Dede Alexson Barpeen is the National Executive Director of Media in the Promotion of Health, which provides public health awareness to school-going kids, conducts community engagement on diseases, and partners with community radios to raise awareness on hygiene and disease prevention.

Dede has seven years of experience in community public health nursing and more than 10 years of experience in broadcast journalism. Previously, Dede served as a community engagement officer at Samaritan's Purse International Relief-Liberia, where he focused on effective health systems and epidemic prevention, as well as funding member and first president of the Grand Gedeh County Community Health Services Supervisors Association and as a Community Health Services Supervisor with the Liberia National Community Health Assistant Program in Grand Gedeh County. His accomplishments include overseeing the turnaround of the Beh Town Clinic data indicators in Grand Gedeh County, which had a 40% rate of community members forgoing modern medicine before his leadership, the organization of twenty-five professional health workers into the Union of the Grand Gedeh County Community Health Services Supervisors Association and was later honored as the best performing county health team in 2021 by the Ministry of Health.

Dede holds a degree in Nursing from Cuttington University in Liberia and a certificate in Leadership in Public Management from Cornell University in the United States, and is currently completing a Master’s in Global Health  Delivery at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, East Africa. Dede currently serves his colleagues as a class representative at the University of Global Health Equity, and he was also honored as a Mandela Washington Fellow in 2023. Long term, Dede plans to develop a rural public health institute in Liberia to promote healthy living for all Liberians.

For his fellowship, Dede will serve as an Associate Program Manager with NEPI Inc., a nonprofit using cognitive behavioral therapy and conditional cash transfers to transform the lives of at-risk young men in Monrovia. In this role, Dede will support the program’s scale-up in Liberia, support donor compliance, develop grant proposals, prepare donor briefs, and oversee quality management.