Role & Responsibilities
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." - Chinese Proverb As the Community Development Field Assistant Intern, I am a part of an extensive multidisciplinary team comprised of both Ugandan team members based in Mbarara and Bushenyi and Canadian team members based in Calgary. In this role, I am afforded the ability to work both independently as well as collaboratively, especially with our Project Manager, Field Coordinator and Community Health Officers. Lacking any formal engagement in research activities prior this role, I have had the valuable opportunities to conduct field visits, interviews and focus groups in Mbarara and Bushenyi Districts in order to gather qualitative data for various projects. As my first project, I conducted a literature review on community emergency transport plans in Sub-Saharan Africa. This literature review was then utilized to help inform my development of a model template for community emergency transport plans which is now being used to encourage communities to initiate their own emergency transport plan. I had the opportunity to observe and document a 3-day Community Development Training for Village Health Teams (VHTs) as to generate a schedule and detailed descriptions for facilitating each activity. This draft document will then be used to modify the Community Developing training manual and inform other training courses. For another project, based on qualitative research findings, I developed informed criteria, indicators and data collection methods for the assessment of functional VHTs. I also developed the guidelines for annual Healthy Homes Competitions, which are to be community engagement activities that also serve as health promotion. Incorporating the Community Emergency Transport Plans and the Healthy Homes Competitions, I co-developed the 3-Day VHT Catalyst Training course for the pilot VHT Catalyst program which was administered this July. Currently, I am researching and developing documentation of various community engagement activities and initiatives as to inform the future assessment of VHT development initiatives on an annual basis and co-developing a Leadership Tool document. |