Hello!
For several weeks now I have virtually been in Mexico. By that I do not mean that I am packing, practicing my Spanish, or buying plane tickets, but instead that I have been in contact on a weekly basis, through Skype and email, with my team members in Mexico City. Instead of traveling for my internship with Value for Women this summer, I will be working virtually. However, Value for Women is an international organization and much of the work that I do, while based in my off-campus house in Somerville, Massachusetts, will focus on promoting women entrepreneurs in Mexico and Latin America. Last summer I worked with social entrepreneurs at Ashoka Thailand, but interning with Value for Women is the first time I have focused on the issue of gender. Gender is a particularly important issue, however, because only 35% of entrepreneurs in emerging markets are women. Helping to support women entrepreneurs is an excellent way to raise families out of poverty and promote sustainable development. Value for Women provides both research and development as well as capacity development and technical support to directly help women-led enterprises. Although I am not traveling, my weekly communications with the other members of the Value for Women and Enterprise Project Ventures (epven) team spreads several continents. Team members are located in London and Mexico City and frequent travel often leaves them Skyping in to meetings from Guatemala, Mali, and Turkey. So far, my work has focused on Mexico, as I am researching metrics for a partnership with Banorte and supporting a research and development project on small and growing businesses (SGB) led by women in Mexico. My learning about monitoring and evaluation with BUILD has helped me with the work on gender metrics I am conducting at Value for Women. In addition, my furthered understanding of metrics will hopefully be useful for the monitoring and evaluation we will be doing at BUILD next semester. While analyzing and consolidating notes from the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) Metrics Conference I noticed some of the challenges existing metrics have to measuring the most effective data. I am excited to continue learning about metrics and women entrepreneurs with Value for Women, and grateful for the support from BUILD and Empower.
1 Comment
Natalie Davirro
6/27/2014 09:29:42 am
This is so cool Annabelle. It seems you have been contributing a lot and really helping out with research, and it's awesome you can do this for countries like Mexico without needing to travel! I was wondering - do you feel like it would be easier or you could contribute more if you were IN Mexico, or do the benefits of having a fast internet connection, etc. outweigh that? I'm interested in how you feel working from the US compares to being on the ground! It seems like it really works with this organization. Thanks for your post!
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Annabelle RobertsThis summer Annabelle is interning at Value For Women with support from both BUILD and Empower. Annabelle is based in Boston for the summer and can be reached at [email protected] ArchivesCategories |