Molly is originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan but spent most of her school-age years in Texas. She graduated from Texas Christian University with degrees in Economics and Youth Advocacy. After completing undergrad, Molly worked with Arise Africa, a nonprofit serving vulnerable children in Lusaka, Zambia. She was the Director of Sponsorship and Director of Operations, acting as a liaison between Zambian staff, students, and donors and overseeing global projects. Molly traveled to Zambia multiple times and enjoyed building relationships with Zambian staff and students. Through her experiences working in Zambia, she became passionate about accessible education and addressing sexual and health needs of adolescent girls including extremely vulnerable populations such as adolescent mothers. Molly is looking forward to learning from her cohort and the GDH program.

Summer Internship Experience

Chama cha Uzazi na Malezi Bora Tanzania (UMATI) & FINCA Tanzania

This summer, I interned in Tanzania with a national NGO, UMATI, that provides sexual and reproductive health education programs and service delivery to communities around the country. As a part of the programs team, I conducted site visits at the UMATI Youth Center in Dar es Salaam to monitor current programming, such as youth weekend clinics where education programs are paired with SRH service delivery. I created program resources to document current procedures while providing additional recommendations to help standardize programming processes such as event implementation and streamlining the communication with the finance department to ensure volunteers are paid efficiently. I accompanied volunteers to demand generation events which involved direct community engagement on relevant SRH topics such as gender-based violence and the importance of regular health screenings. I was exposed to a variety of activities such as policy advocacy events, engagements with civil society, and demand generation events in partnership with secondary schools.

Additionally, I interned with the FINCA Tanzania Head Office. I provided research support and product design ideas to create lending products that targeted populations typically excluded from lending opportunities, such as women and youth. I gained exposure to each department, providing me with a complete understanding of the customer experience, the loan distribution process, and the essential business functions that sustain the bank’s day-to-day operations.

These internship experiences exposed me to two different sectors that both prompted me to focus on learning more about funding mechanisms and program design during my second year at Georgetown.

Why GHD?

This program was a space to explore who I wanted to be, what my career as a development practitioner could look like, and gave me the tools to accomplish this vision.