Monitoring and Evaluation Intern – Mothers Home Access Zambia Project
Summer Internship – 2017
Mothers Home Access Zambia (MAHMAZ)
Scope of Work – Monitoring and Evaluation Interns
| Project Title: | M&E Internship |
| Preceptors: | Nancy Scott, MPH, DrPH, Assistant Professor of Global Health |
| Coordinator: | Parker S. Chastain, MPH, Project Administrator Center for Global Health and Development |
| Supervisors: | Thandiwe Ngoma, MAHMAZ M&E Manager
Jeanette Kaiser, MAHMAZ Research Fellow and M&E Coordinator |
| Project Dates: | Approximately 8 weeks between June and August
Dates are variable with travel dependent on need of the project. The student is welcome to take vacation before or after these 8 weeks to visit sites of interest in Zambia or surrounding countries. |
| Location: | Boston and Zambia |
| Payment: | This internship includes a stipend, and applicants are strongly encouraged to apply for the Santander Scholarship. The project will help to identify international housing. |
To apply: Submit a resume and cover letter to Parker Chastain at psc347@bu.edu
Project:
The internship is with the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), Center for Global Health and Development (CGHD). The student will work with the team implementing the Maternity Homes Access in Zambia Project (MAHMAZ). This 3 year project is funded by Merck for Mothers, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the ELMA Foundation, and works in partnership University of Michigan, Africare, the Government of Zambia and the Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL) initiative.
The MAHMAZ project is complementing Government efforts in meeting SDG 5 as well as the SMGL project’s work in generating demand for health services, promoting access to care and improving the quality of maternal and newborn health services by addressing the “three delays” in Zambia which are:
- Delays in deciding to seek care,
- Delays in getting to care, and
- Delays in receiving care upon arriving at the health facility.
The project is designed to address the distance challenge that far too many women face in accessing quality facility-based care. To make it easier for women to access assisted delivery, the project is building 10 maternity homes (referred to locally as Mothers Shelters). These comfortable, safe homes will provide a place where women can stay in the last weeks of pregnancy so they can deliver at a nearby facility capable of performing basic emergency obstetric and newborn care (BEmONC) with trained birth attendants. They also will be within reasonable transfer distance to facilities that can provide comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care (CEmONC) in case it is needed. The homes will be equipped and managed in ways that we hope will increase community acceptance and engagement, and assure long term sustainability.
MAHMAZ will also be evaluating the maternity home models built by our project and our partners to determine a) whether the homes are effective in increasing facility delivery for vulnerable women and b) their potential for operational and financial sustainability. In support of the operational sustainability of the homes the project has implemented community based governance and management systems aimed at enhancing community ownership, support and accountability.
Areas of Focus for This Internship:
- Monitoring and Evaluation
- Local community engagement in health programs in developing countries
- Sustainability of health programs in low-resource settings
- Qualitative research methods
Internship Summary
The project seeks an intern to work at our offices in Zambia for 8 weeks between June and August 2017 to assist with qualitative data collection and synthesis for the governance and sustainability portions of our project.
- The intern will interview project staff and governance committee members, and review project documents in order to draft a paper on what methods were used to develop the current governance structure of our mothers’ shelters. The intern will work closely with the M&E Coordinator and Field Site Managers, under the general oversight of the Project Director. The position may be based in Lusaka or Choma, with travel to Nyimba. Results will eventually become part of the Toolkit for Government on the scale up of MWHs in Zambia and may be used when disseminating project results.
Responsibilities:
- Develop a draft methods paper and chapter for the Toolkit for the formation and implementation of the project Governance Structures
Work with the Field Site Managers and Construction Manager to document the steps that led to the formation of the mothers’ shelter governance committees, which oversee the functioning and sustainability of the mothers’ shelters.
Such steps included:
- Formative research
- Engagement of stakeholders
- Formation of Governance Committees and Management Units
- Functioning of Governance Committees since formation
- Work with governance committee members at each site to document the implementation and functioning of the committees since formation, including their members, roles, frequency of meetings, purpose of meetings and any changes that have occurred
- Methods of data collection will include interviews with project staff and governance committee members, review of reports and documents created for the mothers’ shelters, and review of project and committee meeting minutes and other project documents
The intern will be expected to work with Project Staff and in collaboration with their University of Zambia MPH candidate counterpart to:
- Develop a project plan
- Develop research questions and a plan for data collection and synthesis
- Develop interview guides to be used during the interviewing of project staff and governance committee members
- Develop a system for documenting information obtained from the review of meeting minutes, reports, and project documents
- Synthesize all information through a methods paper, to be submitted to the M&E team
Interns will be provided assistance from the project team at all stages of the internship, from on boarding, to research plan and interview guide development, and synthesis of findings.
Other considerations:
- Interns will work individually and jointly to collect data and develop their respective papers
- Travel to rural health facilities is required
- This internship satisfies the practicum requirement for BUSPH
Qualifications:
- Current MPH student at Boston University
- Preference will be given to applicants in the Monitoring and Evaluation certificate and the Global Health Certificate
- Prior experience in qualitative research methods (through employment or course-work)
- Self-starter, able to work with minimal supervision
- Ability to work in a cross-cultural setting
- Ability to live in a field setting with sometimes limited electricity
