For a long time, my heart has had the desire to work with vulnerable groups of people, specifically the refugee population. My past positions opened doors for me in not-for profit work but limited my experience to working with children and youth, which did not give me the full satisfaction of working alongside vulnerable people to lift them out of the poverty cycle.

I took leave from my graduate studies and honestly did not have a clear cut plan of where I was going to work. I applied to join the Global Health Corps fellowship and this too was not definite looking at how competitive it is to join the fellowship. Working with women in the community has sharpened my community interactions, sense of humor and patience, as well as given me the chance to build a larger framework to use story telling for change, probing skills as small strengths I have and could work on making stronger. My skills have all developed more in this year in my placement.

Right on from the training institute to working alongside my co-fellow in the community setting daily has been a five edged sword that has enabled me to learn so much in the span of a year. It has better prepared me for graduate school than I was earlier. As a student of international development working within the community has given me better lens to designing bottom up of programs in design and implementation for community health. The GHC experience has prepared me for the strategic year we are moving into with the Sustainable Development Goals; I am now able to make better contributions toward this discussion.

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