SEAOHUN Fellowship: A Bridge Towards Real-World Practical Experience

“The fellowship from the SEAOHUN Secretariat was like a bridge for me, connecting real-world practical experience with theoretical knowledge I gained from my Master’s study. It not only enhanced my One Health competencies, but also let me practice leadership and contribute to building the next generation workforce in One Health for individuals like me.” - Maw Rain

Maw Rain, one of SEAOHUN 2020 scholarship recipients, became SEAOHUN’s first fellow in 2021. She received a Master of Public Health with a specialization in Global Health from Thammasat University. She has always been keen to work for health organizations. To help achieve this goal, the SEAOHUN fellowship program provided her practical experience on the ground, and elevated her competencies in building her future health career.

During her fellowship program at the SEAOHUN Secretariat office, Maw Rain engaged with all SEAOHUN units by task rotations. She was assigned to take part in program management, operations, resource mobilization, and monitoring, evaluation and learning. She said, “these task rotations really helped me learn the organizational process and systems, and understand how different tasks are performed on the ground. I appreciated how each unit plays a vital role in SEAOHUN’s work.”

One of the successful achievements from her fellowship was helping organize the inaugural Student Journal Club, one of SEAOHUN’s new student engagement activities. The topic of the webinar was “Gender in One Health” and was held on March 26th, 2022.

Although it was her first time organizing the regional student webinar, the webinar was a success with 29 attendees from 10 countries, including 7 student volunteer leaders from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, participated. Maw Rain said that “the lessons learned from organizing the webinar was the importance of teamwork with the students which made the webinar effective and fruitful.”