca.  The city of Fez in Morocco opened its doors to me to conduct a research project on urbanization comparing its old and new halves. The fall semester of 2011 I attended the University of Cambridge through a Wake Forest study abroad program. The face of the world has changed even in my short lifetime. That’s why I was so happy to take advantage of Wake Forest’s commitment to send students abroad to learn about the world beyond our shores.

Q:. How have your major and minors worked together?

A: In my politics thesis, “Spring is for Parties.”  I argue that the Arab Spring in Egypt enfranchised the country’s citizens by creating a new multiparty democracy out of the former single-party autocracy. This thesis tied together each of the strands of my undergraduate education: the party research pulled together my political science major; the focus on Egypt closed my Middle East Studies minor, and the illustration of a revolution in a developing country anchored my economics minor.

Q: Who has most influenced you during your time at Wake Forest? 

A: Dr. Tom Phillips in the Wake Forest Scholars program has embodied this University’s dedication to mentorship. He’s been a constant adviser, aide-de-camp, ally and friend. I’ll always be grateful to him for the help he’s offered me in putting together research programs during each summer I’ve been at Wake Forest, guiding me through the rigors of academia, and finally, looking for post-graduate opportunities. Thank you, Dr. Phillips, from the bottom of my heart.

Q: What is your favorite campus spot?

A: The fifth floor of the Benson University Center. It’s a place that not many Wake students ever find if they’re not involved in campus media, but at night it offers one of the most incredible views of the Winston-Salem skyline.

Q: Your best advice for an incoming first-year student?

A: Don’t be afraid to spend time in Winston-Salem. Go to the Reynolda House; volunteer or speak at a local high school, or head downtown even for just an afternoon. For the rest of my life, I know I will always count the city beyond Wake Forest’s gates as a home to which I will look forward to returning.

Calling senior Meenu Krishnan, a history and political science double major, accomplished would be an understatement.

She has done research on the behind-the-scenes workers of Bollywood films in India, helped to register voters before the 2012 election and interned with The New Republic. Over her time at the university, she served as Editor-in-chief of the Old Gold & Black, Creative Director for 3 to 4 Ounces and President of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honors society. She also volunteered with El Buen Pastor her sophomore year and worked as a Spanish translator for a legal aid company downtown.

“She is multi-talented to a profound degree,” Tom Phillips, director of the Wake Forest Scholars program, said. “She is a great research analyst, a lover of politics, a fine writer, a capable speaker and a talented photographer. She graduates in the top 2 percent of her class, with honors. She has a mature independence but she also seeks inclusion in all forms.”

Meenu fell in love with history at a young age, when her father would teach her about things like the Roman Empire and the ancient Greeks.

“When I got to college, I realized history teaches you so many skills that you can apply to anything — writing, figuring out how to develop an argument, research. It really is a discipline that is connected to everything else. I have a lot of interest in the arts, in politics, in journalism and history gives me a way to connect all of that.” Her passion for the past translated into a history major and then a history honors thesis, something which Meenu credits as one of her two most rewarding experiences of her college career.

Her thesis examined the politics of a wave of Cuban exiles to the United States, who arrived in Miami in 1980.

“Meenu is passionate about the past and the ways it helps shape the present,” Michele Gillespie, professor of history at the university, said. “She is innately curious and willing and able to dig deeply into the scholarship and documentary record to get answers. She has a deep sense of social justice and believes in and uses the power of the pen to make change.”

The other rewarding experience? For Meenu, it’s her time at the Old Gold & Black, where she served as Editor-in-chief of the paper, and as News editor and Opinion editor. “I’ve learned as much at the newspaper as I have in the classroom,” she said. “I’m really going to miss the Wednesday nights in theOGB office. Once you’re gone, you start to miss it. There are so many good memories connected to those late nights. It’s been simultaneously the most hellish and most rewarding experience I’ve had at Wake.”

After graduation, Meenu plans to attend either Oxford or Cambridge to pursue her MPhil in Politics and International Affairs.

“Meenu will be successful at whatever she sets out to do and I imagine she will try on a number of hats over the course of her professional life,” Gillespie said.

“I truly look forward to her future. I know her wonderful sense of humor, keen sense of the absurd, innate compassion and all her academic gifts will see her through the world with true aplomb.”