Angga Martha

Country: Indonesia
Organization: Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives (CISDI)

ANGGA: The Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives (CISDI) is an institution that serves as the center for national development strategy analysis in Indonesia. It involves creating innovations and strategic initiatives that will help accelerate the implementation and achievement of the 2030 Global Goals on Sustainable Development (SDGs) as a whole and specifically the implementation of development interventions in the area of health and youth engagement. As part of CISDI’s mandate, they facilitate and drive cross-sector collaboration between public, private and civil society organizations integral to achieve development goals that are widespread, equal, and sustainable.

My role for this internship includes the following aspects:

1. To assist CISDI in facilitating multi-stakeholder partnerships on SDGs, specifically non- state actors, such as youth groups, the private sector, and philanthropy organizations in the SDGs implementation.

2. To assist strategy development on SDG implementation into the local development plan with a concentration on public-private partnership and youth engagement

I got an opportunity to visit and work together with a team of Pencerah Nusantara in Pototano, West Nusa Tenggara and to see their direct contribution to the local community in this area. It is evident to me that youth participation is a pre-condition for sustainable development and the youth need to be co-owners of the future. Inclusive participation will not see youth as an object or target, but more in developing a mutual partnership with young people as a subject and partner to development.

Private sector and philanthropy organization has crucial role in shaping development, especially in this rapidly evolving global environment where information is open and free for everyone.

SDGs can act as guiding principles for the work of private sector philanthropy organization, and provide a platform for the private sector to implement long-term goals and partnerships that will make a significant contribution towards achieving sustainable development for all.

Ashley Anderson

Country: Philippines
Organization: Millenium Challenge Corporation

Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is a U.S. government agency that provides assistance to support economic growth and poverty reduction in developing countries demonstrating a commitment to just and democratic governance, economic freedom, and investments in people. As the very first summer intern for MCC‐Philippines, Ashley Anderson's main deliverable was to create a repository of social impact reports detailing the specific effects of select MCC programs on beneficiaries and their communities. In order to collect insights for the impact stories, she  arranged interviews with key stakeholders all over the Philippines.

Ashley: “My experience with MCC was a truly enlightening experience both for professional and personal reasons. Professionally, I was able to work overseas for the first time and, more importantly, in a developing context. After seeing the poverty and restraints to economic growth in Manila first hand, I am inspired to find inclusive development opportunities for the Philippines and have decided to focus my thesis on potential growth industries for the country. Furthermore, I now want to explore a career in emerging market entry strategy with a focus on Southeast Asia after I graduate. Finally, I want to express my gratitude for Mr. Blakeley and his family – because of his generosity and investment in Fletcher students I’ve been privileged to have this experience and the potential future opportunities it may lead to..”

Jessica Meckler

Country: Bangladesh

Organization: Social Innovation Lab

Jessica Meckler interned at BRAC’s Social Innovation Lab, a development organization headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Jessica’s specified role was to assist the Social Innovation Lab, which is nestled in the Microfinance department, with they Innovation fund for Mobile Money.

Jessica: “My internship solidified my interest in M&E, and the lessons that I learned while at BRAC will help determine my courses for my second year at Fletcher. I already rely on my knowledge from BRAC now.”

Deepti Jayakrishnan

Country: India

Organization: ACCESS Development Services

Deepti Jayakrishnan worked at Educate Lanka Foundation Inc, a 501c3 non-profit organization which creates a unique platform for the global Sri Lankan diaspora to engage with their home country by financially contributing the education of its children and youth. Deepti’s responsibilities included conducting feasibility studies, preparing project reports, identifying and potential corporate partners, reviewing existing legal contracts, and managing an intern.

Deepti : “Besides adapting my legal skills to a new jurisdiction, I had opportunities to refine my grant writing skills and negotiating skills. It also depend my interest in impact investing and social investment businesses. I am highly likely to start my own company or at least heavily invest in a social business in the future.”

Katie Halleran

Country: Cambodia

Organization: Development Innovations

Katie Halleran worked at Development Innovations in Cambodia, and immersed herself int he world of Phnom Penh startups, hub, hackerspaces, design thinking groups, and co-working spaces in order to get to know the landscape. She also took part in providing content and editing for the first and second rounds of an internal DAI competition on innovative projects.

Katie: “I was fortunate to alongside the talented people on the ground at DI; one of my colleagues, a Khmer Rouge survivor who escaped at the Thai border camps at 6 years old, had just finished a documentary on rediscovering the camp where over 20,000 were said to have died, and reconnecting with childhood friends with whom he had fled the camp.”

Tapish Bhatt

Country: India

Organization: ACCESS

Tapish Bhatt spent a summer at ACCESS, which impacts the poor of India at all levels of the sector value chain. His work entailed Streamlining internal processes of the organisation viz. sales and production planning, designing a marketing strategy for JJADE, and studying the feasibility of a managed production cluster.

Tapish: “I remain committed to achieving impact at the bottom of the pyramid, but now I would like to work with corporations towards managing their donations better to achieve maximum output.”

Leah Meadows

Country: Indonesia

Organization: Mercy Corps, Agri-Fin Mobile

Leah Meadows was hired for her expertise in gender integration and assessments. While in Jakarta, she researched women’s access to financial services, cellphone technology, and agriculture information. She developed surveys for 160 female and youth farmers, while training local facilitators in how to give 20 focus group discussions in 6 subdistricts of West Java province. She conducted 25 one-on-one interviews and culminated her internship with an office-wide presentation of her 50-page report on how the Agri-Fin mobile project should change to address women’s needs.

Leah: “This internship was truly invaluable. I developed skills that complement my classroom studies, and that will make me more marketable as a working professional. This experience has strengthened my interest in these factions of international development, and I plan to take micro-finance courses next semester to further my career goal.”

Hannah Schiff

Country: India
Organization: Start Up! India

Hannah Schiff’s work included in-person interviews with villagers, experts in the field, and other social entrepreneurs as well as exposure to a wide variety of social enterprise models. She gained experience helping social enterprises define smart business strategies and processes and created questionnaires, guides and other content for Start Up! India’s Incubation Tool Kit.

Hannah : “This was a powerful internship through which I gained many insights that will be useful in my academic and career decisions going forward. The experience helped me to refine my idea of what I am looking for in a future work environment.”

Elena Fiekowsky

Country: Vietnam

Elana Fiekowsky worked as an impact evaluation specialist at VinaCapital Foundation the summer of 2011. VinaCapital Foundation (VCF) is the corporate foundation for VinaCapital, the largest Vietnamese investment firm. VCF focuses on providing heart surgery to children who would not be able to afford them otherwise, HeartBeat Vietnam, and improving the cardiac healthcare system in Vietnam. VCF also provides a seven year scholarship to ethnic minority girls to ensure that these girls can go finish high school and college, and go on to become role models within their communities’, Brighter Path program.

As an impact evaluation specialist, Elana designed, implemented and analyzed evaluations for their HeartBeat Vietnam and Brighter Path project. To do this work, Elana worked with the program teams to learn what indicators to measure and helped train the team to run and then understand the findings after the evaluations were done. Additionally, Elana helped design program changes in order to increase the rigor and information gathering for these projects.

Jenya

Country: Kyrgyzstan

Jenya worked at Kompanion, a Microfinance Company established by Mercy Corps. She worked on monitoring and evaluating agricultural extension programs that Kompanion carries out as part of its development mission and also provided recommendations on how to develop a social performance management system for the company.

Cheney

Country: Sri Lanka

Cheney served as the bridge between Kiva, BRAC, micro-entrepreneurs and lenders to streamline the loan posting process, monitor and evaluate repayment schedules to improve the new and emerging micro-finance industry in Sri Lanka.

Qiamuddin

Country: Afghanistan

Qiamuddin researched the prospects for small renewable energy enterprises and the role that micro-finance can play in providing capital to small entrepreneurs to develop this industry in Afghanistan and provided recommendations to First Micro-finance Bank.

Jacqueline

Country: India

Jacqueline worked with World Health Partners, implementing private sector practices in the reproductive health service delivery, including efficient service delivery, bundling of goods, and monitoring and evaluation.

Rabeh

Country: Lebanon

Rabeh worked at the Lebanese Transparency Association conducting an assessment and developing a business strategy for the creation of a new social enterprise for organic agricultural products with a focus on access to markets for the bottom of the pyramid.

Maria

Country: Tajikistan & Afghanistan

Mariah developed five program proposals for Eurasia Foundation Central Asia (EFCA) covering the creation of Youth Banks, improving the efficiency of labor markets, promoting education, integrating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into the private sector and building relationships between small business leaders in both countries.

Masaharu

Country: Bangladesh

Masaharu started a telemedicine service to connect local villagers with clinics or hospitals to urban hospitals, collaborating with bracNet, Grameen and BRAC. Responsibilities included meeting IT managers in local hospitals, developing a strategic plan and designing a demonstration to prove the service is technically feasible. Pilot project is now run by an NGO.