Sewit Yohannes is a senior at Michigan double majoring in Afroamerican and African Studies and Biology, Health and Society. She is also a conference organizer and former research team member with a strong passion for global mental health. After graduating in May 2022, she hopes to go into the Peace Corps before continuing with research and post-undergrad schooling.
Lily Cesario
What was your journey like deciding on a major at Michigan? How did you finally decide on DAAS and Biology, Health and Society?
Sewit Yohannes
Yeah, so I think I was really kind of stressed about finding a major because, as everyone is, my parents were pretty involved in what they wanted me to do. So, I came in thinking that I wanted to be pre-med. And I’m still on that same track. But especially near the beginning of my sophomore year, I really wanted to do something. My family’s from East Africa and so I was really, really interested in African Economics at that time. I still am. And so, I kind of found myself just naturally gravitating towards studies within DAAS.
And so I think near the beginning half of my sophomore year, I wanted to do Biology, Health and Society because I knew that was kind of a way that I could get some DAAS classes within my kind of typical, pre-med requirements. But, I kept on coming back to different classes from DAAS and I was like, I might as well, like these are all my electives. I might as well just major because I was having so much fun and I really, really enjoyed the professors. I kind of just, perhaps, gave into my desires. I really, really enjoyed it.
Cesario
Do you have an area of focus within the DAAS major?
Yohannes
Yeah, I have taken a lot of Global Health Classes, so health within African contexts and things like that.
I’m really interested in mental health and specifically interested in global mental health and kind of the intersections of culture, mental health and primary care. So, like I said, I’m the child of immigrants from East Africa and so, actually, this past –– two weekends ago, I organized a conference on global mental health and was really. really pushing getting people, getting professionals from the African continent to speak because I thought that was really important.
And even in my classes, I’ve been trying to gear final papers or research projects within those classes to talk a little bit more about traditional healing and mental health. Yeah, just trying to put a spin on the mental health care system and using that as a way to research a topic that I’m really interested in already.
Cesario
Have you carried that research outside the classroom yet or do you plan to in the future?
Yohannes
So last summer actually, I was able to do research with a team at Boston Children’s Hospital and they work with immigrant communities around the country. They developed an adaptation to psychotherapy and are implementing those programs, comprehensive, community-based programming in these different immigrant communities.
For example, there is a large Somali population in Boston, as well as immigrants from Latin America. They also work with Congolese and Bhutanese communities - really communities from all over the world! They also place a lot of importance on cultural humility, and create connections with cultural brokers to make sure that each program is relevant to the community. I thought it was really cool that they emphasized kind of individualized plans and not necessarily using a one-size-fits all solution, which tends to be a case when something’s trying to be as efficient or most effective as possible, which tends to be the case for a lot of mental health care systems around the world.
Cesario
Within that project, how did your approach and research change for those populations versus the one-size fits all solution?
Yohannes
Yeah, so it’s kind of interesting. I took this one class kind of in the midst of my learning more about global mental health and I took AAS 309, which I think is called “Global Health in African Contexts” with Professor Ashforth, Ph.D.,, I focused a lot of my research mental health in African contexts –– like on the continent in Africa and thinking about, specifically, traditional healing and how to integrate that into kind of primary healthcare systems. And so with that, I was really, really, interested in how can one adapt psychotherapies to different communities. As you probably know, Freud, Stringer, these massive founders that are very white, European, like, typical, middle-class, and how can you adapt things like that to groups who may not fit that identity, necessarily.
And so, working with this group –– I don’t know if this will necessarily answer your question. But, I was looking at a lot of different webinars and trying to figure out, are there people studying the same thing? Like, it can’t be just me thinking about this. So, I was looking at a lot of cool webinars and found this really cool group and kind of cold emailed them and was like, “Hey, I like what you’re doing. Can I help?” And, you know, it worked out really well.
So, I think, just, in general, kind of one thing that I’ve taken from them was this idea of cultural humility and cultural competence. A lot of people tend to highlight cultural competence a lot in saying like, you can only work with these groups if you know everything there is to know about this culture, but like, you can’t. And even, like, as a person within this cultural framework, like you can’t even know that. There’s just so much to know, so much information.
So, one thing that I’ve kind of taken away is, yes, it’s important to know these things about a culture when working with people, but also, grounding yourself in this idea of cultural humility and knowing that you can’t know and you’re really here to learn. And it should be a mutual relationship where you kind of co-voyage together with a community or with this individual when you’re working with them to care for mental health.
Cesario
With the traditional healing that you mentioned, did you see that brought into the mental health work that you were researching or working on?
Yohannes
Yeah, so we didn’t touch on a lot of things regarding traditional healing. But in this conference that I organized, I really wanted to learn more, so I invited some people from Ghana and from Indonesia to talk about traditional healing and the advocacy they do and the policy work that they do to really give voice to traditional healers and this already-existing system that people use to treat mental health care, mental ill-health, we should say.
So because in some places mental health care just is not accessible or doesn’t exist in some cases, people have often used spiritual and traditional healers to work through problems. So I wanted to learn more about what kind of work was being done to try to empower people within those systems and also making sure that there are guidelines and regulations in working with them so that it’s a safe choice while also ensuring plurality for patients.
Cesario
What has been your favorite part of the DAAS major?
Yohannes
I think perhaps the favorite part, I really have enjoyed––I’m sure this is kind of a typical answer–– but I really have enjoyed being with the professors.
One thing that I’ve found really cool––I had my very first DAAS class with Howard Stein, Ph.D., and he’s just incredibly––he’s super, super cool. But that was back when I thought I was going to be in African Economics and he was telling me how DAAS is unique in that you don’t have to necessarily, categorize yourself as a professor under specific departments and so he, though he trained as an epidemiologist, does a lot of work in African Economics. So I mentioned, “Why aren’t you in the Economics department?” But in the Econ department, apparently, there isn’t a ton of flexibility to be interdisciplinary. But in DAAS, he said you are kind of able to connect those two fields in a lot of different departments. And so what I love about DAAS is how interdisciplinary it allows the professors to be in their work and it’s super cool how that translates and manifests in classes, and how they teach, and their styles and so even taking a class with Dr. Ekotto––and I think it was AAS 200––it’s just that idea of this interdisciplinary emphasis on how you approach concepts and solutions and a lot of different readings regarding the African continent. It mirrors how you would approach problems in the real world, I think. And that was really refreshing.
Cesario
How, if at all, has DAAS shaped your future career plans?
Yohannes
I’ll go back to this AAS 309 class a lot because I think it helped me realize that of course, I wanted to be a psychiatrist, a doctor, but I had this really strong passion in doing something related to my roots as a child of immigrants from Africa,but I didn’t necessarily know how one could approach that. So that class specifically helped encourage me to do research and find my bearings in a way that was very individualized.
It really was a wonderful time for me to make sure that the interests that I wanted to talk about was a thing that I could spend a lot of time researching and writing about, no matter how related it was to the specific material we may have talked about in class.
Cesario
Do you have any plans for after school that have been influenced by DAAS?
Yohannes
I’m still trying to figure out what my plans are. I think I would love to do research, continuing the same way that I’m doing or just work with mental health in a field like this.
Or what I’d really also love to do is be in the Peace Corps and go to East Africa and work in a village there or something Peace-Corps-related. I am not quite sure yet what that would look like, but I really want to do something on the continent of Africa before I go topost-undergrad schooling.
Cesario
Have you had any unique opportunities as a result of majoring in DAAS?
Yohannes
One thing that I’ve been able to do was an independent study project with Professor Ashforth. So I’ve been working with the research group that I worked with last summer and him to hopefully do an independent study research project culminating in a poster next semester. I still have many, many things to do for that, but that was really, really cool and something that . . . I knew I wanted to continue this kind of research on the side, hopefully. And I knew I was going to do something, even if it was outside of school, just independent research, and so it was wonderful to be able to work so closely with a professor that has a lot of interest in the field and has been able to guide me in finding research or different topics within the field.
Cesario
You said that you organized a conference as well, correct?
Yohannes
Mhm.
Cesario
Can you tell me more about your journey into organizing that conference and how that turned out?
Yohannes
Yeah, for sure. So I guess my journey starts last year around this time. I was an attendee at this conference. It’s called “Global Mental Health: Today and Tomorrow.” That was the first time that I put a word or a phrase to the things that I’ve been thinking about, about kind of this idea of like where does culture fit into mental health.
So after attending this conference, I really wanted to take part in organizing it in this upcoming year and, a ton of different things happened and I ended up being the chair, which was actually really cool, so we started organizing in early June, to make a four-day conference as I said, this past weekend. So I kind of helped connect a couple different teams, one that was focused on speaker recruitment and making sure that panels were diverse, well-represented, not necessarily just in their identities, but also in the career plans and the careers that were represented on the panels. I also worked with another group that was focused on marketing the conference and another that was called special content and was focused on developing opportunities outside of the panels for participants to connect. So we really made sure that there were networking and mentorship opportunities and workshops. We also had an artist showcase. So we brought in artists from all over the world to showcase their art and how they use that tomake change in their communities in regard to mental health awareness. One thing that was really cool –– we had a partnership with an organization in Kenya and they had maybe like fifteen people from ages eighteen to around thirty who were people with lived experience and advocates within their own community. So we worked with them to make sure that they had an active role in the panels. So I held a training session for them trying to help moderate some of the panels. And we did a lot of marketing toward people on the continent. So there were a lot of people who were kind of fledgling mental health professionals, or interested in the field, or students who ended up coming. That was really cool. It was called “Global Mental Health: Agents of Change,” and so the whole point was that we would no matter what your passions were, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that you were interested in a clinical field or, psychology, psychiatry –– stuff like that, but something that you could use your passions, whether it was in policy, in government, or art, whatever, and use that to make change in your community –– something that’s kind of localized, grassroots-led. That was kind of the conference in a nutshell.
Cesario
Have you spent much time networking within DAAS and if so, what has your experience been like?
Yohannes
Yeah, yeah. This is a really good question. I’ve been trying to make pretty good connections with my professors and they’ve been just really, really receptive and kind. Dr. Boisseron –– I checked in with her periodically because she’s writing a book and so after my classes last semester, I would stay over and ask questions and she was always just very, very willing to chat and talk about her professional life and the research that she’s doing. I don’t know if I’ve necessarily done a lot of formal networking and perhaps that’s something that I can look forward to doing next semester, but I have been informally trying to pick the brains of the professors and the people that I’ve been interacting with in the office because they have a lot to offer.
Cesario
What about networking with other students or anyone else in DAAS?
Yohannes
Yeah, it was tough because I didn’t declare or start taking many DAAS classes until my junior year, so I took most of them my junior year, which was all online. So it was a little bit tougher, but I did take one class for my upper level writing requirement and I ended up making really good friends with some of them and we call each other paper-writing buddies. So we’d call two nights or a night before the paper was due and we’d write and bounce off ideas and it was really helpful just to have someone to talk to. And we’ve continued that friendship along. And then now that I’m in one DAAS class right now and they really focus on working in small groups and that also has been really helpful in kind of finding our way through this class.
Cesario
What has your experience been like being a part of the DAAS community?
Yohannes
Yeah, I’m not going to lie, of the two majors that I’m in, (DAAS) is my favorite, by far. I’ve had a lot of fun. Everyone’s just very, very willing and open. I go sometimes just to take a walk in the DAAS office in Mason and it’s just so colorful that it’s nice sometimes just to like, take in the vibes. And I always find someone who’s willing to talk or has their door open or really anything. And so, it’s just, it’s been wonderful –– the classes, the things we learn, the things that we’re able to take out of it and also just the conversations that I’ve had with professors and people in my classes. I’m really fortunate.
Cesario
Do you plan to pursue further study in Afroamerican and African studies after undergrad?
Yohannes
Not formally. I don’t think I’m going to be going to grad school for it unfortunately, but I became friends with a couple of African Studies grad students here. You know how there’s an exchange program where people come from Ethiopia and study here for a year and come back?
Cesario
I didn’t know about that one specifically, but I’m interested to hear about it.
Yohannes
So there’s always at least a couple people who come from Ethiopia to study here. So I have a couple of family members in Ann Arbor, really extended family members, and they always end up meeting up and inviting these exchange students to dinner. So I’ve been able to spend a lot of time hanging out, and talking to them and learning more about their research. Last year, there was a really cool guy who came to do research in SMTD about theatre or something like that and also someone with urban planning. It was really the diverse interests that they were able to bring to come here, on my end to be able to pick their brains and have conversations about what their life is like there and how they’ve been enjoying researching here. It has really been such a treat.
Cesario
Have you read any interesting books or papers during your time in DAAS?
Yohannes
Yes –– so in my African Studies 200 class with Dr. Ekotto, we started reading, among other people, Frantz Fanon. And Dr. Ekotto really opened my eyes. I started reading a lot by him and she gave me a lot of really, really great recommendations. I remember emailing her in the summer and asking her to send me a list of books. So I came through a lot of books, both like, nonfiction from Frantz Fanon, Aime Cesaire and others. Also fiction books by Yaa Gyasi. But a really, really important one that I honestly still need to read is called “Black Skin, White Masks” by Frantz Fanon. I’ve been reading a couple others by him, but that’s a pinnacle that I’m trying to get my hands on hopefully this winter break.
In terms of papers, one thing that got me super interested in global mental health and opening my eyes to psychotherapy was this paper from AAS 309 that I mentioned earlier. I researched about someone called Thomas Lambo who started Psychiatric villages. They’re called psychiatric villages. And so instead of putting people in asylums, he created this kind of collaborative approach where people with mental-ill health would go live with a host family who would be subsidized by this psychiatric village. So they would live and be able to work and lead kind of productive lives. And then as another part of their support system, they would have traditional healers and other kinds of primary health care, mental health care professionals in a hospital nearby. So they would kind of work with this host family, and live with them, and then receive care from this hospital. And this was something that was probably done in the 60s, 70s and 80s, so really just like, super, super forward thinking. And I was able to get my hands on papers from him, people who had done similar projects through this class, which is something that I kind of take with me everywhere I go.
Cesario
It sounds like a lot of really good books and papers coming out of the major.
Yohannes
For sure.
Cesario
Have you had any favorite classes or professors within the DAAS major?
Yohannes
I’ve mentioned professor Ashforth many times. I think his class opened my eyes a lot to what the possibilities are for global health in African contexts, but also taking time to think about what my place is in the field as someone who has lived in the U.S. for her entire life. I’ve also loved chatting with Dr. Boisseron. She was also really instrumental in making the winter semester during Covid bearable. She was really supportive and I had a lot of fun in our post-class conversations.
One other thing: I really loved AAS 200, which is a class that everyone has to take, but I’m so glad they do because it really does center African Studies within a global context and talk a lot about the just different influences, not just from colonialization, but from Cuba and China, other countries that have impacted the continent and its globally integrated economy. So I learned a lot from that class as well.
Cesario
Do you have any insights or advice to share with new and/or prospective DAAS majors?
Yohannes
I think besides the typical, like, meet your professors ‘cause they’re really, really cool –– I would also tell them perhaps, don’t be afraid to make it your own. I think there’s a lot more flexibility in a class than the syllabus necessarily will give you straight off the bat. But teachers are really flexible and willing to work with you if you want to write about something that’s maybe slightly off the beaten path,something that’s maybe really important or interesting to you. So I would say to not be afraid to make that happen. I’ve been able to learn so much and have really rewarding experiences with professors and with these projects in a way that I may have not had the flexibility to do in another department. So I think that’s something that I would really push.
Cesario
Those are all of the questions that I had. Do you have any questions that you want to add, or anything else you want to share?
Yohannes
I said this many times before, but I just really appreciated the interdisciplinary nature of everything. I think that the papers that you’d write and the books that you’d read and everything were super reflective of the kinds of things that would happen in everyday life in terms of the super different fields that you would think don’t necessarily interact or interact as often, but how connected they can be and how connected they are when impacting the lives of people on the ground. So I’ve been pretty blessed to be a part of a department that emphasizes that in its work.
Cesario
A question that came up for me is how that interdisciplinary nature of DAAS carried over to your dual major with Biology, Health and Society?
How have you been able to blend those two things during your time at Michigan?
Yohannes
Well the good thing about BHS is that it does allow for a couple of classes to be global health-centered and so one thing that I really appreciated is –– I’m taking a class currently, with Dr. Fadlalla who, we don’t necessarily spend a lot of time talking about hospitals, or healthcare in African contexts necessarily, but we talked a lot about the body and how things like gender, race and class –– really a lot of external factors –– how that impacts how we see women’s bodies.
So something, kind of super tangentially related, actually had a lot to do with really poignant topics that may not be something that BHS necessarily considers as biology or health, but definitely having something to do with the society part. So you can kind of make it your own. We’re currently doing our final paper on refugee mothers and how they’ve been impacted by xenophobia and nationalism across borders. And I think that’s really relevant to the medical field, but not necessarily something that people associate with Biology and instead relegate it to anthropology or other social studies. But really, they’re all quite interconnected.
