Episode 4: The HerStart Fellow Volunteer Experience

In this episode, Cindy Lee, HerStart Monitoring and Evaluation E-Fellow, speaks with Laura Perez Gonzalez, HerStart Research & Insights E-Fellow for Tanzania and Gifty Osei Boateng, HerStart Gender Equality & Entrepreneurship Fellow in Ghana about their experience volunteering with YCI’s HerStart Innovate the Future program, including the key skills they’ve learned and advice they have for future fellows.  

Transcript

Intro 0:05

Hi everyone, welcome to Youth Challenge International's HerStart HerStory podcast series. YCI launched the HerStart Innovate the Future program in 2020 as part of our initiative to advance women's equality globally. Our goal is bold- support 10,000 young women in Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda to become social entrepreneurs by 2027. We'll be sharing real stories from the program and speaking with the young women who are shaping a social entrepreneurship ecosystem and leading change in their communities. YCI's HerStart Innovate the Future program is funded in part by the Government of Canada to progress Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy. Each HerStory episode has been produced with the help from fellows who have volunteered to share and gain skills to support implementing the HerStart program. For most fellows, this was their first interviewing experience. It was an opportunity to step outside their comfort zone and learn about the podcasting experience, which is new to many of us. You can join us and learn more at yci.org or herstart.org.

Cindy Lee 1:35

Hello! On today's episode of HerStory, we're chatting with some volunteers from both Canada and Ghana. So we have Laura who was the Research and Insights Fellow from the previous cohort, Cohort 2. And we have Gifty who is a Gender Equality Fellow for the current cohort, and we'll tell you about our role with the HerStart project. So, hi Laura, can you please introduce yourself? And Gifty, can you please introduce yourself as well?

Laura Perez Gonzalez 2:00

Yeah, so thank you for having me. So my name is Laura, and like you mentioned, I was a Research and Insights Fellow for Cohort 2 and so my work focused on Tanzania specifically. And so together we supported some of the projects with SoJo to help learn a little bit more about the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Tanzania and Zanzibar specifically.

Gifty Osei Boateng 2:20

Okay, yes, I'm Gifty Osei Boateng, I am the Gender Equality and Entrepreneurship Fellow for Ghana.

Cindy Lee 2:28

Interesting. So can you tell me a little bit more about why you decided to get involved and why you specifically chose the role that you're in?

Laura Perez Gonzalez 2:37

Yeah, so I am very passionate about women's empowerment and education, particularly. So I was really interested in the opportunity because, well, with COVID like everything was pretty much closed. And so this being a remote opportunity definitely seemed interesting and an opportunity to be able to practice international development to the extent that I could at that time.

Gifty Osei Boateng 2:59

Okay, yes. Naturally, I've been the kind of lady who wants to see a lot of women empowered. So I gave birth to my second child and I had to babysit and do mother work for a whole year, so I was out of the office workspace for a whole year. So I saw the HerStart project ad on the internet- volunteer for four months. So I decided to go in for the Gender Equality and Entrepreneurship Fellow because previously I was working on women and educating the girl child. Ghana has a problem where a lot of children are forced into early marriages. So my previous project, we were working to stop those things and encourage the young girls to go to school instead. So that motivated me a lot to apply for the Gender Equality Fellow to at least push me back to the office space since I've been in the house for a very long time and also learn and grow so that I'll be able to fit into a wider space next time, so that motivated me to apply.

Cindy Lee 4:10

Thank you. So you mentioned that you wanted to go back to the office setting. So that's interesting because for me mostly when I was doing my fellowship, it was mostly remote, so I was stuck at home. And working remotely for me I found some challenges and benefits. So I actually wanted to dig a little deeper into that and ask how that experience was and the benefits you saw. Like I know that you mentioned being able to collaborate with a lot of people from diverse backgrounds. Would you say there were any other benefits that you wanted to highlight?

Laura Perez Gonzalez 4:52

Yeah, I think initially the challenge is not really knowing how it's going to work out because all you can really see is just your screen and that's the extent that you're able to participate in many ways. So I think like first adapting to that, and then also like the time zones can be a little tricky sometimes because we also have like daylight savings time and so that puts us an extra hour either ahead or behind from the country that we're working with, and so then meetings can be pretty early. So trying to do outreach was initially challenging because everybody's busy, so everybody has their own schedules as well. And so the time difference played a little bit into that, but I think it was really fun overall. Just the fact that you can connect with somebody who is at the other side of the world while you're working from your own room is pretty cool. And I think like how that became the norm in some ways, it's kind of cool to reflect on that, but I think like being able to collaborate, like I said, with people who are as passionate as you are about the same topics is really interesting and really cool just to be able to share ideas and share that knowledge and support each other professionally and personally, as you grow through the four months, that was the fellowship for me. But you definitely learn a lot and you get to hone in on certain skills that you wanna specifically tailor. So like I did some monitoring and evaluation through different projects, but I also did a lot of research. And so it was really interesting and different concepts that you're also introduced to. And then you get the opportunity to kind of learn more about them on your own, through the support of YCI and through the HerStart fellowship as well.

Gifty Osei Boateng 6:22

Yes. Initially the only challenge is the internet because, having to connect, sometimes you'll be in the meeting, everything is going on, then the internet cuts out. That's the only challenge. Apart from that, we were able to impact, although we do not see each other physically, but we were able to impact collaborating with Maria Malik in Canada, through WhatsApp, through Slack and through Google Meet and all those things made me connect with her, although we weren't in touch physically. I've learned a lot. And also with my colleagues here, we have to move from the office, from the home and come to office, stay here till 5:00 PM and go back. They become your family.

Cindy Lee 7:13

Yeah, for sure. And I appreciate you mentioning like the different communication platforms that we were able to use. I think conversations on Slack, email, we even had a WhatsApp chat group. So I think we figured out different ways to manage that challenge and made it easier for all of us to collaborate. And I do agree with that point about having to figure out time zone and everything, I think that was certainly a challenge. At first I remember going like, what 4:00 PM GMT? Like what time is that in Canada? I have to do I have to Google it, I have to do my calculations, but now I'm like, oh, it's 12:00 PM. I know it like right on top of my head. So I think after practice, it's definitely a challenge that we can all overcome and like the benefits of connecting with other people from all over the world definitely outweighs the challenge, I guess. And Laura, you mentioned how you got to work on your personal professional skills that you were able to develop with the HerStart program. So can you explain a little bit more about that and what some of your personal goals were in this volunteer program?

Laura Perez Gonzalez 8:25

Yeah, for sure. So I think initially I was really interested in learning more about gender analysis and also more about monitoring and evaluation. And so as a Research Fellow, I was able to practice some of those skills through my personal learning plan and through the micro-projects and through communities of practice. For their research, it was a little bit more catered to practicing like interview skills and human-centered design, which is really cool and really fun to learn about as well and how to analyze data in that way, which is really interesting and definitely something that's different from the academic background that I come from. So being able to get a sense of research through different lens was really great. And then through specific skills that I was interested in, the beginning of the fellowship, yeah so monitoring and evaluation and gender analysis. Those were really important to me and I think like being able to share those thoughts with different fellows and learn from the national fellows as well, what gender concepts look like in practice in the different countries and then being able to have those conversations in like a safe space, but also with people that are eager to learn is definitely very fruitful and definitely like a very welcoming environment. And I think being remote does have its challenges, but it's also an opportunity to connect. And that's something that I think is very valuable about the fellowship is that everybody's passionate about these issues and these programs, but everybody also has a different perspective and a different background. And so it becomes a really great learning space and really supportive space as well. And so that's something that I really appreciate and took away from the fellowship, now a few months later.

Cindy Lee 9:54

Mm-hmm<affirmative>. Yeah, for sure, and you mentioned how you were passionate about research and monitoring. I was a Monitoring, Evaluations and Learning Fellow, which was, it's like a new role that was introduced for this cohort. But coming from like an academic background, I found that a lot of my research skills were theory-based and not really practical and working with YCI and with the HerStart program, it gave me the opportunity to get more hands-on experience, and I think that was really important for my professional development, so I really appreciate you mentioning that point. I also wanted to touch upon,'cause you mentioned a lot of collaborative space, inspiring environments and being inspired by fellow fellows, so during your time as a volunteer, I think we all had like a moment where we felt really inspired by the participants of this project. I remember during one training session, when we were divided into group settings to have a debate, I remember one fellow said something very specific that really changed my perspective and the way I thought of the problem. So I was wondering if you guys had any moments like that during your cohort that really inspired you?

Laura Perez Gonzalez 11:12

Yeah, I can start. So for me it was definitely a lot of those moments because working with the fellow in Tanzania, I've never been to Tanzania before or Zanzibar, so I was, although I could do desk research and try to learn what was available online, it's definitely not the same as learning from the national fellow who was in Zanzibar and getting her perspective on different things. So there was definitely a lot of moments where she would say something that would kind of like make me reflect and rethink how I thought about, for example, like different perspectives of gender, different realities of gender that I didn't really necessarily think about living in Toronto, and so that was definitely like eye-opening. And then, like I said, like everybody had a different background and everybody's coming from a different academic background or just their lived experiences in each countries or where they're actually from. So I think being able to share on those moments and then like just enrich the conversations and the way that we learn, in order to carry out the project and to support with the research and the different communities of practice and everybody, everybody else's role, I think was really, really helpful. And I think, yeah, definitely those moments of epiphany, like you mentioned, were really, quite common, but definitely really enjoyable as well.

Gifty Osei Boateng 12:23

Yeah. Also to me, this fellowship program really inspired me a lot, especially collaborating with my colleagues here. Although we are all from Ghana, we are from just different environments, different places with different perceptions, so coming together to work under one environment, I really learnt a lot from each of them. And also liasing with Maria, who is the e-fellow for Ghana, I had to collaborate with her to do a lot of things. So, she really inspired me a lot from that side, being a foreigner, shares her experience with her nephew. So it's really made me understand what I'm in for and really made me want more. Some really shared a lot of insight that made me realize,"So is this really happening in my country?". Some had some perception about the home that if the person starting the social enterprise their husband will not support, so all this perceptions were in most of the women, so it enlightened me and it made understand the importance of training these young women and giving them a sense of hope to start something on their own.

Cindy Lee 13:43

Mm-hmm<affirmative> yeah, I agree. I think, I think this fellowship working with like different colleagues from diverse backgrounds definitely gave me an opportunity to look at issues from a different lens. And growing up in Canada, I found that most of my thinking and learning was very Western oriented. So I had to work mainly with Issa who was another Monitorin, Evaluations and Learning Fellow in Ghana, and that gave me a lot of opportunity for deeper conversations, for sure. So thank you guys for that. I also want to ask, to Laura first, what would you say to Canadians who are considering a volunteer experience with HerStart?

Laura Perez Gonzalez 14:31

I would say just do it, I mean, obviously like you have to take into consideration like your different factors for everybody it'll be different, but I think it's definitely a great opportunity to just be able to connect, and just be able to engage with people who are passionate about the same things who are also curious, who are also excited to learn anything. The HerStart Fellowship definitely provides that opportunity through the actual training that you do beforehand, where you learn a little bit more about international development, doing research, learning evaluation, so you spend about those two first weeks just doing some training with them and being able to, like Gifty said, to kind of create that sense of like a community and working with different colleagues and perspectives, and being able to enjoy that together. I think it's very rare, but I think it's a really great opportunity when it does present itself.

Cindy Lee 15:19

Gifty, for volunteers who are looking into participating in the HerStart program in Ghana or Tanzania or Uganda, what would you say?

Gifty Osei Boateng 15:31

Okay, I'll tell them to just go for it. It's a very enlightening experience. For just the four months, you really learn a lot. To me, it's like five years.<laugh> I've really developed personally, emotionally, teamwork- you just coordinate with everybody, you learn a lot. It'll help you learn how to be openminded to accept new ideas from people. So my time with YCI, it's even paining me that I'm leaving. I wish I could stay and do a lot of work and learn more.

Cindy Lee 16:03

So thank you, Laura and Gifty for all your work with the HerStart project, it was really nice working alongside you and having this conversation with you. I think our conversation will definitely inspire our listeners to get involved, help recruit more Canadian and Ghanaian, Tanzanian and Ugandan volunteers with the HerStart project. So thank you all for being here. I think it was a great opportunity to wrap the cohort up.

Outro 16:38

Thanks for joining us today and learning about how Youth Challenge International has partnered with young women to advance gender equality globally and create a social entrepreneurship ecosystem with a positive impact for all. If you enjoyed this HerStart HerStory podcast episode, please like and share our episodes on social media and be sure to tune in and subscribe next time on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your favourite podcast. This series will continue to highlight how young women social entrepreneurs in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda are leading change in their communities. A special thanks as well to the fellows who volunteer to support the HerStart Innovate the Future program and help create these episodes. YCI's HerStart Innovate the Future and fellowship programs are funded through the Government of Canada's Volunteer Corporation Program, providing skilled Canadians opportunities to volunteer with global partners and advance Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy. Join us and thousands of young people around the globe creating a better future together. Learn more at yci.org or herstart.org.