Meet the 2021–2022 Menino Fellow: Gloria Ampadu-Darko

The Initiative on Cities (IOC) is pleased to announce Gloria Ampadu-Darko (CAS’24) as our 2021-2022 National League of Cities (NLC) Menino Fellow. Gloria is a sophomore majoring in International Relations with a minor in Political Science and Public Health. Her interests include international development, human rights, civil rights, and social justice. She aspires to pursue a career in which she can make a meaningful impact in one of these areas.

Gloria’s directed study will be centered around community health and wellness with a focus on housing. She will take a deep dive into the housing situation in four major United States cities: Boston, Washington D.C, Atlanta, and Orlando. Gloria will explore the extent to which local politics have caused discrepancies in the conditions of various neighborhoods, with an eye towards identifying ways to improve the wellbeing of struggling urban communities.

Gloria was born in London but raised in Ghana until she was four years old. She moved to the United States and grew-up in the metro Atlanta area. Her experiences of being from a developing country and growing up in a low-income neighborhood are what fuel her passion to bring about changes for others in similar situations. Gloria has interned with local nonprofits, engaged in cultural clubs in high school, and volunteered to tutor elementary school students. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, listening to true crime and self-care podcasts, journaling, reading, and going on picnics with her friends. On-campus, she currently works as an assistant at the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground and is involved in Charcoal Magazine.

We asked Gloria a few questions about her future plans and her interest in the fellowship.

What made you interested in applying for the NLC Menino Fellowship?

I’m the type of person that’s always looking for opportunities like internships, so when I received an email about a possible opportunity from one of the political science advisors I immediately checked it out. What made me interested in the Fellowship was the list of topics on which one could focus. So many of the topics were intriguing, but community health and wellness caught my eye because it is an issue that I recently became interested in. When I realized that the Fellowship would be the perfect chance to dive deeper into this topic with the directed study and the internship, I rushed to apply.

When did you become interested in cities?

I first became interested in cities in the summer of 2020, when I interned for a nonprofit organization called the East Lake Foundation. They operate in the East Lake neighborhood in Atlanta and work to maintain community health and wellness in East Lake by ensuring affordable housing, quality education, and more. During my time with them, I learned about how historical policies such as red lining and phenomena like gentrification negatively impact low-income communities in Atlanta. I became so immersed in Atlanta’s local politics that when I started college in the fall, I decided to study political science along with my previously planned major, international relations.

Your directed study will focus on community health and wellness with a focus on housing, why did you choose this topic?

My decision to focus on housing stemmed from my personal connection to the topic. Being from the metro Atlanta area, I have experienced and witnessed how gentrification has drawn people out of their homes, how the growing popularity of the city has dramatically increased housing costs, and how the severity of the homelessness issue is only growing. Knowing that this is currently a major issue in a lot of cities, like in Boston where the South End has become completely gentrified over the years, I had no doubt that this was the topic I wanted to study.

What are you most looking forward to in the Spring, during your internship with NLC?

I’m so ecstatic about working at the NLC, specifically with the Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute), because it will allow me to get involved in hands-on work that will directly contribute to efforts that help youth, families, and communities on a national level. Moreover, when speaking to Dr. Robert Blaine, the director of the YEF Institute, he informed me that the NLC is looking to expand the scope of their initiatives on cities to include African cities. As a West African native and an International Relations major with a focus on development in Africa, I was thrilled to hear about this, and I am extremely excited to see where this new project will go as well as how I can contribute to it.