Below is a list of Malagasy LIME students who currently study at Lafayette College.
Narindra (’23) (She/her/hers)
Email address: andrison@lafayette.edu
Born and raised in Antananarivo, Madagascar, Narindra graduated from Lycée Andohalo Antananarivo Madagascar in 2015. After her high school graduation, among the many activities that she participated in was to volunteer as a community developer within One Way for Change (OWC), a Youth-led volunteer organization in Madagascar. In OWC, she participated in different projects such helping NGO Miray Fair Shop build libraries at rural places in Antananarivo, facilitating discussions during Business Start Up meetings organized by Mercatis & Co Madagascar, and providing hearing aids to people with hearing problems, events organized by Starkey Hearing Foundations. Then, in August 2019, Narindra joined the Lafayette community.
She is now a fourth year student double majoring in Psychology and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. One of her interests lies in issues regarding gender and social equity. Narindra has always been conscious of how gender roles can oppress certain minority groups such as women and has been studying this topic and how to alleviate this problem. In such, she worked as a Research and Reports Intern at Gender IDEAL during the summer of 2021 where she helped the company build an informative representation of how inclusive, diverse and equitable a company is in terms of recruitment and workforce development and what actions need to be taken to increase the diversity and to improve inclusion at the workplace. As a matter of fact, diversity in a workplace is beneficial for the productivity of a company. Narindra hopes to continue advocating for the importance of diversity in the community in the future.
On campus, some of Narindra’s extracurricular activities involve being a Kaleidoscope Social Justice Peer Educator and a Lafayette Interpersonal Violence Peer Educator. Kaleidoscope Social Justice Peer Educators encourage Lafayette student leaders to take an active role in campus education on issues of multiculturalism, equity and social justice, and Interpersonal Violence Peer Educators raise awareness about the severity and widespread impact of interpersonal violence and deliver prevention programming to address the foundational causes of interpersonal violence. Narindra’s goals in getting involved in these organizations are first, to be equipped with effective oral skills to lead and discuss difficult topics such as sexual assault, race and religion, skills that are essential in discussing these issues in countries other than the United States, and second to gain experience in how to take actions in the community and make tangible changes regarding issues of violence and social equity.
Aside from her interest in social issues, Narindra has also been involved in research at Lafayette. She was Professor Averett’s Research Assistant during the summer of 2021 in addition to her internship at Gender IDEAL. Professor Averett is writing a book about Child Care and Women Fertility and with her guidance, Narindra assisted with literature search and literature review on several key search terms to identify recent peer reviewed articles on select topics within the book. Some of these key research were “Covid-19”, “Child care”, “School closure”, and “Gender Equality”. She also provided brief descriptions of key findings of the articles.
She has also been an EXCEL Research Scholar in the Psychology Department at Lafayette College. She worked in Professor Talarico’s lab during her third year of college and performed different research projects including conducting hands-on, original psychological research on Jury Decision Making. In collaboration with a more senior student (Alessia Valentino), Narindra conducted a small-scale vignette study that examined the issue of blame attribution and punishment severity in a jury decision making context. Narindra is now doing research in the Lafayette Kids Lab from the Psychology department, assisting Professor Myers in designing, collecting and analyzing data for a longitudinal study about Grandparent and Grandchild Zoom study.
Narindra likes to cook Asian and Malagasy food, and her favorite Malagasy dish is rice with a mixture of fried beef, tomatoes and onions. She likes listening to Afro beats as well and one of her favorite African singers is Rema.
Narindra has been able to perform all these activities and to get a better Education all thanks to the LIME Program and to the help of everyone who donated to the LIME Program and to Lafayette College. In the future, she aspires to be a Clinical Psychologist, a Psychopharmacologist, or/and a social worker. One of her long term goals is to build a free rehabilitation center in Madagascar for people who struggle with substance abuse disorders such as Alcohol and Cocaïne.
Eliso (’25)
[Biography coming soon…]
Landy (’26) (She/her/hers)
Email address: rakotoal@lafayette.edu
Since that day, she has been involved in education and robotics, developing content learning to initiate teenagers in robotics. In 2021, she was selected to be a mentor of the Madagascar team and assisted them to build a CubeSat (nanosatellite) for the FIRST robotics championship.
Apart from STEM interest, Landy co-founded her small business in 2019, the business involves transforming trash into gas to provide an affordable alternative to charcoal in Madagascar and protect the environment. She has worked with many NGOs and the Ministry of Environment of Madagascar to support her action. In 2021, she was selected to be one of the 50 young entrepreneurs among 850 in Africa for the Anzisha Prize.
Aside from academics, Landy enjoys dancing to BTS songs and singing (screaming) Conan Gray and Olivia Rodrigo songs. She loves to (tries to) replicate every new dish she can find in a restaurant, and is a victim of target trips.
She will be joining Lafayette as a DYER fellow with the determination to pursue her passion for entrepreneurship and the STEM field. She hopes to learn more about Artificial Intelligence and use it to develop a better education for all.
“If it was not for the LIME program, I would have not been able to pursue higher education, to help others through the activities I have done, and I would not even be able to speak English. Being a LIMER will always be part of me, and I know all LIMERS would think the same, that this program changed our lives for the better!”