I found a job in the UK...hurray!

I know, this is an old news (at least to my family and friends). This is actually a long-overdue blog post – remember I said monthly blog post? Right lol. Well that is because of my new job (back then), moving to London, writing scientific articles for publication, travelling, Christmas break – yes all the excuses you can imagine! The truth is I really didn't have the motivation back then because I thought no one reads my posts except for my very, very few close friends. BUT I was wrong.

Surprisingly there were some strangers, i.e. non-family/friends, who were lured to see my website! Ikr, shocking. And these strangers, who are now my acquaintances, are mainly asking me for advice regarding my current undertaking and my previous master programme. Given this, I decided to make some posts about these things – oops but before that, I will start the new year with a new blog post about myself (oh yes, just a 'feel-good' post lol). But seriously, consider this as a prelude to my succeeding posts.

So what am I doing now? I am currently working as the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer in an NGO/charity called the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) in London since October 2017. Oh yeah, I can read your mind: what the heck is M&E (this warrants a separate blog post, but simply it's measuring programme results), and what is WAGGGS?! Have you heard of Scouts or Boy Scouts – well, we're the female counterpart of it! WAGGGS is the global (mother) organisation of national girl guides/girl scouts association (guide/éclaireuses en français, y guías scouts en Español) in 150 countries! We are the "largest voluntary movement dedicated to girls and young women in the world" with around 10 million members!

Pretty amazing, huh?! Well, it is! My professional experiences have always been, and will always be, on health and gender (females mainly): OB-GYN nursing, HIV, reproductive health, and gender-based violence. And the streak continues! I am mainly involved in a pilot behaviour change nutrition programme amongst girls and young women aged 6-19 in Bangladesh, Madagascar, the Philippines (yes!), Sri Lanka and Tanzania. Our programme has three main components: education curriculum, community mobilisation, and national and global advocacy. It is such a wonderful project, but also challenging for my role as these things are really hard to measure!

Part of my role as well is to help the wider M&E of the Global Programmes Team, which means I am involved in higher strategic work like developing the M&E Framework and setting up the M&E system of the department. I just had my first ever presentation in WAGGGS two weeks ago, and guess who's the audience – well, just the World Board (the highest governing body of WAGGGS!). It was such a great experience, and well received. Also, I'll be able to work in WAGGGS' other flagship programmes like Free Being Me, Action on Body Confidence, Voices Against Violence, and World Thinking Day (every 22nd February)! #exciting

Okay, that's all about my current work now. Oh I also had my second MPH graduation in The University of Sheffield – it was a different (very formal) graduation experience (totally opposite from the one I had in France; and the Philippines is a combination of both lol). More than that, it was nice to see few old friends!

Anyway, I'll share my experience on how I landed a job in the UK in my next write-up, including some tips and a bit of the UK job market. Stay tuned! :)

Cheers,

M x