Realizing Rights: The Ethical Global Initiative
Elizabeth Sutcliffe, 2010
As an intern at Realizing Rights, a global health policy organization founded by Mary Robinson in 2002 (former Prime Minister of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), I was directly exposed to the mechanisms in which health policy is decided upon, written and implemented. I concentrated my work on Realizing Right’s MLI project: the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health. MLI was focused upon providing technical assistance towards health reform to Ministries of Health in the countries of Mali, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Nepal and Ethiopia. The three components of MLI are reproductive health, equity in health financing and donor harmonization. I was asked to research and write 3 key fact sheets on these components, which were edited by both my supervisor and a member of the senior staff. I spent the majority of time conducting research on the status of reproductive health in Mali and Sierra Leone, in which I completed two papers analyzing Letters of Interest the two countries, had submitted to Realizing Rights the last week of January, requesting additional technical assistance for improving reproductive health. I have been assured that the information I have provided in these papers is valuable and applicable to the current situation MLI faces in choosing which country to provide funds to.
Additionally, I was given the task to compile a master health contact list of all of Realizing Right’s connections with health policy workers throughout the world. I organized this list by country and it will prove to be an invaluable resource for the organization. Also, I was responsible for helping in the preparation for a conference Realizing Rights is hosting in Oslo, Norway on February 3-4th for their other project: developing a code for Health Worker Migration (in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO)). I mailed out meeting materials to far-flung countries, translated and wrote biographies on attendees who came from West African French speaking countries, put together a list on hotel accommodations, and checked visa statuses of the attendees.
Midway in January I had the opportunity to attend a forum on Reproductive Rights in light of the incoming Obama Administration at the Center for American Progress in DC. I attended this debate with two staff members: my supervisor and senior staff member who used to head Planned Parenthood. The debate itself was lukewarm in terms of rhetoric. The conversation I got to have afterward with the senior staff member was quite memorable and influential towards my thoughts and motivations for focusing my career in women’s health.
I loved working at Realizing Rights. I was surprised that I would find an office atmosphere so enjoyable but the organization is truly filled with wonderful people and is located in the larger context of the famed Aspen Institute at the heart of the District. I entered my internship skeptical about the role of policy in global health. I had spent a semester studying global health at Georgetown University and had become committed to doing hands-on work instead of policy work for global health. I plan to become a nurse practitioner after Middlebury. However, at Realizing Rights I have become of the opinion that in an office is where it all begins, hand-on work cannot be carried out without the infrastructure built by policy. Overall, I have found my work on MLI to be exciting and engaging and I am reluctant to leave. I hope to return soon to Realizing Rights in some capacity, whether it is through free intern work or after I graduate during my doing post-baccalaureate study at Georgetown University before I enter nursing school.
In the United States, Washington D.C. is where global health policy is being made. I feel that my internship this January term has been an invaluable exposure to the inner workings of global health policy and the buzz that exists in D.C. I learned that office work can be quite enjoyable and is not all doom, gloom and carpal tunnel syndrome. Free coffee, an intimate working environment with six amazing staff members, a happening building in a happening location, and stimulating work on global health and reproductive health in Africa is what has made my time at Realizing Rights so amazing. My month at Realizing Rights has given me faith in global health policy work and the impact it can have on the ground. I no longer am a bitter skeptic towards office life and policy work. I might even be a convert. Let’s just say I loved my internship so much that I have spent the last week in crisis deciding whether or not to return to Middlebury for the Spring semester. However, ultimately my desire to be back in school so I can further myself towards a nurse practitioner degree with math and bio and learn about poverty in my senior anthropology seminar is irrepressible and I must return to the Green Mountains where the maple syrup is real and it is a comforting nineteen below.
Contact the Career Services Office for more information on this internship.