Confessions of a Grassroot Soccer Intern - Praise and Advice

The Boston University School of Public Health's practicum requirement encourages graduate students to apply knowledge, theories, and skills learned though graduate coursework to an internship that addresses a public health challenge of their choosing. This practical approach provides students the flexibility to develop a practicum that suits their interests while offering the structured, supervised conditions through which students are able to mature personally and professionally. As an International Health concentrator, I accepted a position with Grassroot Soccer (GRS) in Cape Town, South Africa. GRS uses the power of soccer to mobilize communities in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS. As the M&E intern, I was responsible for assisting with the mainstreaming of GRS M&E activities. This entailed ensuring accurate and timely data collection and entry, developing data work flow plans and data collection instruments, coordinating external and internal evaluations, pre-testing changes to our curricula, developing referral mechanisms, conducting trainings, and disseminating research results. This opportunity allowed me to draw directly from my graduate training in public health evaluation, advocacy, and policy studies to meet and exceed practicum objectives. By combining the academic and field work domains and responding to any subsequent challenges that arose, I have gained both an intimate and practical knowledge of international health practices. Through this panel, I will describe how this experience has been and will continue to be irreplaceable – both in terms of professional development building and the relationships that will persist long after my year in Cape Town, South Africa has ended.