About

Research Interests

Community/Economic Enrichment Education Engineering Health Poverty

GivePulse Stats

Groups

  • BrownEngage

  • The Swearer Center

  • Perspectives Corporation

  • HYPE at House of Hope CDC

  • Impacts

    HYPE at House of Hope CDC

    Today I attended with Tory a training on suicide screening and prevention. The training was run by a medical centre in East Providence and it was extremely well-organised and well-run, absolutely awesome to be a part of. I was really grateful to Tory for sharing this opportunity with us interns, and since I'm interested in mental health and crises (and how this intersects w/ clients experiencing homelessness) I was happy to join in. I definitely learned a lot especially how to use an official tool to screen people who might be at risk for committing suicide. It was a heavy topic overall, but a productive way to spend the morning.

    Gave 3.00 hours on 12/07/2018 with Bonner Community Fellowship, BrownEngage
    HYPE at House of Hope CDC

    In my last week with Home to Hope for the semester, I had some more work sessions with Beatriz and independently, finishing up my deliverables that I touched upon in previous impacts. I also presented to Tory and Michelle about the work that I completed; it seemed that they were happy with the progress the policy interns made as a whole. It was a fun time talking about everything we learned for sure, and I'm personally happy with what I accomplished. I'm looking forward to seeing what we do with this work next semester!

    Gave 15.00 hours between 12/04/2018 and 12/11/2018 with Bonner Community Fellowship, BrownEngage
    Perspectives Corporation

    Although a lot of conflicts have limited our meeting times this semester, it was really great to see Michele and Susan today and work through more of our learning goals. Michele has definitely made measurable progress in spelling -- we reviewed some old words and she's a lot more confident now which is awesome. We've spent less time on math -- she's less excited there -- but I'm still super happy with the work we've done.

    Gave 1.00 hour on 11/29/2018 with BrownEngage, PAL (Partnership for Adult Learning) Student Group, Direct Service & Capacity-Building Opportunities
    Perspectives Corporation

    At our second session Michele and I worked on spelling for the most part—we moved past seasonal words (our focus last year) into spelling of geographies like U.S. states. It was a lot of fun and Michele was really happy, which made me feel great! We made progress and enjoyed ourselves so it was quite productive.

    Gave 1.00 hour on 10/25/2018 with PAL (Partnership for Adult Learning) Student Group
    HYPE at House of Hope CDC

    This impact covers my hours spent doing independent work and meeting with Michelle (consultant/head of Home to Hope).

    My work weeks were spent in two chunks:
    - Wednesdays 1-2pm meetings with the intern group, Tory, and Michelle
    - Wednesdays 2-5pm and Thursdays 1-3pm independent work

    On the whole thus far I've had a pretty good experience with my site this semester in terms of the work I was able to do and the things I was able to learn.

    We at first spent much time brainstorming on what we (the interns assigned policy/advocacy work) wanted to work on, and how those projects could be turned into hard deliverables that would eventually be helpful for Home to Hope as an organisation. Michelle's expertise as a task-oriented consultant to nonprofit groups was invaluable here and she was a huge help in forming our projects and also getting us excited about working on them. Spending more time with her this semester was something I was really happy about—I loved being able to see the unique role she plays in community-oriented work.

    One of the first activities we did as an intern group (Beatriz, Clark, and myself) was brainstorm on the root causes and outcomes of [youth] homelessness—this was an interesting inside look at the institutions that have contributed to the homelessness crisis and in my opinion activities like this are so important in doing any sort of meaningful community engagement. It's necessary to keep in mind the systems we are working with and against when trying to enact systematic change.

    I initially started working on three personal projects:
    1. Policy/legal landscape regarding youth homelessness, social context, education
    2. Constituent engagement (how will we involve young people in planning process)
    3. Services landscape focussing on mental health and substance use

    The first and third projects ended up turning into mostly learning goals, which I'm pretty satisfied with—it's sad to see deliverables become smaller, but it's also important to be realistic about what can get done in only a couple weeks. The second project though ended up being really great, culminating in a joint whitepaper/formal recommendation piece collaborating with Beatriz. I felt like I've made great progress and also learned quite a bit about the current state of policy regarding youth homelessness, which I'm very happy about.

    Gave 28.00 hours between 10/23/2018 and 11/28/2018 with Bonner Community Fellowship, BrownEngage
    Perspectives Corporation

    At our first session this week it was great to see Michele as well as her staff-person Susan again. We went over learning goals for the semester (similar to last year, we're working on spelling and maths). Michele was so excited which was really heartwarming and it was also great fun to take pics for the Perspectives site!

    Gave 1.00 hour on 10/18/2018 with PAL (Partnership for Adult Learning) Student Group
    HYPE at House of Hope CDC

    This impact covers the time spent in the weekly team meetings with the Home to Hope team.

    I really enjoy the group this year — and it's great to form bonds with the entire group of students that work with Home to Hope. Last year, I was mostly unable to make the team meetings, so I'm glad I am able to see them this year. They're a fun way to connect with the group in a way that isn't super formal and feels safe/comfortable. I also especially enjoy them when we are able to get concrete, work-related discussions or deliverables done. It is always good though to have a space to share out about how we're all doing.

    Related to the team meetings—I particularly enjoyed being able to work this semester with Julnelle, an employee of Home to Hope—it's always a great experience to meet someone actually working in the field and not just other Brown students doing "service."

    Gave 6.00 hours between 10/04/2018 and 11/29/2018 with Bonner Community Fellowship, BrownEngage
    Bonner All-Call: All About Bonner Love & Families

    This Impact is private

    Sunil Tohan

    Sunil @ Big Win Philanthropy / Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ministry of Health

    After rejoining the federal PDU at the Ministry of Health for the second half of my internship, one of the first activities we undertook was a progress review. This was a much-appreciated opportunity to reflect on the time I spent in the field and in the office in June, and also to plan ahead for the rest of my time in Ethiopia.

    Together, my supervisors agreed that my experience had been positive thus far—my personal contribution to the discussion was mostly that I was grateful to be here, had learned a lot, and was having an immensely positive experience. I was eager to hear Dr Sisay’s reflection on my internship, and I was so happy to hear that based on his own observations over the month, he felt that I had the personality to do well in the public health and development field. Dr Tokunbo was similarly happy with what I had learned and appreciated my weekly updates. We all jointly discussed also how my time would be filled in the office without the long field visits that took time up in June. Dr Sisay and I revised my terms of reference document, planning to fill most of my time with continuing to attend his meetings, something I was happy to be doing.

    Dr Tokunbo and I were able to connect individually as well which I was excited about as we had much to catch up on. That conversation ended up being important for me, as I got to hear about Tokunbo’s thoughts on the field of public health and also more about his own career path and journey. The review overall made me realise that time in the field—and the Ministry in Addis, compared to a desk in Washington, is a field experience to me—is much more valuable and fulfilling than time spent supporting programmes from afar.

    The first week I was back in Ethiopia, I was able to travel with Dr Sisay and Desta (Implementation Advisor, Federal Programme Delivery Unit) to Mek’ele in order to sit in on a meeting with Save the Children regarding their forthcoming Grant under Grant programme. We also were able to reconnect with the Tigray regional PDU to have an in-person progress meeting. It was great to see them again, but I was a bit underwhelmed hearing about the steps that have been taken in Tigray since the Community Lab launch that occurred in June. I was expecting much to have been accomplished, but that was not the case. This was a bit of a reminder of the slow pace that this industry can move at—and from what I’ve heard, the Ethiopian government is better than many others at setting high targets and working hard to achieve them. The interactions here also made me uneasy about the forthcoming scale-up of the PDU model to the other regions in Ethiopia; it seems that the federal PDU would be extremely overwhelmed if it had to oversee more regional groups.

    The meeting with Save the Children was mostly successful—it was in Amharic, but I was able to follow along with a translated PowerPoint. The Grant under Grant process seemed interesting and I found the idea of funding woreda-based projects individually and directly to be compelling. Yet, the pilot maximum grant amount was underwhelming, so I am unsure that this process will be of large benefit to Seqota Declaration woredas with Community Labs.

    I also gained (even more) respect for Dr Sisay after this meeting… because although it was good to be there and an important programme, for sure, we went through a lot of trouble travelling all that way to be there just for one meeting. This is all a normal part of his work life, though, and he was travelling even more frequently when he worked for World Vision. It is a reality of the industry and although seems fun at first I can see how it could quickly become burdensome.

    This trip was also special for me because Dr Sisay’s brother and his family live in Mek’ele, so we were able to meet them for dinner and coffee. It was his brother’s wedding anniversary and we had a great time celebrating with them. The family was incredibly sweet—Dr Sisay’s brother and sister-in-law were so welcoming to me—and I really loved getting to meet and spend time with them. His brother is a professor in IT and we got to quickly chat about the education system in Ethiopia. I was surprised to learn that many senior positions are given to foreign candidates, but it was good to hear that this is changing with time—local capacity building, in a sense.

    As previously introduced in the June section, I spent time supporting Kate and Zemichael with the UNISE pre-pilot assessment. In Seqota, the three of us conducted the assessment for the woreda level. Zemichael conducted the assessment in the Tigray woreda with the help of the regional PDU. The regional level assessments (Amhara and Tigray) were conducted by their respective PDUs, and in July I supported Zemichael in conducting the federal level assessment. From a learning perspective, the time spent doing these assessments was productive. I am very grateful to Zemichael for acting as a translator in so many of these meetings. I was able to meet a huge amount of government workers working with nutrition-sensitive data at all levels. Also, through working on the assessment, I gained a not-insignificant working understanding of data systems in the development context—like DHIS2 and the ALMA scorecard. I also of course learned about Ethiopia’s own handling of data and the general flow of data upwards—or, as was the case in many sectors, the intended flow of data and the major problems encountered that impede this flow.

    I was grateful to Zemichael for including me on his federal-level meetings; we ended up going to a few ministries together including the Ministry of Water/Irrigation/Electricity and the Ministry of Agriculture. Looking back, though, some of this time could have been better spent elsewhere—there was only so much I learned from observing the assessment over and over, and I could only contribute to a certain extent. For one, there was the language barrier, but there was also the reality that I was still learning what the best questions to ask were. Again though—especially at the federal level—I enjoyed being able to meet the Ethiopians working in data. And through the time spent here I was able to get a proper look into both Zemichael and Kate’s roles and the day-to-day of their jobs.

    In spending time in July with Big Win and the FPDU, I also learned about an important part of the world of development: the involvement of partners to implement the vision of programmes. It took me a bit of time to understand the variety of entities that could be involved in this sort of initiative. Big Win, I learned, could be referred to as a donor or a development partner. I liked the language of partner a little bit better than the power and knowledge gap implied by the “donor” and “beneficiary” language. Then, there are technical partners: companies with specific expertise that were hired (as consultants/contractors) by donors or others to implement programmes. PEMANDU is a significant technical partner for the youth employment initiative, for example. On top of this the technical partners vary in their expertise and scope of work; there are Monitoring & Evaluation firms, design firms, etc. Plus there are NGOs that work on the ground, many times not-for-profit.

    With this learning came the realisation that there are countless paths into the world of development, and I know now I was lucky to be able to interact with so many different roles in the field. Over the course of July I was a part of the development of partnerships between the Declaration/Big Win and three different groups: CultivAid, ThinkPlace, and ALMA.

    Although I am almost certain that any role I have in the development field would not include time with a consulting firm or technical partner, there is something compelling about these partnerships. With the issue of duplication of efforts seemingly widespread, these groups of entities working together to make impacts seems ideal.

    As can be ascertained from the previous activities, much more time was spent in the office in July than in June. The meetings I attended this month were actually a lot more fun and engaging simply because I knew more about the industry, the Declaration, and Big Win. I would look forward to now attempting to contribute at least a bit in these engagements—unfortunately though there were fewer one-off meetings this month.

    One of my final afternoons in Ethiopia was spent visiting Dr Sisay’s home in Jemo—it was beautiful, and I was grateful for the invitation and to be able to meet his children. And on my last day at work, the entire team and I went out for a farewell lunch. They gave me gifts—traditional Ethiopian wear, some souvenirs—certainly succeeding in making me feel emotional about leaving the Ministry.

    Gave 125.00 hours between 07/08/2018 and 07/29/2018 with Bonner Community Fellowship