The day began as any other would – with a bowl of Rice Krispies and a groggy goodbye as I trudged out the door. I was on my way to downtown Durham for my first day at FHI 360, a global health institute with a particular focus on contraceptive technology and innovation. This was extremely exciting for me, as I have always been interested in global and public health, and this would allow me to take a deeper more real delve into what it truly means to be involved in international development when viewed from both business and personal lenses.
About a cup of coffee and a half an hour later, I arrived at FHI’s entrance, tucked between DPAC and the Bulls Stadium. That’s one thing I absolutely loved about this: the location. I’ve always been a fan of Durham, from the food scene to the aesthetics of the buildings, and FHI was definitely smack dab in the middle of it all. I waited for Hope, Chloe, and Maddie to arrive, and then we all entered the building. We promptly met up with Celia Mizelle (Maddie’s sister – a CA alum that is interning at FHI), who introduced us to Lauren. We then proceeded to have a tour of the facility, where we were all very impressed with its modern design, beautiful pictures, personal library, and – perhaps most importantly – the break room. The break room has a patio that allows those who enter to walk out almost directly over the Durham Bulls field, which is, for lack of better words, quite the view. Rest assured, we spent a lot of time in there during our couple of hours off.
After we had seen most everything there was to see in the expansive three stories that compose FHI, we began the first of many (I say many, I mean approximately three) very cool meetings with very cool people. We had the opportunity to conference with Jill Sergison, who was able to explain a little bit more about what exactly it is that FHI does, what it is exactly that they do, and what exactly all of us were going to be doing there throughout the duration of our visit. I found it very interesting that there seemed to be no set academic path one had to take in order to ensure a job in global health – people we were introduced to had taken majors such as public health, but others such as Ms. Sergison had more esoteric jobs, such as being a practicing midwife in addition to being an associate scientist at FHI. Not everyone entering public or global health has backgrounds in pre-med or the Peace Corp, which was slightly reassuring to hear. We then met with Lucy Wilson, who was able to dictate some of the problems that FHI 360 faces in modern society, and how they have to work to ensure that they manage to receive the funding that they need in order to uphold their mission statement and continue their hard work. Afterwards, we met back up with Celia and Aubrey Weber, both of whom tasked us with developing a way to utilize social media or technology in order to create an assessible way of monitoring who may need what contraceptives based on where they may live (demographics). Aubrey, who is in charge of managing social media for global health programs, detailed some of the problems that she faces in ensuring that the content she puts out is both accessible and relevant. It was interesting to learn more about the time and effort that goes into what may seem like a trivial task.
Needless to say, we’re definitely looking forward to the rest of our time here!
See ya tomorrow,
Caroline