Sunday, July 27, 2008

Gimme the 5 W's!!

Who? Elisa (aka. E-Chen, Elsie, E, Mei Mei, etc.)

What? Going to volunteer in Embu, Kenya through a great business partnership between a non-profit, Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) and my work, Accenture. I will be working with a Non-Govermental Organization (NGO) called Family Health International and with the Kenyan Ministry of Health (MoH) as a Health Information Systems and Data Advisor.

What??!!?? Yes, my work and passion has found a somewhat happy medium!! I can now apply my work experience towards something I find worthwhile. So more details about my volunteer role:

The MoH has a lot of good health data captured at a local level (e.g. health centres, dispensaries, hospitals); but, most of the data is lost because it does not flow efficiently from the local level, to the district level, to the provincial medical office and onwards to the various technical leaders at the national level where it is needed for influencing policy and strategy.

So my job is to analyse the system and help work out an appropriate and sustainable system and mechanism to ensure that all the data that is captured at the provincial medical office and available to the various technical leaders.

When? I leave for Embu August 21st, 2008.

Why? Surprise surprise...... for those of you who know me well, you know that I have had the "travel bug" since college and have a love for culture, people, and international development. Since I've found out about this program/partnership at my work, it has been one of my goals to volunteer with VSO (so don't think this is due to any quarter-life crisis).