Paida Chikate

Paidamoyo (Paida) Chikate was born and raised in Zimbabwe and after wanting to come to the United States for higher education, landed at the College of Saint Benedict in Saint Joseph, MN. Motivated by wanting to see how others around the world live, she began her professional career in international development focusing on the evaluation of youth education in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There, she worked with the Ministry of Education and local nonprofits on evaluating youth career aspirations.

Prior to World Savvy, Paida worked as an evaluator for international organizations which gave her the opportunity to conduct evaluations on access to education for Syrian children fleeing conflict in Syria and small-scale West African female farmers on improving crop yields in local communities. She has been an evaluator of primary and secondary education in her home country designing evaluation tools to measure teacher job satisfaction and ultimately improve student outcomes. She earned a BA from the College of Saint Benedict and a master’s in public policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Paida is pursuing a Ph.D. in Evaluation Studies and Data Analytics in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

When not working, Paida can be found running along the Mississippi river, trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to catch fish on a Minnesota lake, and spending time with her significant other and their dog.