September-October 2019

Anisha standing outside the IRC Sierra Leone office

Kushe from Freetown, Sierra Leone! As I’m writing this, I’ve spent close to two months adjusting to my new life in Freetown and it’s hard to believe how fast time is flying by.

Here in Freetown, I’m working for the International Rescue Committee in the role of Consortia Grants & Partnership Fellow. I’m aware that this somewhat long-winded title probably doesn’t make much sense to most people (I’ll admit there are still times where I can’t even remember the full title myself). In order to explain what exactly my role entails, I think it would be helpful to explain how grants at IRC Sierra Leone are structured. While IRC Sierra Leone works on many grants, my role is focused on supporting two of them: Saving Lives in Sierra Leone Phase 2, which focuses on improving the quality, access and demand of maternal and reproductive health services within the country; and Every Adolescent Girl Empowered and Resilient (EAGER), which focuses on supporting out-of-school adolescent girls through literacy and business skills training. Both of these grants operate through a consortium model, meaning IRC does not act alone. Instead, between the two grants IRC is working in partnership with seven different NGOs.

As you can imagine, coordination of these partnerships and ensuring all organizations are complying with the donor are critical to the success of these projects. This is where my role and department at IRC come in to play. Since IRC acts as the lead organization on both grants, my department (the Consortium Coordination Unit) is in charge of making sure all organizations, including IRC, are working in sync and abiding by all of the relevant rules and regulations.

View from the balcony of the IRC guest house

When I first arrived at IRC, I was a little confused as to why there were so many different organizations working on the same project. Wouldn’t it be simpler for just 1 or 2 organizations to be involved? However, I’ve since learned that the decision to work with so many different partners within Sierra Leone is a very intentional decision that strengthens both the impact and reach of the projects. The country is divided into several different districts. Certain NGOs have been working for decades within specific districts. As a result, they have been able to foster lasting relationships with community members and cultivate a sense of trust. For a project such as Saving Lives, that aims to reach all districts in Sierra Leone, it makes sense to tap into those existing connections by working in partnership, rather than acting alone and having to start from scratch.

Learning insights such as these has made me incredibly grateful to be getting exposure to how a large humanitarian organization like IRC operates in a post-conflict and post-epidemic context. I can only imagine how much more I’m going to learn over my next 10 months here and I look forward to gaining a deeper, more thoughtful understanding of how development goals can be realized.

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Ryan and some of the Rockies members enjoying lunch after they performed at a wedding introduction ceremony in Masaka!

Hello! I’m Ryan Chavez, the 2019-2020 PiAf Fellow with Rockies Organisation in Kampala, Uganda! I’ve been working with Rockies for just about a month now and have had the novel experience of breaking in the role of “Fellow” at Rockies as a new host organization. Rockies operates a youth empowerment program for talented, but under-served, young Ugandans from all over Uganda based around a social enterprise model. Rockies provides young talented Ugandans holistic care and pays school fees for them here in Kampala, while incorporating them into Rockies Troupe. Rockies Troupe is our performance group which gives the students the opportunity to grow their talents through training and professional level performance while serving as a social enterprise to sustain our formal education sponsorship program.  Seeing the kids training in dance, singing, and instrumental music outside of our office space has been one of the absolute joys of working with Rockies.

Despite my short time so far with Rockies, I’ve been happily involved in helping with many of our planning efforts for the coming years, including assisting in the crafting of our strategic vision, logical framework, and M&E frameworks. We also filmed a music video for one of the songs recorded by Rockies Troupe. We traveled across Uganda from Murchison Falls National Park in western Uganda all the way to Mt. Elgon National Park near Kenya and passed through Jinja to see the source of the Nile before making it back home to Kampala. I am also excited to have joined our founder and Team Leader, Brian Ssozi, at the Segal Family Foundation Annual General Meeting in New Jersey last month and look forward to returning to Uganda to continue work on the ground. So far, it has been an absolutely incredible time working with a tight knit and motivated team with a start up mentality, and I look forward to taking more pictures, sending out more communications materials, and keeping on with the energetic pace for the rest of the year here at Rockies!

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Colleen hanging out with elephants in Djamde, Togo

Hello from Togo! For the past two months, I have been working with Santé Intégrée (or Integrate Health in English) as their Integrated Primary Care Support Fellow. I am based in the small city of Kara in Northern Togo, where I have the opportunity to work with an amazing team of local clinicians and healthcare advocates in some of the most remote regions of the country.

The mission of Sante Intégrée is to make quality primary healthcare accessible to all. We train, employ, and pay Community Health Workers (primarily women recruited from their communities) to conduct screenings for the top 5 causes of mortality for children, including malaria, malnutrition, and diarrhea. Community Health Workers also work with women to ensure they have adequate pre- and post-natal care, and can counsel women about family planning options. Throughout consultations, Community Health Workers can refer patients to their local health center, where point of care fees are waived for women and children under 5, who bear the majority of the disease burden in Togo.

Santé Intégrée is in the middle of a planned scale-up in partnership with the Togolese government. Each year, we launch our programming in another district in the region. This entails recruiting and training new Community Health Workers, building clinic infrastructure, ensuring adequate supply chains for medications, and training health center staff. My job, in addition to helping manage the programming in each of the three districts, is to coordinate and create trainings for community health workers, ambulance drivers, and clinic staff, to ensure patients receive the best care in each part of the healthcare system.

Colleen working during a training for Community Health Workers

Recently, we hosted our annual in-service training for clinic staff in one of our districts. We reviewed the results of our programming from the last year and talked about how we can improve from a strengths-based approach. Our Medical Director gave a clinical refresher session on neonatal resuscitation, and our team discussed the importance of pre-natal consultations for pregnant women. Now that my first training is over, we have a lot more planning to do for our upcoming trainings on family planning, our annual in-service trainings for our Community Health Workers, and our bi-annual community meetings where we present the results of our program back to the people we serve.

Outside of work, I have plenty of time to explore the surrounding areas of Kara and attend various cultural fêtes and festivals like the Evala wrestling tournament for young Kabiye males or the celebration of the Yam harvest. I also spend several hours a week getting tutored in French, in which about 90% of my work is conducted. It’s presented a unique challenge as I settle into a new country, culture, and language, but I’m excited to see what the next 10 months will bring!

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Click here to watch our 20th Anniversary video.

Each year, Princeton in Africa sends nearly 50 bright and hardworking recent graduates and young professionals across Africa to embark on meaningful year-long fellowships. This experience, more often than not, is the springboard for a meaningful career: nearly 94% of alumni surveyed recently say that PiAf has positively impacted their career trajectory and over half continue to engage in work that has job responsibilities related to Africa. These results speak to a program that has an impact on our lives far beyond one year; PiAf is a commitment for a lifetime. It’s with this spirit that we are thrilled to share the formation of the inaugural PiAf Alumni Board, an entity that will liaise between current Fellows, alumni and the Board of Directors to help shape the future of this organization and enrich the experiences of current, future, and prospective Fellows.  

As Vice Presidents of the Alumni Board, we, Akinyi and Ìbílọlá, share a commitment to ensuring that we expand the pool of fellowship applicants to encourage diversity in all its forms, work to enhance the program’s ability to welcome applicants of all backgrounds, and encourage the fellowship’s expansion to new locations and sectors that will be critical in shaping Africa’s future. We are mindful of the memories that connect all of us as PiAf alumni and recognize the extraordinary loyalty, thoughtfulness, and interest of our community. 

How do we hope to achieve that? Here are just a few of the ways we hope to engage the community and encourage you to reach out to either of us (akinyi@akinyiochieng.com or ibilolaibi@gmail.com) with ideas and feedback.

• Expanding fellowship locations and organizations: We challenge those who read this letter to share the name of at least one organization, either non-profit or for-profit, doing transformative work in Africa. 
• Improving the fellowship application process and experience: Interested in serving as a class captain to support our alumni fundraising efforts? Reach out. 
• Outreach to potential applicants: How can we expand the network of universities we serve? Share your thoughts with us and volunteer to lead a session in your city or at your alma mater. 
• Champion diversity: Efforts such as collecting voluntary information on candidate’s self-identities have led to significant improvement in the ethnic diversity of applicants and fellows. We encourage those reading to share any ideas on how to improve fellowship and organization diversity in all its forms (including class, ethnicity, and sexuality). 
• Fellow support: Volunteer as a mentor. The Alumni Buddy Program, launched in 2017, strives to increase Fellow support and establish meaningful connections across classes. Contact us to get involved. 

Through the establishment of this inaugural board, we are dedicated to ensuring alumni voices are heard and reflected in PiAf’s future. We are excited to work with the Alumni Board and alumni community at-large on new efforts!

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