I am a development worker with project delivery and research experience in both Africa and Asia. I have developed and led policy strategy for the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).
I pursued my interest in working with marginalized and vulnerable people while at Cambridge where I did research for my graduation dissertation on Chinese economic migrants living in deprived areas of Glasgow, UK. Despite their dislocation from traditional support networks of family and friends, I was touched by how courageously these Chinese families sought to forge an authentic home for themselves in an alien environment.
While with DFID I continued to work with marginalised groups of people. I created an innovative approach to disability access in the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) sector which broke ground in allowing DFID to make disability commitments for the first time across the whole of its quarter of a billion pound large WASH portfolio.
In 2015 completed a half year placement in Bangladesh with VSO as a VSO Team Leader and Fellow. I delivered a project developing women and youth led cottage/small industries in rural northern Bangladesh and in Bangladesh’s tribal Chittagong Hill Tracts. The beneficiaries included women living below the common poverty line of $1 a day. For many of these women, child marriage has been a fact of life and financial independence a rare novelty. Poverty does not define these women however; they struck me as motivated agents of their own futures. They are industrious and keen to improve their own futures and the future of their communities. Patriotic and community minded, they also have a deep sense of social and national responsibility. As a VSO Fellow, I am explored how these women are supporting each other in their new journey as working professionals.
I have returned to the UK to start a post-graduate degree at LSE.
During the infrequent moments when I am back in Scotland I spend my time in the Cairngorms National Park.
I pursued my interest in working with marginalized and vulnerable people while at Cambridge where I did research for my graduation dissertation on Chinese economic migrants living in deprived areas of Glasgow, UK. Despite their dislocation from traditional support networks of family and friends, I was touched by how courageously these Chinese families sought to forge an authentic home for themselves in an alien environment.
While with DFID I continued to work with marginalised groups of people. I created an innovative approach to disability access in the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) sector which broke ground in allowing DFID to make disability commitments for the first time across the whole of its quarter of a billion pound large WASH portfolio.
In 2015 completed a half year placement in Bangladesh with VSO as a VSO Team Leader and Fellow. I delivered a project developing women and youth led cottage/small industries in rural northern Bangladesh and in Bangladesh’s tribal Chittagong Hill Tracts. The beneficiaries included women living below the common poverty line of $1 a day. For many of these women, child marriage has been a fact of life and financial independence a rare novelty. Poverty does not define these women however; they struck me as motivated agents of their own futures. They are industrious and keen to improve their own futures and the future of their communities. Patriotic and community minded, they also have a deep sense of social and national responsibility. As a VSO Fellow, I am explored how these women are supporting each other in their new journey as working professionals.
I have returned to the UK to start a post-graduate degree at LSE.
During the infrequent moments when I am back in Scotland I spend my time in the Cairngorms National Park.