Promoting Healthy Youth | Using Haiku Poetry and Creative Expression

Author's Background

The author, Dr. Imani Ma'at, has worked in the public health field for over 25 years as a Behavioral Scientist, educator, dramatic arts director, and program director. She has been writing poetry all of her life. To be able to combine her love for health promotion and creative arts is a dream come true for her.

Dr. Ma'at has traveled to many countries in Africa, South America, and the Caribbean as a passionate health educator whose mission is to impact the health of the world by focusing on the youth. In South Africa she has visited and assessed health clinics that treated AIDS patients on several occasions. These trips have helped to crystallize her mission to develop and support peer educators around the globe. Mentoring programs in particular hold special promise as she seeks to share her strategies with persons, such as herself, who are committed to empowering youth to make wise and informed choices regarding their health.

As a trained health educator, she has earned degrees from Mount Holyoke College, M.I.T, Harvard, and Teacher's College of Columbia University.