I interned with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) during the Spring ’19 semester. I worked with the Economic Recovery & Development Technical Unit (ERD TU) as a Monitoring and Evaluation Intern. The focus of the ERD TU is to support programming that improves the economic status and well-being of people affected by crisis across the globe. The ERD TU has expertise in cash relief and livelihoods with a focus on monitoring and evaluation, policy and advocacy, gender equality, and research. Within this unit, the role of the monitoring and evaluation team is to improve data collection and analysis for economic and livelihoods programs.
As an intern, I had worked on various projects, from helping the ERD TU streamline their process for annual data collection, to preparing materials on livelihoods indicators and troubleshooting information for people gathering data in the field. A lot of the work she does requires gaining new technical skills, including creating surveys in Kobo Toolbox and CommCare and making data visualizations in Microsoft Power BI.
IPED has helped me in providing a solid educational foundation that can be used to understand the broader context of global crises that affect people worldwide. IPED has also provided me with a lot of support in seeking external internships, such as my engagement with IRC, and offered flexibility in managing my internship and my work as a Public Service Fellow in the IPED program.