As most others can relate, it is disappointing to have an online program after a year of online coursework. However, this last year I have become well-acquainted with practicing gratitude in times of disappointment or uncertainty. I have found many things to be grateful for. First, I am grateful to be learning from and working alongside with many committed individuals through the UNC Division of Global Women’s Health. This is one of the Zambia Hub internships that focuses on program management and administration. Additionally, the flexibility of a remote practicum has allowed me to visit family and friends that I otherwise would not be able to! The flexibility has made it possible to pursue other interests as well without feeling like I am neglecting the valuable internship experience.
There are two projects I will be working on this summer, one for cervical cancer in low-resource settings and the other to address adverse birth outcomes. My responsibility is to design a suite of communication materials to indicate on a larger level how UNC is contributing to the body of research and clinical practice in novel and innovative ways. This has consisted of an orientation period in which I reviewed program quarterly and annual reports, proposals, and the literature from the researchers and others. I have worked with my preceptor, the program manager, to interview the country leads to understand their need for communication materials as well as central themes and gaps in the research or practice. The website content I drafted will be up on the website somewhat soon!
Nature.Lighthouse.
Overall, I am excited to gain some valuable insight into how a multi-level research program operates and how one manages several different projects at once. One of my favorite things I am learning is how important it is to keep perspective in how individual programs contribute to the overall goals of an organization. That being said, I know I have a lot to learn and look forward to that over the next several weeks!
Due to the remote format, I have been in the Triangle area rather than in Zambia. But I am happy to be able to explore some more of the beautiful state of North Carolina.
A positive side-effect of doing a practicum remotely practicum: getting to visit your parent’s new home in Utah (and making some new friends).
In some ways my 2021 practicum summer, like many things in a school year defined by the pandemic, is a lot different what I would have expected before enrolling. Having been unceremoniously removed from my life in Panama at the onset of the pandemic, I had always envisioned my practicum as a chance to dive back into working overseas, forming and learning from international partnerships in community settings. Instead, I’m conducting a practicum entirely via Zoom, working remotely with a public health organization based in Colorado.
However, in other ways, my position has been providing me the exact kind of experiences and challenges I was always hoped for in a practicum. My interest in Public Health and global practice began during four years of service with the Peace Corps in Panama. This form of grassroots development and health education has shaped the way I view and engage in Global Health work, learning and working alongside community-driven programs. However, in partnering with the United Nations Development Programme in the Darien gap, I became interested in developing the skills to identify ways to leverage large-scale resources to support community-driven efforts. My practicum so far has placed me at this nexus of community outreach and institutional power.
I’m interning with Pitkin County Public Health in Colorado, filling a position through a Preventative Health Block Grant seeking to address significant health inequities in their health and community infrastructure exposed by the pandemic. Specifically, the grant and the team I’ve joined of members of three neighboring public health departments and community stakeholders, is intended to improve health equity, especially for the Latinx and immigrant population in the area. As an intern I’ve taken on facilitating the development of deliverables such as a mental health awareness and promotion campaign, resource guides, and internal trainings for county organizations to apply an equity lens towards their services.
There’s a clear equity gap in Pitkin County and the surrounding area. Aspen, the largest town in the area, is a well-known resort community with high cost of living, and a population that more than doubles during the winter ski season. However, there’s a significant population of service and industry workers who support this resort lifestyle, including a large Latinx and immigrant population. Many locals struggle with high cost of living and services in the greater Aspen area, and many live in neighboring counties of Garfield and Eagle—however, the pandemic has helped illuminate the level of existing inequity in many regards, including access to health services and information.
It’s been an interesting challenge gaining contextual knowledge around the Pitkin County area and going through the process of making connections and building relationships all remotely. The virtual format has pushed me well out of my comfort zone, cold-joining lots of Zoom meetings with different agency partners, sending out emails to make connections with individuals, and not ever visiting the spaces I’m attempting to serve. It has struck me as an odd sensation to be discussing programs for a community I haven’t visited since I was 3 years old, but strangely enough, Global Health organizations do that all the time—as such, I’ve taken this challenge as a way to practice combining a community-centered approach to program development within the types of higher up, NGOs and Government agencies I could find myself working in someday after my degree, far removed from the field. While many of the mediums I’ve been using have been out of my comfort zone, when in doubt I’ve relied on some practices learned the hard way during my time with Peace Corps: 1) ask an endless stream of questions, 2) prioritize relationships over producing results, 3) defer all expertise to my local partners.
Applying these approaches has definitely come into conflict with larger realities of my practicum position at times. For one, there’s simply limited time to share and learn in the punctual and itemized Zoom meetings of a government agency. Secondly, the grant I’m working under has very real deadlines around deliverables and progress. With June about to be over, time limitations have forced relationship building and production to be a simultaneous process. The organizational practices fueled by fiscal infrastructure are something I’ll need to be able to navigate effectively, and I think this practicum is giving me great preparation in that regard.
(Note all of them play nice).
It’s exciting after a year of school to be facilitating the development of materials with the potential for real world impact again. Even though just on Zoom, I’ve enjoyed the early relationships with work and community partners in this position. I’ve also appreciated the opportunity to apply skills acquired in Peace Corps to work with international populations in a domestic space. While so much is different than I would have expected a year ago, an early takeaway for me from my practicum is that core elements of learning exchange and collaborative partnership are universal with work addressing gaps in health equity, regardless of miles traveled or hours zoomed.
As a mother I am so passionate about children and their rights, when I was looking for a practicum, I was hopeful to be working with an organization whose mission is like mine. I believe that all children have the right to be safe and to access to basic needs especially water; this intersects with the UNICEF vision statement which is “to create a world where the rights of every child are realized.” My dream became true, and I was accepted to do my summer internship with the UNICEF where I am currently working with their Water and Sanitation team focusing on the Middle East which is the region where I came from. Since the beginning of the practicum, I was hoping that it will be in person, I miss meeting new friends and learning about their work experiences and networking. I feel being online makes it harder to open new conversations and its more challenging to deal with the online technical issues. Despite those challenges I promised myself to make the best use of my time and to make my internship a fruitful one. Since the first day of the practicum, I set myself daily reminders which are:
Every day is a new day.
I will do the best of what I can.
I am always proud of my accomplishments
I will reach out and ask questions.
An opportunity to work with the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) team is unique. This practicum is a great opportunity for me to use the knowledge and skills I gained from the first two semesters of my graduate program to help communities around the world. Through my 200 hours training I will be working with the Country Engagement team at UNICEF to develop an engagement strategy so we can expand UNICEF’s work in the Middle East. I will also write a report about the role different UNICEF partners play in different region and how we can expand their work beyond water Sanitation and Hygiene to focus on other areas such as COVID-19. In the first two weeks of the practicum, I enjoyed attending SAWA’s teams’ meetings and webinars on important topics. I have also participated in discussions on how to engage more countries from the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) in SWAs’ work. It was very interesting to learn about the great work those teams are doing all over the world. I am so hopeful that by the end of the internship I will gain more practical skills which I can apply in my future career.
