Scholarship / Being a public health practitioner in Egypt requires extremely wide network of connections CHEVENING [3]

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Being a public health practitioner in Egypt requires extremely wide network of connections with the relevant stakeholders such as public, government, private sectors, civil society organizations, UN agencies, and any other potential partner. When I was student, I had recognized the necessity of establishing communications whether with faculty professors, students from different faculties or with beneficiaries from the projects and researches which organized by student activities that are dedicated to the patients or public. I have also worked for numerous civil society organizations that focus on human rights and gender for example; HarassMap Foundation and Cairo Institute on Human Rights because I believe these are ultimate topics correlated to health issues. This participation enabled me to extend my communication circles by running conjoint campaigns nationally and internationally on variable issues like domestic violence.

Back to school, I joined multiple entities in the university where I developed the infrastructure of most of the skills needed for my career in particular networking skills. For instance, I held a position as local exchange officer where I was in charge of arranging clinical and research medical exchange program in my faculty. In this regard, I had to be in contact with the professors of each department as well as lead a team of students to prepare for the program. On the international level, I represented IFMSA-Egypt in the 62nd General Assembly of IFMSA in India in 2012 where I met medical students from around the world and took part in sessions, workshops, and training with them.

In my current role a researcher and health program specialist at CDS, demonstrated extensive networking and influential skills. The nature of the position exposed me to several layers of communication. A great example that shows this is an ongoing research called participatory monitoring and accountability in collaboration with UNICEF and IDS, Sussex University. The research utilizes an innovative tool called collective digital storytelling where a group of caregivers of children living with HIV tell the lived experience resulted from low quality of health care services provided. Parallel modules are implemented in South Africa and Ghana under the supervision of IDS but with different themes. I serve mainly as the principal researcher, coordinator of ethical committee, and facilitator of the dialogue end stage. In this experience, I got the opportunity to practice my previous skills and advance them when I got to deal with representatives from Ministry of Health such as Head of National AIDS Program (NAP), managers of Civil Society Organizations and international organizations like family health international fhi360. As a result, these types of connections contributed to broadening my prospective of the field of public health in Egypt and assessing its urgent needs.

In conclusion, I will be able to construct suitable linkage with these institutions after finishing my postgraduate studies as I look forward to working on public health policies that needs the engagement of all them. Furthermore, I can voice my notions and proposals through different platforms.