Southern California

Tomorrow is my first official day at the office here in Anaheim. The last week has been a whirlwind of moving, flying up to Berkeley for orientation and frantically writing my dissertation amongst my piles of boxes and various flotsam scattered around my apartment.

It looks like my work for Ventures Strategies Innovations is going to center around the misoprostal (a uterotonic drug that stops post-partum or post-abortion bleeding) program which includes everything from advocacy work to research and publication/dissemination. The program ranges from post-partum hemorrhage (PPH) work in Pakistan to complete abortion care (CAC) in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. The latter is controversial in some quarters because misoprostal, if given in the correct doses, can also act as an abortifacient. I still remember the first interview I had with this organization, where after the first question ("Do you mind working under difficult conditions where electricity and water may not be available all the time?"), the second question involved any potential moral issues I might have with abortion. For the record, I am 100% pro-choice and believe every woman has the right to choose what can and can't be done with her own body. I'm not sure if I could go through with an abortion but thankfully it has never been an issue that I've had to deal with in my life.

The other area which I'm hoping to branch into with this new company is development/fundraising. I've been doing some pro bono grant writing work on the side for a small South African NGO focused on orphans and vulnerable children in the Western Cape and also did some work a few months back for a small Kenyan NGO. I really enjoy the strategizing re: funders and the technical writing aspect of proposals. Ideally, I would love to start my own consulting firm or work myself into a position with this company in a few years where I could work "virtually" from anywhere in the world. It's good to have dreams!

As for travel, I suspect that my next venture abroad will be either Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique or Madagascar over the next 6-months.