"What? Where's he doing it?"
Hello everyone! This will be my first entry for the first week of my internship to Uganda (don't know where that is? That's totally fine, I didn't either. Just see my location!)
My first day, about an hour into the job, I shadowed a meeting with Dr. Falzone and the research team. PVI was chosen by Planned Parenthood Global (PPG) to carry out preliminary research, concept design, and concept testings for a future youth sexual reproductive health campaign that PPG and the Bloomberg foundation is launching in Uganda and other African countries. I didn't know about the project beforehand, and was totally caught off guard when research jargon and acronyms were flying across the room at an unimaginable pace. The research manager, Dr. Rachel Clad, sensed my dumbfounded-ness and tried to go slower and decode the acronyms for me (unsuccessfully, though.) So that was my ice-breaker with the research arm. Over the week, I asked Dr. Clad for more reports and reading on the PPG project. She also gladly gave me a one-on-one run through of the project which certainly helped a lot. I still only shadow research meetings, for now, but I have a much better understanding of the project and where it's headed. One particular meeting that stuck on my mind was when the team spent a lot of time going back-and-forth on the semantics of their surveys. And the talk that came with that, about word perception, connotations, charge (positive/negative), was very interesting.
My second day of the job, I was a production assistant for PVI's news program "Newz Beat". I got to work with the talents, see how production worked, and set up the brand-new teleprompter system. Newz Beat is a youth-oriented, "rap news" program where the rappers raps out international and domestic news stories. Newz Beat is aired on a popular free-to-air channel, NTV, during prime weekend slots, and has recently received 2 Telly Awards from the US.
So my first week was comparatively light, though there was always work to be done. On the weekend I went on a motorbike tour of the city (the city center, let just say, is a lot different than my expat-filled neighborhood), Stay tune for next week (for those who are reading all of these posts)
Kampala city center (The "Taxi park", great place to survey random people for research, really!)
"Wait what's he doing?"
So, my internship over the summer (2 months) isn't exactly "hard" scientific research, as some may have known. I'm working of an American NGO called PVI, which works mostly in Uganda. Their work centers around the concepts of media advocacy and "media innovation". From the general theme of "media innovation", the NGO divides into roughly three separate-but-connected parts: distribution, production, and research. Dr. Paul Falzone is the founder and director of PVI, and over four years he has worked to expand all three arms of the NGO. Thus, PVI now has dozens of different projects, in all three arms, running all at once. Since my official internship is to be Dr. Falzone's assistant, I'm spending the next 8 weeks shadowing, learning the ropes, and working in all three arms of the NGO.My first week...
Kampala (that's Uganda's capital) was pretty hectic and definitely not for the faint-hearted. There were motorbikes (boda) and cars driving everywhere (not to mention they drive on the left!), which makes it all the more thrilling to walk outside. Thankfully, my humble abode is only about 20 minute of walking to the office so I can go back and forth pretty quickly. Every morning for the first week, I went to work at 10am, and left whenever I was finished with my work (about 5-6pm). And for the first week, I was tasked with mostly smaller stuff (fixing reports going through legal documents, reading up on PVI's current research project), but I also had a taste of most of the things going on at PVI. PVI itself is a small operation; the office is actually in a residential compound, which actually gives it, very much, a start-up-like feel (we have 4 rabbits and a tortoise as pets).My first day, about an hour into the job, I shadowed a meeting with Dr. Falzone and the research team. PVI was chosen by Planned Parenthood Global (PPG) to carry out preliminary research, concept design, and concept testings for a future youth sexual reproductive health campaign that PPG and the Bloomberg foundation is launching in Uganda and other African countries. I didn't know about the project beforehand, and was totally caught off guard when research jargon and acronyms were flying across the room at an unimaginable pace. The research manager, Dr. Rachel Clad, sensed my dumbfounded-ness and tried to go slower and decode the acronyms for me (unsuccessfully, though.) So that was my ice-breaker with the research arm. Over the week, I asked Dr. Clad for more reports and reading on the PPG project. She also gladly gave me a one-on-one run through of the project which certainly helped a lot. I still only shadow research meetings, for now, but I have a much better understanding of the project and where it's headed. One particular meeting that stuck on my mind was when the team spent a lot of time going back-and-forth on the semantics of their surveys. And the talk that came with that, about word perception, connotations, charge (positive/negative), was very interesting.
My second day of the job, I was a production assistant for PVI's news program "Newz Beat". I got to work with the talents, see how production worked, and set up the brand-new teleprompter system. Newz Beat is a youth-oriented, "rap news" program where the rappers raps out international and domestic news stories. Newz Beat is aired on a popular free-to-air channel, NTV, during prime weekend slots, and has recently received 2 Telly Awards from the US.
So my first week was comparatively light, though there was always work to be done. On the weekend I went on a motorbike tour of the city (the city center, let just say, is a lot different than my expat-filled neighborhood), Stay tune for next week (for those who are reading all of these posts)
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