My first day at FHI 360 was kind of exhausting, but fascinating, engaging, and above all, inspiring. The first thing I learned about the nonprofit – FHI 360 – is that the work they do involves an enormous number of acronyms that the company uses in their work. FHI 360, though now a large, global nonprofit with many focuses, was initially focused on family planning, and for the duration of our internships, we are lucky to be working with the CTI program, or contraceptive technology innovation. We spent our first day learning about the work that different members of the CTI have done, and what their career paths have been.
Jill Sergison, an associate scientist and midwife, talked to us about her non-traditional career path and experiences at FHI 360. Although she didn’t take the traditional route in the non-profit world of spending time in the Peace Corps before receiving her PhD, she still ended up at FHI 360 doing work that fascinated her. She also encouraged us to check our white American privilege when looking at project work – the differences of our lives in comparison to the women we are helping are substantial, and when designing projects we should consider those differences before making decisions.
Lucy Wilson, a technical advisor, talked about the possible struggles with funding the company faces. She works with various donors to secure funding for CTI projects, and as the Trump administration has released the new proposed budget, she has had to look into other sources of funding for FHI 360, as 65% of the non-profits funds come from US governmental agencies like the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Lastly, Aubrey Weber, a technical officer, talked with us about her work on social media campaigns for Linkages (improving treatment for HIV and AIDs) + Passages (improving family planning and sexual norms in Africa), and an upcoming campaign for CTI. She discussed some of her day-to-day activities, like drafting blogposts and tweets, and how the tense political climate and possible budget cuts for nonprofits conducting medical research have complicated what she can and can’t post on the company accounts.
In addition to talking with us, they also came up with some really cool projects for us to work on while we are at FHI 360. They would like us to come up with ways to use social media to make data collection about contraception more fun for teens, work on a video, modernize powerpoints, help develop a photo database, and do research on private philanthropists who may be interested in funding CTI.
I am so excited to continue working at FHI 360!
