Learn about TechWomen’s expansion to Chicago!

TechWomenTechWomen

TechWomen is an Initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs

  • Home
  • Program
    • Overview
    • 2024 Impact Projects
    • Professional Development
    • Cultural Exchange
    • Delegation Trips
    • Impact
    • TechWomen@10
  • Participants
    • Chicago Emerging Leader Profiles
    • San Francisco Emerging Leader Profiles
    • Eligibility and Application
    • The Experience
    • Award Details
  • Mentors
    • Mentor Outreach Toolkit
    • Why Mentor With TechWomen?
    • Professional Mentor Overview
    • Cultural Mentor Overview
    • Innovation Mentor Overview
    • TechWomen Mentor Application
  • Get Involved
    • TechWomen Alumnae Summit
    • TechWomen Chicago
    • Host an Emerging Leader
    • Host an Event
    • Other Ways to Get Involved
    • Host companies and partners
  • About Us
    • Who We Are
    • Program Countries
    • Connect
  • FAQ
    • General
    • Participants
    • Mentors
  • Blog
  • Log In

The secret of getting ahead is getting started

November 5, 2020 By TechWomen Leave a Comment

Guest post by Isha Sesay, 2020-2021 Emerging Leader of Sierra Leone

Editor’s note: Isha Sesay’s guest post is part of our series, Emerging Leader Voices, which invites TechWomen Emerging Leaders to share their voice, perspective and experiences with the TechWomen community.

How it all started 

Growing up in a rural poor community in Sierra Leone, I saw people dying from common diseases like malaria, measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases, especially women and children. And as I pursued my education, I kept asking myself how I could contribute to reducing deaths and suffering from these preventable diseases among vulnerable people. This motivated me to develop a passion for science during my primary and secondary school educational levels. After completing my secondary education, I made a difficult choice to do a bachelor’s degree in public health instead of the other health sciences courses, because of my passion for helping my community in combating preventable causes of death and suffering. This is why I had so much interest in STEM — I wanted to achieve my childhood dreams of being a leader and mentor to champion public health interventions in my community. 

As a public health student at university eight years ago, this childhood dream looked far-fetched. Public health was still a relatively new and developing profession among the health sciences, and getting into the government scheme of service is more difficult compared to medical doctors, nurses and other clinical sciences. This is in addition to high unemployment rate in Sierra Leone, where 90% of the workforce is employed in the public sector due to the poorly developed private sector. Looking at these challenges ahead of me I never thought I would become a mentor, passing on public health knowledge and skills to my colleagues, especially my fellow women. Nonetheless, I was determined to achieve this dream against all odds. I was especially encouraged by my classmates who during group studies appreciated the leading roles I took to explain what we learnt in class before examination.  

Becoming a mentor 

During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, I was supporting surveillance pillar on case investigation, active case search, contact tracing, collecting daily life and death alerts from all districts for the Directorate of Disease Prevention and control (DDPC). In early 2016, after the Ebola outbreak, the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) was introduced in Sierra Leone by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) with support from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an in-service training program that aims to strengthen the country’s capacity in epidemiology, surveillance, and outbreak response, to ensure a well-functioning public health system for disease prevention and control.  

After graduation from the university. I searched for a job in my field but to no avail — about 85% of the jobs are occupied by men. Fortunately, I received a call from the director of the DDPC. It was like miracle from heaven hearing that news. Because of my dedication and performance among the females in the 2014 Ebola outbreak response, I was selected to be trained in the fourth cohort of the FETP frontline. As a result of my excellent performance during the frontline FETP, I was again selected to be train in the first cohort of intermediate FETP. Upon graduation from the intermediate program, I was appointed as national mentor to support the frontline FETP program in Sierra Leone.  

Mentoring in the FETP 

So far I have participated in conducting training and field mentorship of three cohorts of frontline that has graduated 75 field epidemiologists, 15 of which were directly mentored by me. My role as a mentor is to provide in-class training workshops on epidemiological concepts including, public health surveillance, data analysis, outbreak investigations, scientific writing and on the job field mentorship of the participants on projects related to their work and also strengthening their skills and competencies. 

Now TechWomen 

I heard about the TechWomen program from Doris Bah, a woman I call my mentor, my icon who has inspired many women in our community and the county at large. She was selected for the 2019 cohort. Immediately after, she told me about this dream-fulfilling program, I went to the TechWomen website to get more insight and found out that it was a life-changing opportunity which every woman would dream of. So she guided me throughout the application process. The most exciting part of it is that the program aims at empowering women engaging in STEM.  

When I received the email notifying me that I had been selected, I screamed with so much joy. I called my husband, family and Doris to share the good news. The following day I reflected on what my colleagues were telling me in the university — that I will one day be taken to a place where I would improve my mentorship skills to empower other people, especially women. 

Being a TechWomen fellow is worth celebrating because it has the potential to put my name on the map of potential leaders in STEM as I help other women grow in society. 

I plan to support other women to be self-dependent using my mentorship skills and knowledge gained from the program to gain entrepreneurship skills to improve their livelihoods. I would also contribute to raising awareness on preventable diseases affecting women and children. 


 ​

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email

Filed Under: 2020 Program, Cultural Exchange, Emerging Leader Voices, Girls Education, IIE, Impact, Mentoring Girls, Mentorship, STEM, Sub-Saharan Africa, Technology

Speak Your Mind Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 908 other subscribers

Sign Up for TechWomen Updates

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

Recent Posts

  • Protected: TechWomen Alumnae Outreach Toolkit
  • TechWomen 2024 Week 5: Connection. Impact. Diplomacy.
  • TechWomen 2024 Week 4 Highlights | From Pitch to Celebration: Emerging Leaders Shine
  • TechWomen 2024 Week 3 Highlights | Empowering Women, Building Solutions
  • TechWomen 2024 Week 2 Highlights | From Mentorship to Impact: A Week of Growth and Collaboration

Categories

  • 2012 Program
  • 2013 Program
  • 2014 Program
  • 2015 Program
  • 2016 Program
  • 2017 Program
  • 2018 Program
  • 2019 Program
  • 2020 Program
  • 2022 (Fall) Program
  • 2022 program
  • 2023 Program
  • 2024 Program
  • Alumnae
  • Announcements
  • Application & Outreach
  • Application Tips
  • Central Asia
  • Conferences
  • Cultural Exchange
  • Delegation Trips
  • Emerging Leader Voices
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Girls Education
  • Guest Blogs
  • IIE
  • Impact
  • Lean In
  • Mentor Application
  • Mentoring Girls
  • Mentorship
  • Middle East and North Africa
  • Partnerships
  • Professional Development
  • Scholarship
  • Seed Grant
  • Solar Power
  • STEM
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Technology
  • Uncategorized
  • Washington, D.C.

Archives

  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • May 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013

Tags

2013 program 2014 program 2015 program Africa Alumnae application central asia Community cultural exchange Cultural Mentor delegation trip delegation trips Education Egypt emerging leaders emerging women leaders Empowerment Entrepreneurship guest post impact Jordan kazakhstan Kenya kyrgyzstan Leadership MENA Mentor mentoring girls Mentors mentorship Middle East Morocco nigeria Rwanda San Francisco seed grants Silicon Valley south africa STEM TechWomen TechWomen Alumni Tunisia Twitter U.S. Department of State women in tech

CONTACT US | MEDIA | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | Cookie Policy | Sitemap
Copyright © 2025 TechWomen | Site by MIGHTYminnow

 

IIE partners with the U.S. Department of State on the TechWomen program. We are reviewing this website to ensure compliance with recent executive orders and other guidance.

   

Copyright © 2025 · TechWomen on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

 

Loading Comments...