Femme Internationale is a Toronto-based NGO dedicated to promoting women’s health through education in East Africa. My day-to-day responsibilities include the administrative side of things, social media updates and communication with donors, as well as the development of an overall vision for the organization and a strategic plan. I work with my team to develop goals we can achieve both at home and overseas.
In Toronto we have a team of five volunteers. In East Africa we have four local staff working in Nairobi, Kenya, and Moshi, Tanzania.
I did my undergrad degree in international development at Queen’s University and I went on to take the post-graduate diploma in international development project management at the Humber School of Business. My undergrad was theoretical and covered a lot of history and politics, but the Humber program focused on applying business skills such as budgeting, finances and management specifically to international development. I started Femme in 2012 and graduated in 2013.
The examples we did in class were directly related to international development. When we talked about crisis management, we looked at organizations that lost their funding and developed an appropriate response. We looked at business communication, writing business plans in the context of international development and, of course, financial management.
Growing up, I wanted to travel and explore the world and started to take on more volunteer opportunities. I went to El Salvador twice when I was in high school. My personal interests in travelling turned toward politics – what was going on in the world and how I could play a role in changing things.
I developed an interest in women’s issues in East Africa while doing my undergrad at Queen’s. I realized that women, specifically young women, can be the answer to a lot of problems, and the focus needs to be on them if you want to create sustainable change.
In school we were researching issues that women face. We got on to the subject of menstruation, and as we started researching it, I realized there were no formal studies on menstrual health and its effect on women in developing countries. This was a huge gap in development programs, so we decided to do something.
At Humber I learned how to run a program in the field and how to create systems and policies to make sure the organization is run transparently, effectively and efficiently.
The teachers were definitely the best part. I’ve stayed close to a lot of them, and they’ve become mentors to me and everyone at Femme.
It’s challenging being an entrepreneur and being your own boss, to be the one to make the decisions, especially when you’re young. I just finished my schooling two years ago, so a lot of this is new to me. Asking for money is never easy, and finding it is even harder.
I spent five months of the last year in Kenya and Tanzania. I’m going back again in March for a few months and then again in August, probably for a year.
The best part of my job involves doing education programs at schools. We have local facilitators who run the workshops, but we often go with them to observe, take photos or speak with the girls ourselves. It’s always amazing to see the impact this program is having on their lives. It’s the rewarding part of the job – it’s easy to get caught up in paperwork, writing reports and grants and fundraising.
