Having worked with JPAL South Asia in India on interventions that aimed at increasing gender empowerment, I was intrigued to further my scope of work by gaining experience of working with an international organization that is known to be a champion for gender equality.
My passion for gender issues drove me to intern with the UN Women Singapore Committee (now known as the United Women). My summer internship at United Women was an enriching experience on different levels. United Women works to support and empower women and girls in Singapore and in the region. It was established in 1999, to function as a national committee for the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (UN Women). The operations and the programs that are undertaken by the Singapore Committee for UN Women are wholly self-funded by local private donors and corporations through Singapore-based team efforts. They currently have programs that cater ending violence against women and public education.
I was helping out with their pioneer program Girls2Pioneer (G2P) that aims to increase interests among the school going girls towards STEM-related careers (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Evidence suggests that these are areas that are underrepresented by women and UN has identified this as a problem that they would like to tackle.
The current program involves a one-day camp in school where the girls participate and they are introduced to a specific STEM topic. The workshop helps to inculcate interest in STEM through activities and also encourages the girls to hone their creativity and critical thinking skills. Then the girls are invited for a field trip where they get the opportunity to meet and interact with the female experts from the STEM field at their STEM facilities. This allows the girls to gain a better understanding of what it is like to work in the STEM industry.
The third component of G2P program is mentoring. Women lack role models in the STEM field and this aspect of the program allows the girls to reap the benefit from getting mentored by mentors on a one-to-one basis. This further helps them to de-mystify the misconceptions around STEM and learn more about the challenges that women continue to face and how can they go about entering a male dominated sector.
I assisted United Women in analyzing their existing feedback forms for the day camps. My quantitative research skills’ experience during my first year at the MPP program came in handy for me to analyze the responses. Based on the feedback, I recommended a few changes in conducting the camps. Under the constant guidance of my supervisor Madhavi Putcha, I also designed new pre assessment and post assessment forms to be able to conduct a robust impact assessment in the future. In addition, I conducted a literature review on mentoring programs for secondary school students. I compiled best practices for mentorship programs in the region and further designed a mentorship cum internship program for United Women as the fourth component of the G2P program.
This new program would cater to secondary school girls and it aims to offer an opportunity for the girls to intern at a STEM facility and shadow a female mentor. The mentoring would enable the girls to learn from their mentors and discover the benefits of STEM related careers.
My learning during the internship were the challenges that a not for profit body faces when it comes to doing impactful work while finding avenues to fund these initiatives. While interacting with the girls and the women in STEM, I realized the hardships that women face in a male dominated field are immense even in a developed nation. During my interaction with the girls, I saw the hesitance to pursue a STEM career due to the lack of female role models who can inspire these young minds to take up STEM related profession. At the same time I learnt from my co-workers and my supervisor the importance of striving hard to bring about the desired change.