Spotlight on
Marisa Grimes
CLASS OF 2008
After growing up in Singapore and studying in the US, this alumna landed a dream job working with farming families in East Africa—where she sees many similarities between Kigali, Rwanda and the Lion City! I was born in Singapore and spent my primary school years in international schools based on the British system. But then it was time to become more “fluent” with the US school system to prepare for high school and college. I attended Singapore American School for sixth and seventh grades, and I would have graduated with the Class of 2008 if I had stayed! I left Singapore with my mother in 2003 and moved to the US for the first time. I spent eighth grade through high school in upstate New York and then attended George Washington University in Washington, DC. After graduation, I spent a year teaching in Tanzania before returning to the US for graduate work at New York University. After receiving my Master's degree, I returned to East Africa, where I’ve spent most of my time since 2014 living in Tanzania and Rwanda.
elements for the program’s expansion, enrollment, impact and customer protection aspects. I work with a small team of amazing individuals, and we have a lot of fun as we think about how to better serve farmers every day. We work with 600,000 Rwandan farmers now, and we hope to serve one million farm families by the end of 2022! I studied international relations with a focus on East Africa in both my undergraduate and postgraduate programs, so living in East Africa comes as no surprise. However, joining the agricultural sector was totally unexpected! I thought I would work on access to education, but when I came across One Acre Fund during my job search, I was really drawn to their mission. I love that my work is mission-driven and that I can see how it affects the end user. For example, we put in a lot of effort to prepare for a regional expansion, and over the last month, we finally saw the fruits of our labor when more than 60,000 farm families from our new area signed up to join our program. COVID-19 has been a challenge for everyone across the world, but the situation pushed us to embrace technology a lot faster than we initially planned. Within months, all our village-based team members upgraded to smartphones and tablets—and they now fill out Google Sheets, take online quizzes, and communicate over email! It’s been a radical transformation and was a difficult shift at first, but it is definitely the doorway to even more innovation down the road.
This sounds funny to say, but in a lot of ways Kigali reminds me of Singapore! It is a clean and green city, despite being densely populated. It is extremely safe, well designed, and tolerant of difference, and there are people from all over the world living and working here. I’ve loved every moment of living in Rwanda so far this past year, and hope to stay for years to come. SAS affected me because it really showed what success looked like and helped normalize a drive to be the best you can be academically. Everyone studied hard, everyone was expected to put their best foot forward, and yet, teachers would give extra time to support you when you struggled. When I moved to the US school system, it was really helpful to have this as a base, as I was propelled to take advanced coursework and stretch myself and my abilities. In terms of my fondest SAS memories, I would pay a lot of money to go back to the cafeteria for roti prata day! That was my favorite! And one of my most meaningful memories was going on a Keyboards for Kids trip to Indonesia. It was one of the first times that I really saw what giving back could do and how even a simple programmatic change could unlock a cascade of improvements for someone. That’s definitely stayed with me— I have now made a career out of doing just that! But in all seriousness, it was all about the friends that I made while at SAS, some of whom I am still in contact with so many years later! My first week of college, I ran into a friend from SAS who I hadn’t seen in five years, and the boyfriend of my next-door neighbor was another SAS student I went to school with! Whenever I run into other SAS alumni, it brings a smile to my face to have this point of connection.
I currently live in Kigali, Rwanda and work for a nonprofit organization called One Acre Fund that serves farm families across the country by providing agricultural inputs on credit and training. I am the program design lead for the field operations team, which basically means I oversee the strategy design
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