Week 1- Centre for International Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Week one was busy but a success.
I am completing all of my training with my co-intern Danielle. Danielle is going to be doing the same placement as I am but at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
Our first day on the job we spent most of the day learning about CIH, the HIV/AIDS initiative and our immediate supervisors in Canada (Aaron and Donald). We were provided with an abundance of reading material including past CIH project proposals, past workshop readers, journal articles and AIDS in the 21st Century (ok, we were only assigned a chapter from the book but keeners that we are we went out and bought the book to read for our own enjoyment).
Between meetings with the director of CIH (David Zakus) and other CIH staff we worked away on our readings and started a funding proposal for a workshop on Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) at UDSM in March. Hmmm- Zanzibar in March anyone? Joking aside, the project was a good one for me. I’ve haven’t written funding applications or many project proposals so I’m happy to have the opportunity to get some practice.
Lessons of the week:
Don’t be scared of Results Based-Management- you can use a nice tool to help you design your project. There are many different tools so look for the one that suits your needs and best matches the guidelines of the agency you are submitting your proposal to.
Baseline Measurement = Asset Mapping
You can never read too much, there is always something new to read.
It can snow, hail and be bloody freezing in October in Ontario.