Our Board
Jules Wetchi, M.D., M.P.H.
Jules Wetchi is the founder of the New American Public Health Initiative. A native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he a physician and public health specialist dedicated to raising health awareness among his fellow New Americans.
In his native Kinshasa, Wetchi trained as an ophthalmologist at the Central African Ophthalmology Training Center and was certified, specializing in cataract surgery. In 2013 he won a U.S. Diversity Visa and migrated to Vermont. Unable to practice medicine in this country, in 2019 he earned a master’s degree public health at UVM.
When COVID pandemic began in early 2020, the city of Burlington recruited Dr. Wetchi for its Trusted Community Voices Outreach Team, to communicate health information to New Americans from Africa. The team hands out masks and helps people find childcare, recovery, and employment. That year the multilingual Dr. Wetchi began hosting a radio program Samedi Matin (Saturday Morning), on Big Heavy World community radio (105.9 FM). Every week he provided Burlington’s minority and immigrant communities with clear, accurate, and practical health information in their own languages, leavened with African music. The show continues to this day.
In August 2021 he initiated The African Variety Show on Burlington’s Town Meeting TV. Speaking in French, Lingala, and Swahili, as well as English, he explained to African communities the importance of wearing masks and getting vaccinated and boosted. The show also provides other essential information to New Americans, mixing it with familiar music and cultural references.
With the New American Public Health Initiative, Dr. Wetchi hopes to further bring his public health expertise to New Americans, helping them build second lives on a foundation of solid health inform
Rachel Wetchi, M.P.H.
Rachel Wetchi is a public health worker and a mother of three children. She was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has been living in Vermont with her family for more than a decade. Rachel earned her B.S. at Shepherd University in West Virginia and her M.P.H. at the University of New England, Maine, in 2022. For several years she worked as a behavioral interventionist at Howard Center, providing specialized treatment and supportive counseling services to children with emotional and behavioral challenges. Rachel also worked for the Women, Infant and Children program at the Vermont Department of Health as a breastfeeding peer counselor, serving French-, Swahili-, and Lingala-speaking women. She provided information and support to pregnant and breastfeeding women to help them have a positive experience. She currently works as resource coordinator for the Population Health Services Organization at the University of Vermont Health Network. She co-directs New American Youth on the Rise, a mentorship and enrichment program that empowers refugee, immigrant, and first-generation American youth to pursue college careers in health sciences.
Ellen Kane, M.S.W., President
Ellen Kane has more than 25 years of experience leading strategic planning, fundraising, and communication efforts for nonprofit health, education, and social service organizations. Ellen attended Loyola University Chicago earned a masters in secondary education and teaching at Columbia College in Chicago. In 1996 she earned her M.A.T. (Master of Arts in Teaching) at Columbia College.
In 2009-15 she served as president and CEO of the Fanny Allen Foundation. She was responsible for allocating grants to nonprofits in Vermont that serve the most vulnerable. She consulted with Covenant Health–sponsored health care organizations across New England to develop strategic fundraising plans. She secured grants, including capital campaigns, telehealth initiatives and new health care outreach programs. In 2015-16 she served as vice president of development and community relations for the Visiting Nurses Association of Chittenden and Grand Isle Counties.
In 2016 she became executive director of the Vermont Catholic Community Foundation, was responsible for growing the organization through community partnerships and major and planned gifts, administering the foundation’s annual distribution to more than 100 beneficiaries.
In April 2024 Ellen Kane was named vice president of institutional advancement at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester.
Jacks Ngalangala, Treasurer
Jacks Ngalangala is a native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and is now pursuing his master’s in cybersecurity at Champlain College. He worked as a software engineer for over fifteen years as an employee, consultant, and business owner. Jacks is an international consultant who has conducted significant changes in ICT with UNESCO, the Democratic Republic of the Congo government, and the Republic of Comoros. Before he moved to the United States, he owned a software development company, web243, for five years until COVID-19 hit.
He is a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer, Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, and Certified Database Design Specialist. He now works as an IT specialist at Tetra Tech, where they collaborate closely with USAID to implement and support development projects worldwide.
Sarah Morse, M.S.N., P.M.H.N.P., Secretary
Sarah was born and raised in southern Vermont. As a high school student she traveled through the School for International Training on a summer study abroad program to Ghana, West Africa. She attended Goucher College in Baltimore, where she received her B.A. in women’s studies and peace studies. While in college, she studied abroad during winter semesters in Ghana and South Africa. She also took a semester off during college to travel and volunteer on organic farms in northern Italy. After Goucher, she attended UVM’s postbac premed program, then pursued a M.S. in nursing from Yale University School of Nursing with a specialty in Family Psychiatric and Mental Health Advanced Practice Nursing. She has worked in psychiatry as a nurse practitioner since 2013. She worked in outpatient mental health care at the Community Health Centers of Burlington for 9 years, seeing patients from varied backgrounds including those struggling with addiction, homelessness, and major mental health conditions. She worked with former refugees resettled in Vermont from countries such as Nepal, Bhutan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia. She has also worked in college mental health, for a designated state mental health agency, and in inpatient mental health settings. She currently works as a telehealth nurse practitioner seeing both adults and children with mental health conditions who are clients of Lamoille County Mental Health in Vermont.
Janet Biehl
Janet Biehl is an editor, author, artist, translator, and graphic memoirist. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, she earned a masters in liberal arts at the City University of New York Graduate Center. For decades she has copyedited and edited book manuscripts, for major New York book publishers, telecommuting from her home in Burlington, Vermont. She is the author of Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin (Oxford University Press, 2015). Since 2011 she has been involved with the Kurdish struggle for human rights. She translated (German to English) several books on Kurdish issues, including Democratic Autonomy in North Kurdistan (New Compass, 2013), Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women’s Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan (Pluto, 2016); and Sara: Memoir of a Kurdish Revolutionary (Pluto, 2018-20). She wrote and illustrated the graphic memoir Their Blood Got Mixed: Revolutionary Rojava and the War Against ISIS (PM Press, 2022). In addition to managing NAPHI’s website, she also manages websites for the New York Kurdish Cultural Center; the Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region; and the Burlington-Honfleur Sister Cities Committee.