Master of International Policy and Practice student, Saudamini Mohan, recently returned from interning this past summer in Yangon, Myanmar at the Thabyay Education Foundation. As a recipient of the
Freeman Foundation Grant, she had an opportunity to spend ten weeks interning in South East Asia in an organization relevant to her concentration of conflict resolution.
Saudamini, originally from Mumbai, India is currently pursuing the M.I.P.P. degree at the Elliott School of International Affairs as a Hoffman Fellow, concentrating in conflict resolution.
After earning her MBA in marketing & finance, she spent a decade working in the banking and financial sectors in India. While employed in the private sector, she spent time volunteering with NGOs providing education to children from economically disadvantaged families. She volunteered in the capacity of a teacher, and also offered career counseling and guidance to college students. This experience was extremely gratifying and made her realize my passion for working in the development sector.
While she really enjoyed taking different classes in school, she did not have much opportunity in garnering practical field experience in her area of concentration. Most projects that she did relied on secondary desk research and lacked practical exposure. The Freeman Foundation Grant helped her bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and field experience.
At Thabyay Education Fo
undation, she helped develop the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework for a new peacebuilding training for youth of different ethnicities. Besides gaining technical skills like monitoring and evaluation, she additionally learned about the historical, cultural and political aspects of Myanmar which further reinforced her theoretical knowledge and gave her a 360 degree educational experience.
Receiving the Freeman Foundation Grant has also fulfilled her goal of traveling to at least one new country every year, as it allows me to gain new perspectives and reinforces her belief that we all have similar hopes and aspirations, despite our outward differences.
