Overcoming the Silicon Valley Mindset
Being born and raised just outside of Silicon Valley and graduating from a university that feeds companies like Intel and Google, I have an ingrained, almost subconscious, commitment to using the latest technology for every task in life, all in the name of efficiency. From relying on Yelp to decide where I’ll eat my meals […]
Efficiency and Effectiveness: Putting action behind our words
“Efficiency” and “effectiveness.” These buzz words are mentioned all the time in the context of global health, but we often fail to integrate them into our work, either because we don’t have the time or don’t see them as integral to achieving our goals. This report from the Kaiser Family Foundation documents the plethora of […]
Whatever it takes, we fight for social justice
I was sad the day I heard that I, my co-fellow, and the other GHC fellows placed at Partners In Health (PIH) would not have our orientation sessions at the PIH headquarters in Boston, but instead would have an on-site orientation. I was very eager to know more about PIH’s mission, values and its working […]
Hope where least expected
I work as an advocacy and communications specialist for Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation-Uganda (Baylor-Uganda) and I love what I do. I have always wanted to work for women and children, particularly African women and children and this is a big part of what I do at Baylor-Uganda. I think I expected to see […]
Why pay more
Consultation fees to see a doctor at the local health center where I work are only 2000 Ugandan shillings, or less than a dollar. This is significantly less than the 25000 shillings that I was used to before signing up for GHC Fellowship. This is exactly what I was looking for – a health center […]
“Cohort” – The Power of a Single Word
During the past couple of weeks my co-fellow Lindsey and I have been working on our organization’s M&E narrative and technical reports for 2013 quarter 2. Time and time again, we come across the word “cohort.” Cohort could be the most used word in Malawi’s HIV/AIDS program. The program has five different areas with tons […]
Sometimes the only thing that can stop you is you
Just a few steps up the hill and it was all I could do to not drop to my knees and start crawling. My normal tactic of staring at the horizon and focusing on the end of the challenge just wasn’t working after everything I’d been through that day… I was realizing that continuing through […]
The virtues of new insights
Having basically spent most of my life in Uganda, one of the items that has always been on my bucket list has been to explore places of wilderness, including various small communities located in rural settings across the country. For those who are visiting Africa and Uganda in particular for the first time, it is […]
Paint by Numbers
Since I was a child, the perfect fluidity of the way sunlight spills like water across Spanish fields or the seductive flash of a bright pink gomesi dress in the rear-view mirror amid trails of dust convinced me that I live in a world entirely made of metaphor. A mutable world where precision and definition […]
My First 60 Days
It has been 8 weeks since I started my work with the USAID-ASSIST project here in Uganda. When I entered the gates of this good-looking building with a pool that we never use, I didn’t know what to expect despite all the information I had read about the project. To be honest, 60% of the […]