US-Ireland Alliance

MITCHELL SCHOLAR ERIN RHODA

Passionate about Maine, writing and Africa

At the young age of 27, Erin Rhoda was named editorial page editor of the Bangor Daily News in her – and George Mitchell’s – home state of Maine. But Erin isn’t just a journalist, she’s a journalist with a well-developed conscience that has taken her from the northeastern coast of the United States to several African countries. In 2005-6, she helped organize the Sierre Leone Aid Project to distribute mosquito nets aimed at combating malaria. The group raised $23,000 and was able to bring 2,000 insecticide-treated mosquito nets to villages in the war-torn country. Later, while still in her early 20s, she returned to Africa to help run the Maine-Ghana Youth Network, a nonprofit organization working to educate and motivate young people in the impoverished neighborhood of Kissehman in Accra, Ghana.

A member of the Mitchell Class of 2009, she spent her year in Ireland studying creative writing at Trinity College Dublin, and says that the experience gave her the opportunity to see what was really important to her. “My Mitchell year gave me a chance to breathe, and to reaffirm what I love to do, which is write. I realized I wanted to write – but with a real-world application. What I learned at Trinity’s creative writing program has found its way into the way I’ve written news stories – and now editorials. Not every topic lends itself to a poetic approach, but when I’m able to, that’s something I try to do.”

After her Mitchell year, she returned to Maine and began working as a reporter for the Morning Sentinel in Waterville. Previously, she covered the police and courts beat at The Courier-Gazette in Rockland. Africa remains a persistent thread in her life, even while pursuing her journalistic career: She currently volunteers as the social media director of 

Breaking Ground, a Maine-based nonprofit that works with communities throughout Cameroon to empower women, promote economic development, and invest in agriculture. A graduate of Colby College, her current goal is to make Bangor Daily News editorials the most widely read in the state.