Philippe's Life
Philippe Wamba was half Congolese and half American. He was born in Los Angeles on June 3, 1971. He grew up in Boston and then in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Philippe came back to the U.S. in 1987 to finish up his high school education at the United World College in New Mexico.
He matriculated at Harvard College in September 1989. He lived in Matthews Hall during his freshman year, moved to Dunster House for his sophomore and junior years and lived in Somerville for his senior year. Philippe concentrated in a combined major of History and Literature and graduated magna cum laude in June 1993. He then went on to obtain a master’s degree at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Philippe published his first book in 1999, a combination of a memoir and a historical text, entitled Kinship: A Family’s Journey in Africa and America. He moved back to Cambridge, MA in 1999 to serve as editor-in-chief at Africana.com, “The Gateway to the Black World”.
Philippe joined the Harvard African Students' Association (HASA) right from his freshman year. He always kept abreast of sociopolitical developments in Africa and was instrumental in organizing HASA seminars and conferences which were geared to educate and mobilize the larger Harvard community and other African students groups at universities in greater Boston and western Massachusetts about current affairs in Africa. He was also HASA's instructor for the gumboots dance, a South African miner's dance, for which HASA was, and is still well known, on campus. In his book, Philippe described HASA in the following way: “I was able to find a home in the Harvard African Students Association… it evolved into an extended family of sorts, friends among whom I felt comfortable and who understood me when I spoke longingly of home”.
As a member of HASAN, Philippe was a mentor to HASA undergraduates interested in the literary and visual arts since the beginning of the HASAN/HASA Mentoring Program. More recently, Philippe was a member of the Planning Committee for HASAN when we were planning our First Reunion and HASA's 25th Anniversary celebration in March 2002. He was critical in fund-raising and taking care of the logistics for the event. A month before he died, he had also volunteered to serve as an interviewer for the Harvard College Admissions Office for applicants applying from Africa since he was then based in Tanzania and South Africa.
In April 2002, Philippe returned to Africa on an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship to undertake research on the challenges facing the youth in several African countries including Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was on the road between Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya when he was killed.
Philippe's death and that of countless other young Africans are preventable! Road traffic crashes are not accidents; they are the result of systematic failures in public education, ensuring road worthiness of vehicles, law enforcement, road and vehicle design, road infrastructure, emergency response services, health services delivery and public policy. Something can be done to curb this epidemic! Please help reduce the deaths and injuries caused by road traffic crashes in Africa by contributing to the Philippe E. Wamba Memorial Fund for the Improvement of Road Traffic Safety in Africa.
