Nadia Altaher

I honestly could not be here without all of the advisors and mentors that have gotten me here. There are professors that I have looked up to during my time at Johns Hopkins, at George Mason, even at Underwood and at CAF. I've definitely felt a lot more motivated and inspired by the people that I've worked with and the people that have taught me. So I attribute a lot of my success to them, and I honestly would not be here without all of the people that have come into my life thus far.

Don't let what the system has already placed in front of you be the only solution. It's hard to think now out of the box in ways that we can implement different ways of delivering certain services or programs just because there's already a system in place. One of the career advice that I received from my professor in global health policy, he said just because there is a certain system, a national governance system in place does not mean that that has to be the only solution. It's definitely a lot harder to find your own solution and develop a new system or a new way of delivering global health services and programs but just because it isn't there doesn't mean it can't be developed.

Don't be demotivated in this line of work just because there's a lot at play, there's a lot of interdisciplinary or intersectional teams and systems happening all at once. You feel like you can't really make a change or that one person isn't impactful. But it is, like in small ways it is. Sometimes waking up and showing up regardless and greeting your neighbors and people that you're working with kindly, it all leads to a certain change, a certain direction where you can make more impactful change. Don't be discouraged by not seeing the impact or not feeling like you're making the impact you want to make yet. It will happen with time and small impacts are just as important as big ones.

There's a lot of external factors that come into play, one being the challenges of funding sustainability and funding shortages especially at the UN as a whole. There isn't really something sustainable that it can use to keep the projects and programs that they have going. So it's kind of unfortunate that a lot of the necessary programs are reliant on government and donor funding. Another one would be trying to make sure that the work is becoming more localized. The work needs to become more localized to people that are working on the ground granting them the power and the decision-making policies needed instead of people working in headquarters in Geneva or DC or New York. Grant more autonomy and more decision-making privileges to people that are working on the field because they know most about the context and programs that they're working in.

Relationship building, having respect for other people and their diversity and their cultures just the way they think differently. Immersing yourself in whatever culture or location that you're moved to, really immersing yourself, getting to know the people, getting to know everything about where you are not just coming in and doing your work and then leaving but really trying to immerse yourself and become one with the people you're working with. Commitment to consistency. Being committed to routine, committed to doing something even though you don't want to do it but knowing that it's going to lead you in a direction that's for the best.