During my academic, professional, and personal life, I have sought to extend my community and understanding across cultures. These concepts of empathy and community were transformed from education to practice through international experience in Tanzania as part of a public health workshop, Vietnam and China while working with non-governmental organizations, and in the United Nations as a summer intern in the Cartographic Section, part of the Department of Field Support.
International Development Workshop
Arusha, Tanzania March 2016
The East, Central, and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) and the TRAction (Translating Research into Action) Project convened an Analysis and Guidance Notes Workshop on March 14-18, 2016 in Arusha, Tanzania. The workshop brought together partners from four country research teams to review research findings and develop a plan to compose and disseminate guidance notes on task sharing for performing emergency obstetric care, specifically Caesarean section by associate clinician cadres.
Workshop Documentation
The workshop can be organized into seven key sessions: review of country team case studies, guidance notes overview, emerging issues, domain exploration, guidance notes outline, dissemination strategies, and timeline and next steps. As a participant, I contributed to the working group activities, such as identifying issues to be addressed in the guidance notes, creating a structure for the guidance notes, and defining a timeline of roles and responsibilities for the research teams, including TRAction.
Interviews
On March 17 and 18, I interviewed three workshop participants: Waswa Nabie from Community Health Promotion Kenya (CHPK), Hlazo Moyo from the University of Malawi College of Medicine (CoM), and Amani Anaeli from Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS). Interviews were semi-structured and focused on three areas: experience conducting implementation research, experience in collaborating with TRAction, and future implications of the research, both personally and professionally.
IFChina Original Studio – Jinggangshan University,
Jiangxi, China Summer 2011
During the summer of 2010 I interned for the IFChina Original Studio in Jiangxi, China. My projects included conducting field work in Sanwan Village and Jinggangshan Mountain “red tourism” sites and collaborating in selecting a candidate village to participate in a Rural Design Workshop pilot project to build low-budget, local-material, community-oriented and environmentally sustainable housing. I witnessed how NGOs and communities develop tools for communication and cooperation in a local context. Located in the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army, IFChina promotes local culture and civic awareness by documenting the lives of ordinary citizens, especially the children and elderly who have been described as “left behind” as a result of urban migration. In this capacity, I drafted funding proposals for corporate sponsorship for visual documentation programs, cooperated with local governments to revitalize historical and cultural sites, and evaluated candidate villages to design a sustainable rural community.
Social-Environmental Impact Assessment Workshop
Hue, Vietnam July 20, 2011
