FUTURE | mswportfolio

What Does My Future Hold?

There is much I want to do. And so much more that I want to learn. My areas of interest for the future are numerous and somewhat disjointed. I am hoping that my wide and varied interests mean it will be easier for me to find work that I enjoy. (Fingers crossed.)

If I were to continue working here in Canada I feel I would learn best working with a progressive social development organization that is grounded within the communities with whom they are working.

I do not yet have a well developed, tried and tested approach. I imagine it will be a gradual evolution as I expect each of my work experiences to help to further build my own model of practice.

As part of my practicum work at SFH I compiled 'success stories' for the purpose of sending to current and prospective donors. Success stories are personal stories from people, usually women, who have experienced an improvement in their lives because of an SFH intervention or product.

Telling these women's stories was something that I enjoyed immensely. It wasn't because they were singing the praises of the organization. It was the feeling of giving voice to those women who go largely unheard; telling their stories to people who have the resources and the power to affect significant change in their lives really felt like something that mattered, something that might actually make a difference.

I recently heard of a woman who was a qualitative research specialist. Her job was to go into rural areas all over Eastern and Northern Africa, listen to women's stories and create reports for aid agencies based on those stories. Wow. Generate reports for humanitarian aid projects about what the needs were on the ground. That would be my dream job.

An ideal role for me would be to spend time talking to people about the things that matter to them. And then using what I have learned about social development, and drawing on insights and skills I have learned, using that information to help to design programs and policies that improve lives and strengthen communities. If I'm doing that here in Canada, that's great, if I can do it in a country that is vastly different from my own... even better.