by Kevin Strohm IPED ’22
This summer, I was an intern with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Liberia.
I was able to learn and contribute to the team on several projects in many different capacities, mainly focusing on bolstering my skills in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), and data analysis.
One of the main projects I worked on was a business training and cash transfer project for Ivorian refugees. Within this project I helped create the Monitoring and Evaluation plan, which included updating the results framework for the project, creating indicators, and developing all the details for how M&E would be completed for the project. Also, within this project, I designed and drafted the two baseline market assessment surveys, to better understand the future project participants. In addition, I helped create the first draft of the baseline survey for the Randomized Control Trial that was later removed from the project scope. Finally, I completed the analysis of the market assessment after the data was collected, which included analyzing all survey questions to form findings to guide the project forward.
I was also heavily involved with the analysis of the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy survey. For this project I was tasked with completing the qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The qualitative analysis consisted of reading the survey results and pulling out key themes, messages, and quotes which was turned into findings for the final report. The quantitative analysis involved cleaning the raw data and creating an interactive visual dashboard with Power BI to showcase the results. I gave two presentations concerning this project on data validation and project findings and wrote part of the final report.
I was also involved in a few smaller tasks as well. Wanting to go to the field and being unable to join the team on the larger field assignment, I completed a monitoring trip to a village outside of the capital for a small windstorm response project. For this, I created a monitoring survey, set up the trip, coordinated with our partner, lead a discussion with the community, and wrote a monitoring report. I was also able to help with the project design and proposal writing and editing process for two USAID grants. I immensely enjoyed my time in Liberia both from a professional and personal standpoint, and wish I could have stayed for longer.