I started interning for Mothers of Africa in May of 2020 as a second-year at Sciences, thanks to Meg Harris who put me in touch with the team. The pandemic had just begun a few months earlier, and everyone was still navigating this new normal. As a result, Mothers of Africa faced new challenges both in what was now needed by the communities they support in Zambia, and in how the team could continue to work together in Monaco.
Despite these difficulties, the Mothers of Africa team was very welcoming and was still set on working at the same level as they did pre-pandemic, even though they were unable to meet in person or hold events like they used to.
While it’s definitely a strange feeling interning with people for a year without ever having met them in person or contributing to any in-person events, I still felt very much a part of the team through our regular Zoom meetings. This new way of working imposed by the pandemic also enabled me to continue working with Mothers of Africa even though I was stuck in New York for the first half of the year.
I was consistently inspired by the team’s persistence despite the pandemic, and how they were able to adapt their participation in many events to make it possible. One example of this is No Finish Line, which was held in November. While the race and the events that accompany it couldn’t happen in person, Mothers of Africa still managed to gather a team to run it from around the world and also got impressive results.
Working with Mothers of Africa, it was clear that their organic approach to teamwork and their genuine commitment to broadening women and girls’ access to healthcare and education is what allows them to accomplish so much with a relatively small team, and during a global pandemic no less.
As I leave both France and interning at Mothers of Africa, I look forward to seeing what the team achieves in the future, and all the ways in which they will continue to further their mission of improving access to education and healthcare, and I would like to thank everyone on the team from both Monaco and Wales for giving me the opportunity to work with them this past year.
Lauren Carroll
Sciences Po College
June 2021
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