Rai had always wanted to do meaningful work to improve the lives and livelihoods of disadvantaged groups especially women and children – many of whom have all the cards stacked against them by virtue of their birth, gender, and/or economic status
Finding SCIDaR was a great fit for her because it provided her the opportunity to rapidly grow her skills especially leadership and team management, problem-solving, communication, and business writing; engage with a myriad of high-level stakeholders from all sub-sectors of development; and make tangible impact while at it.
SCIDaR also uniquely gives Rai the autonomy and flexibility to constantly create – which is her core motivation for doing things in general -The fact that she can think of something, put heads together and get team consensus, implement it actively, document the lessons, and use that to inform national and sometimes even international systems/programs. That is gold.
She particularly enjoys the diverse mix of people she works with who share the same passion and collectively carry this “wild” idea that they can change the world. It’s beautiful to see them do it one project, one state, one health facility at a time – taking things from thoughts to reality, and moving them to scale for impact!
Rai looks back every time and affirms that working in SCIDaR is her ikigai – it is something I love, that I am good at, that gives me considerable financial power and that solves problems.
She manages a portfolio of projects; primarily, the Routine and COVID-19 Immunization work in Nigeria and Guinea Bissau. Specifically, she leads teams to provide technical and managerial support to governments and donors (including the Gates Foundation and Gavi) in the areas of innovative program design, health systems strengthening, capacity building, and service delivery.
She also anchors SCIDaR’s documentation piece of work; bringing together insights and lessons from our varying projects and galvanizing teams to actively develop and disseminate project experiences in form of abstracts and articles, manuals, guides, stories, case studies, and other audiovisual content to scale innovative strategies and boost business development.
Beyond implementing projects and documentation, She conceptualized and spearheaded “The SCIDaR W” initiative aimed at improving personal and professional development and wellbeing for women in the workplace.
Her work significantly contributes to SCIDaR’s overall objectives of transforming health systems in Africa and other LMICs, and also the mandate of being an innovator-implementer influencing national and international policy and strategies through our work.
