Dr. Bwanda Albert has more than a decade of experience in community engagement, cultural education, and youth advocacy. Born and raised in Roxbury, she attended Boston Public Schools and graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston, with a major in Africana and Latino Studies. She is a founding educator of the Social Justice Academy, a former Boston Public School, where she developed the Social Justice through the Arts extended learning program. Bwanda continued to work for Boston Public Schools in various leadership positions for almost ten years. She later lived and studied in Kingston, Jamaica at the University of West Indies in addition to volunteering and working directly with educators in the Dominican Republic. Her passion for cultural and global education granted her the opportunity to continue to travel and volunteer in various countries in Africa; Senegal, the Gambia, Morocco, and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. This is where she formed a partnership to support the Kate Orphanage School for Children without Families in Kampala, Uganda, and later founded the Institute for Pan African Cultural Education Inc. (P.A.C.E), a nonprofit organization that engages youth in cultural education through literacy and Arts in Boston. Some of Bwanda’s accolades are as followed, the International Service Award from the Boston Advisory Council for International Education, the Community Works Recognition Award for People, Justice and Social Change, the Outstanding Community and Family Engagement Recognition Award for Social Integrity, a Senior Fellow of the Global Education Policy Fellowship Program offered in collaboration with the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, D.C. Columbia University, Michigan State University and Beijing, China. Bwanda has presented at numerous National conferences and has been recognized as a “Community Champion” by The Boston Foundation, in 2018 and honored with the Dr. Martin R. Delany Community Service Award, for her work in Pan-Africanism and youth development in Boston. Bwanda’s most recent achievement is receiving her PhD in Global Inclusion and Social Development from the University of Massachusetts Boston and becoming the Director of the Graduate School of Education, at Lesley University. If speaking with Bwanda, she would tell you her proudest achievement is being a mom to her teenage son.
