HOLA and American Jewish University Partner

This year, HOLA is very fortunate to have partnered with the American Jewish University to provide an internship for Paul Wassaba-Ouattara Yeoshua, a student working towards his Masters of Business Administration in Non-Profit Management. As part of his degree program, Paul is interning at HOLA, working closely with Tony Brown, Anna Phillips, HOLA’s Grants Administrator, and Christine Witkowski, HOLA’s Music and YOLA at HOLA Director.

Having lived a full and challenging life, Paul has put aside his career in music to pursue his dream of bringing a YOLA at HOLA type program to his native Ivory Coast. Paul moved from the Ivory Coast to Paris when he was 16 and travelled for many years in Europe with his rock band. In the mid-eighties Paul studied at the Berklee School of Music in Boston before returning to the Ivory Coast for 15 years. After much success in the film scoring and documentary filmmaking arenas, Paul returned to the U.S. to attend Cal State Northridge. Upon graduation form Northridge, he reflected on his experience and his concern that he was often not taken seriously because he was African and why would an African want to play classical music. Paul vowed that he wouldn’t let that happen to the kids he knew back home, hence his desire to start his own El Sistema inspired non-profit.

We are thrilled to have Paul at HOLA for an entire year.