Rye Barcott

Rye Barcott is founder of Carolina For Kibera [http://cfk.unc.edu] , an international NGO that runs a sports association, medical clinic, Binti Pamoja (Daughters United Center), and waste management program in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. Because of CFK's innovations in youth programming and participatory development, Time Magazine and the Gates Foundation named CFK a "Hero of Global Health" at the Global Health Summit in 2005. [http://www.time.com/time/2005/globalhealth/programTh.html] Time for Kids featured CFK on the cover of its March 30, 2007 edition. [http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/pdfs/2007S/070330_wr_all.pdf] In 2006, CFK published LIGHTBOX, a book of photographs and narratives from the young, courageous women of CFK's Binti Pamoja Center. Sales from LIGHTBOX benefit CFK's girls' scholarship fund .

A graduate of the Peace, War, and Defense [http://www.unc.edu/depts/pwad/] and International Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rye Barcott was a Triangle Institute for Security Studies Millennium Fellow [http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/centers/tiss/people/scholars.php] and a Burch Fellow [http://www.burchfellows.unc.edu/pastburchfellows.html] . While an undergraduate at UNC, Rye founded CFK in Kenya with Salim Mohamed and the late Tabitha Atieno Festo, who each shared the conviction that the poor have the solutions to the problems they face.

Barcott is the co-editor with Dr. Carolyn Pumphrey of Armed Conflict in Africa (Scarecrow, 2003). He served five years on active duty in the Marine Corps, where he deployed to Bosnia, the Horn of Africa, and Iraq. He is currently a dual masters degree candidate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School, where he is a Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship [http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/leadership/reynolds/index.php] . He serves as a member of the UNC NROTC Board of Directors and is a member of the Harvard Management Corporation's Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility and the Harvard University Committee on Rights and Responsibilities. In 2006, ABC World News named him a Person of the Week and a Person of the Year [http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/PersonOfWeek/story?id=2611995&page=1] .

The ABC World News segment quoted him from Iraq encouraging young Americans to expose themselves "to how the majority of the world lives … and I think it'll make you a lot more appreciative of what you've got … make you a better American and a better global citizen." He was born in 1979 in Rhode Island and is married to the former Tracy Dobbins.