Professor Jane Hale became involved in international public health through her marriage to the late Dr. William Bicknell, former Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health and Founding Member of the Lesotho Boston Health Alliance (LeBoHA). Dr. Hale frequently traveled to Lesotho and worked there as a teacher trainer for the Ministry of Education. She brought the pediatric literacy program “Reach Out and Read” to Baylor Pediatric AIDS Clinic in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. Jane subsequently founded an organization called "Family Literacy Lesotho," whose mission is to encourage the development of beautiful children’s picture books in Sesotho, the language of Lesotho, so all its children can grow up with a love for books and reading.
Dr. Hale, now retired, taught French and Comparative literature for 30 years at Brandeis University. She is the author of two books on Samuel Beckett and Raymond Queneau. Jane has taught language and literature at virtually every age and grade level in the United States and abroad in Abéché, Chad as a Peace Corps English teacher; in Pleasant Grove, North Carolina as a second-grade teacher; and in Dakar, Senegal as a Fulbright Senior Scholar. She has also taught French, pedagogy, and cross-cultural studies to Peace Corps trainees in Niger, Chad, and the U.S. Virgin Islands; literature to probationers in the Massachusetts District Courts; and seminars on literature to Boston immigration officials.
Dr. Hale’s participation with Global Primary Care secures her husband’s vision for the transformative possibilities offered by public health programs that put patients at the center of their programs. She shares Bill’s love for the people of Lesotho and, with her support, ensures that his dedication to Lesotho will be carried on and remembered in the future.
